CLEVELAND, Ohio--From the folks who brought you Stouffers, Quaker Oats, the Salisbury steak and Superman--the 1980 presidential debate.

They invented winds hield wipers here, in the middle of what was once the largest deciduous forest in North America. Everyone used theirs today in this city of auto factories and steel mills, as a gray pallor hung over the "city of forests."

But even the rain and the freezing wind blowing off Lake Erie couldn't stop President Carter from jogging, or snuff the candles on Mayor George Voinovich's celebration of Clevelandism.

This is undoubtedly the biggest week in this city's modern history. Sunday, the Browns squeaked by the arch-rival Pittsburgh Steelers, 27-26, at nearby Lakefront Stadium. Bedlam broke out even then, but today the whole world descended on Cleveland.

Sporting buttons reading "We Sell Cleveland" and "Ask Me About Cleveland, Would You Like a Piece of Baklava?," volunteers rolled out the red, white and blue carpet for the more than 1500 journalists and observers who came to witness what everybody is calling the most important event of Campaign '80.

Standing amid the throng of food-and booze-hungry journalists and local leaders who packed the rotunda of city hall for a "free lunch," Mayor Voinovich was flushed with pride and heavy food.

Tarnished

"Cleveland over the years has had a tarnished image," he explained as a reporter eagerly consumed Polish cabbage. "Until now, my motto has been no news is good news."

And Voinovich and the army of Clevelanders he assembled had faced quite a polishing job.

This is, after all, the city that brought America spontaneous combustion, when an oil slick floating down the Cuyohaga River suddenly caught fire and did $50,000 of damage in the 24 minutes it burned.

This is also the city that brought us Mayor Ralph Perk, who in late 1975, while using a blowtorch to snip a metal ribbon at the opening of a local steel mill, accidentally slipped and torched all the hair off his scalp.

And speaking of former mayors, this is the home of Dennis Kucinich, the beaming boy-mayor who made a lot of enemies and put Cleveland in default before the voters sent him into retirement.

Bygones

But all that was forgotten today, and the city hall luncheon trucked in by Ohio's largest caterer was only part of the preparations. City streets and sidewalks were scrubbed clean, bartenders and waitresses told to stay on their best behavior. Security was also tight.

This city hasn't mobilized such a police force--one-third of Cleveland's finest to say nothing of the swarming Secret Service--since the 1930s, when the "Mad Murderer of Kingsbury Run" stalked downtown streets committing the "torso murders." "A head here and an arm mere," as the city's unofficial historian recalled today.