DETROIT - Bill Clinton, looking fit and richly tailored, stepped nimbly from the wings at the rococo Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit.

He nodded to the saxophonist as the stage band struck up his anthem ("Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow") and saluted a wildly enthusiastic throng of supporters. Then he stood silently as waves of whoops and applause broke over him.

Clinton, the best campaigner of his generation, kept his distance from the 2000 campaign, sidelined by fears he would hurt the national ticket. This fall, his tour schedule could be busier than the Rolling Stones'.

"You know," Clinton said when the noise subsided, "I can't run for anything." He added, with a sly grin: "I can say anything I please."

Despite that teasing remark and his restless nature, Clinton is anything but a loose cannon these days. After a rocky start to his post-presidency, he seems to have found his groove. Not surprisingly, it's in politics.

"I have a really full and rich and wonderful life and I'm very grateful," he said recently on CNN. "Besides that, Hillary's doing the politics now, and that suits me fine."

Self-effacing comments aside, nearly two years after leaving office, Clinton is still the most powerful figure in Democratic politics.

He could run again, of course - for anything except the presidency. But he's unlikely to follow the example of John Quincy Adams, who became a leader in the House of Representatives after leaving the White House.

Instead, at 56, one of history's youngest ex-presidents is carving out a series of less formal political roles.

He's traveling coast-to-coast this election season, generating campaign cash and energy for Democratic candidates. He is to campaign in Maryland for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in mid-October, though details have not been announced, according to the former president's office.

Along the way, he's giving advice, on campaign strategy and message. "In my experience, he's usually the best pure political strategist in the room," said Steve Richetti, a former deputy White House chief of staff who is among a small group advising Clinton on politics.

Clinton is also counseling his party's prospective 2004 presidential contenders. Among those who have come courting: Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman, John Kerry and John Edwards and Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. He also remains in sporadic contact with Al Gore, his vice president, though they aren't close.

He played power-broker recently in nudging Andrew M. Cuomo, his former housing secretary, out of the New York governor's race, which he had no chance of winning. Clinton's involvement, however, may have had less to do with his ties to a former Cabinet member than his desire to help his wife, Hillary, get behind the eventual winner before the primary election.

Like other recent ex-presidents, he is working hard at shaping his legacy. He's writing a book, for which he received a $12 million advance, and hitting the worldwide lecture circuit for eye-popping fees (earning more than $9 million in all since leaving office).

Following the example set by Jimmy Carter, he's taken a role in charitable endeavors, fighting AIDS in Africa and, along with former Sen. Bob Dole, heading a scholarship fund for children and spouses of Sept. 11 victims.

Douglas Brinkley, author of a book about Carter's post-presidency, thinks Clinton is much too fond of the social whirl to make the sort of personal sacrifices Carter has since leaving office.

Clinton "is the furthest from the Jimmy Carter model as possible," said Brinkley, who directs the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans. "The Clinton ex-presidency is still about political power." In that sense, the historian added, "there's been nothing like him since Theodore Roosevelt."

Clinton exercises political influence in several ways, including through the national party, led by longtime friend and fund-raiser, Terry McAuliffe.

"His schedule is pretty much politics for us between now and Nov. 5," said the Democratic chairman, who held a planning session with Clinton this week. Clinton will make more than 80 political appearances this year and has already received twice that number of invitations from fellow Democrats, McAuliffe added.

Besides a fund-raising meeting today in Harlem with H. Carl McCall, the New York gubernatorial nominee, Clinton will travel soon to Maine, Arkansas and Illinois. He will also visit Africa and Europe, address the British Labor Party conference in Blackpool, England, and appear at the ceremonial reopening of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.

Most of his campaign events take place in heavily Democratic areas, including the black community, where he remains a hero. In the final days before the Nov. 5 election, he will play a leading role in the party's voter turnout efforts around the country.

Besides his ability to stir partisan passions at the grass-roots, as he did on recent campaign swings through Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, he retains his allure for big-money Democratic givers.

A brief stop in Rhode Island this week collected $250,000 for the state party. Next month, he will headline a multimillion-dollar fund-raiser in New York for the Democratic effort to win back the House and appear at major-money events in Washington.

"He's still definitely our biggest draw," said Jennifer Palmieri, a Democratic National Committee spokeswoman.

Clinton has signed fund-raising letters for the party and recorded campaign commercials and telephone messages for use by Democratic candidates, and appeared at private fund-raising dinners and receptions in New York, California and elsewhere.

Even though his name won't be on the ticket this fall, the economic boom and budget surpluses of his presidency are popular themes for his party's candidates, who are contrasting the good times under a Democratic White House with the slack economy and budget deficit of President Bush's administration.

The public remains sharply divided in its feelings about Clinton, opinion surveys show. That polarization sharply limits the range of his political activities, as well as the value of a personal connection to Clinton himself.

His presidency is viewed less favorably than that of all other living ex-presidents, a Gallup poll found early this year. Independent pollster Andrew Kohut said a national survey in May by his Pew Research Center showed a "stunning" lack of public faith in Clinton's credibility.

His advisers readily concede that there are places where a Clinton campaign visit would do more harm than good. Even in his native state of Arkansas, the Democratic candidate for Senate, Mark Pryor, said he was too busy preparing for a debate to attend a Clinton rally for the party last month.

In North Carolina's Senate contest, his former chief of staff, Erskine Bowles, is pushing his White House experience in TV ads while playing down his personal ties to Clinton (except in mailings to black voters). Republican opponent, Elizabeth Dole, though, seldom misses an opportunity to link Bowles' name to Clinton's.

Meanwhile, the ultimate Clinton candidate, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, is already viewed as a potential presidential contender in 2008, unless a Democrat wins the White House two years from now.

Bill Clinton's involvement in her career, as an adviser and behind-scenes strategist, is likely to remain the most important part of his agenda for the foreseeable future.

"If he can't run for president himself," one close adviser remarked, "that's the next best thing."