Moving out and up, Clinton schleps in Wharton sweats

You can't judge a President by his sweatshirt . . . but Whartonites probably wouldn't mind if you did. President-elect Bill Clinton chose to sweat out his move from the Governor's Mansion in Little Rock to the nation's capital on Saturday in the fuzzy warmth of a Wharton School sweatshirt, for everyone in the nation to see. According to Wharton spokesperson Michael Baltes, the sweatshirt with Wharton's logo dramatically emblazoned across the chest was given to Clinton when he spoke at the University last April. Baltes said that it was "good exposure for the school" for Clinton to sport the sweatshirt -- in contrast to some of the less-than-good exposure earned by Wharton's illustrious alumni. "We're very pleased that he had it on and got the exposure," Baltes said. Asked why Clinton might have chosen his Wharton sweatshirt for lifting, schlepping and redepositing Chelsea's little pet frog back in the Arkansas creek from whence it came, Baltes said he did not think Clinton's wardrobe choice had any particular significance. "It's probably just one of his shirts," Baltes said. Clinton's ties to Wharton date back farther than his choice to don the sweatshirt. In a speech sponsored by Wharton last April, Clinton denounced the school's promotion of economic selfishness. "Wharton is home to much of America's economic potential," Clinton said April 17 at Zellerbach Auditorium. "But Wharton is also a powerful symbol of what went wrong in the 1980s. It was here at Wharton that Michael Milken got the idea to use junk bonds to leverage buyouts." During his speech, Clinton also said that in 1987, the year of the stock market crash, 25 percent of Wharton graduates sought "high incomes in high finance rather than in the apparently less-glamorous work of creating jobs, goods and services to make America richer." At the time, Wharton Dean Thomas Gerrity said that Clinton's remarks at Wharton's expense were cliches. "That's a standard, age-old, tired dig [at Wharton]," he remarked after the speech. Gerrity could not be reached for comment this weekend. But members of Clinton's transition team speculated that Clinton's choice of outerwear was likely dictated by the elements rather than any political statement. "I have no idea why he wore it," frustrated transition spokesperson Mary Ellen Glynne said yesterday. "No idea." "I don't know why [Clinton] wore it yesterday," press aide Ernie Gibble said. "Maybe he was cold. It was a very nice sweatshirt."

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