Vicki Abernathy hopes to hitch a ride with President Bill Clinton on Air Force One.

The Jackson woman is a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, which opened Monday in Chicago.

Abernathy, 48, said she wants to be on hand when Clinton visits Cape Girardeau Friday.

Abernathy said she asked Tipper Gore, wife of Vice President Al Gore, about the possibility of hitching a ride. Tipper Gore told Abernathy to get on the bus, a reference to the Clinton-Gore bus tour that will begin Friday in Cape Girardeau.

"I told her I would drive the bus if necessary," Abernathy said.

Abernathy said she wrote two letters to Clinton in the past year urging him to visit Cape Girardeau County.

She said she advised him that it was essentially a Republican county, but that he needed to visit anyway.

Security is tight at the United Center where the convention is being held. "It took an hour and a half to get through the line," Abernathy said late Monday afternoon.

Dr. Peter Bergerson, chairman of the political science department at Southeast Missouri State University, is attending the convention as a visitor.

There is a heavy police presence at the convention, but this time the officers are in a friendly mood, said Bergerson.

Twenty-eight years ago, the mood was ugly as police clashed with demonstrators at the Democratic convention.

"They have kind of had to exorcise the demons from 1968," said Bergerson.

Bergerson grew up in northern Indiana. In summer 1968, he was 25 years old and fresh out of graduate school.

He had signed a contract to teach at Southeast. He stopped off in Chicago on the weekend leading up to the convention.

People were anxious and frustrated. "I could tell right then there could be problems," he said. "The police were afraid of almost anybody."

The Vietnam War was unpopular with many Americans. "The war was the clear issue in '68," said Bergerson.

"There was a real dichotomy between the younger generation that was protesting the war and the old-guard Democrats who were running the organization and convention," he said.

This time around, things are far different.

"People are here to party," he said. "There is no news that is going to be made by any of the delegates or delegations."

But for delegates like Abernathy, the convention isn't just fun and games. Abernathy attended a women's caucus at the Hyatt Regency Hotel where First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke. "Hillary said human rights are women's rights," Abernathy said.

Monday was the 76th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.

"They are really stressing the women's right to vote, that all women should get out and vote," Abernathy said.

That message hit home with Abernathy, who is a dedicated voter.

She was a patient at St. Francis Medical Center on Aug. 6, when the state primary was held. But that didn't stop Abernathy, who requested that election officials bring her a ballot. They did and she voted.

The Missouri delegation is staying at the Hyatt Regency, along with delegates from Arkansas, Tennessee, South Carolina and Connecticut, and officials of the Democratic National Committee.