Bush Lifts Campaign to Presidential Degree : Republicans: The President graces ceremonial stages as he distances himself from Buchanan’s swipes.

MIAMI BEACH —  This is what happens when you mix the university commencement season with a presidential campaign: You get, live and in person, the queen of salsa music, a Jewish leader and human rights campaigner--and, appearing with these heroes of two key voting blocs, the President of the United States.

That was Monday’s cast of honorary-degree recipients--President Bush, singer Celia Cruz and Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, along with a hotelier and a manufacturer of suntan lotions, all decked out in caps and gowns at Florida International University.

Bush spoke to a graduating class that was roughly 40% Latino--and got a bigger reception from the 2,100 graduates and audience than Cruz, who is currently appearing in the movie “The Mambo Kings.”

Meanwhile, his rival for the Republican nomination, Patrick J. Buchanan, arrived in North Carolina for an eight-day campaign swing before the May 5 primary. In visits with small-town newspaper editors from Lenoir to Hickory to Morganton, he accused Bush of being out of touch and reiterated his “America first” theme. He encountered only a handful of voters on a rainy Monday.

Bush--who, by coincidence, went to Charlotte later for a $1,000-a-plate dinner--is close to clinching the nomination. Buchanan has yet to win a primary, but he has hopes for North Carolina, home of conservative Sen. Jesse Helms. But even Helms, a longtime friend of Buchanan’s, has joined Bush’s state organization.

“The whole political Establishment is behind the President,” Buchanan acknowledged in an interview.

In Mooresville, where he kicked off his foray, he took a jab at Bush’s three-hour visit to Charlotte. “George Bush is coming here today with a vacuum cleaner,” he said. “He’s going to scoop up $1,000 checks and go back to Washington. I mean, that’s his idea of staying in touch with America. I think that’s one reason he’s in real trouble.”

In Miami Beach, the President--who has spent half his adult life in elective or appointive office--decried the state of government today. He lamented “a discontent--a deepening cynicism about the way things work, or fail to work, in Washington; a doubt about one person’s ability to change, really change, the system.”

To the American people, he said, “government has grown more distant. Too often the government we get is not accountable. It is not effective, it is not efficient, it’s not even compassionate.

“It’s not that people are apathetic; it’s that people are angry with government.”

It is time, Bush said, “to bring the ethic of responsibility back into government,” and with it will come a restoration of public trust.

In North Carolina, Buchanan made the most of his genuine outsider status. “George Bush, by raising taxes, by signing a quota bill, has walked away from the Republican Party,” he said in Mooresville.

“Gov. Clinton is a very weak candidate,” he said, referring to front-running Democrat Bill Clinton of Arkansas. “But Mr. Bush is threatened by Ross Perot for the simple reason that millions of Americans think that Washington, the White House and a corrupt Congress have lost touch with the American people, and they are dead right.”

Perot, a Texas billionaire and businessman, has said he’ll run as an independent if supporters can get him on the ballot in all 50 states.

Even one of Buchanan’s supporters in Morganton, Don McGalliard of Glen Alpine, was wearing a button that said: “Perot for President.”

McGalliard explained that he would vote for Buchanan in the primary and for Perot in November. “I would love it if Perot chose Buchanan for vice president,” he told a reporter.

Gerstenzang reported from Florida and Eaton from North Carolina.