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.

Some residents say it's not much safer now than it was then. But the whole population temporarily buried its troubles and joined in the effort to make people reconsider and respect what some have called "the mistake on the lake."

"The entire project," as Bill Miller, a 19-year veteran reporter for the Plain Dealer, explained, "is to try to change the city's poor image, fanned by jokes on TV shows, defaults, and the infamous burning of the Cuyohaga River."

The debate, Voinovich contended, "does as much for us as a national convention--and it's a hell of a lot cheaper."

The estimated $200,000 bill for preparing and staging the 90-minute show will be picked up from donations from companies and citizens, some of whom have already launched a $3-million advertising blitzkreig, known as The New Cleveland Campaign.

But most of the press saw little of either new or old Cleveland, confining itself to the four-block area bounded by the public square, the Bond Court Hotel--where Carter is staying--and the Public Hall itself.

That's Incomprehensible

A great deal of attention naturally centered on the Public Music Hall, where about 700 hand-picked or very rich (tickets were going for $500) people saw the debate live and in color.

Most of the journalists, meanwhile, huddled at tables and TV monitors in the adjoining public hall, where batteries of typewriters, phones, computer banks and even a travel agent greeted them.

Just hours before Howard K. Smith welcomed the crowd of 100 million watching on television to the debate, workmen were still installing phones and checking the electrical connections in the halls. Since the city found out five days ago it would host the debate, civic leaders have been praying that Cleveland--where Charles Brush in 1879 invented the first street light--would live up to its reputation as the electricity capital of North America.

Welcome To...

Debate planners have been having nightmares about Sept. 23, 1976. It was that day in Philadelphia, at exactly 10:51.05p.m., that a 25-cent foil-wrapped electrical capacitor gave way during a debate between Carter and former president Gerald R. Ford. The world, and the stony-faced candidates, waited in silence for 28 minutes.

Clevelanders were out to prove last night that their city can handle the pressure of the big time. And so they asked the Cleveland chapter of the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Clubs--which had originally reserved the Public Hall or tonight--to move its annual Ebony fashion fair down the street to the Palace Theater.

And they cleared out the floor of the Public Hall--witness to flower shows, circuses, and an out-of-control Beatles concert in 1964--and brought in the press.

"A year ago somebody would have said, 'You're crazy to bring a debate to Cleveland,' "Voinovich said. "That's all changed today."

No More Goats

A long time observer of the city agreed, saying. "The greatest critics of Cleveland five years ago were Clevelanders. We're tired of being goats."

Outside, some Clevelanders yanked their collars up against the wind and chose to ignore the goings-on. "What's the big deal about a debate?" one woman asked as she caught the bus home to the nearby suburb of Lakewood. "After all, it's still Reagan and Carter who were talking."