President Gore
York, Byron
C 0 B ill Carrick was tired and frustrated. It was the eve of the 1988 Iowa caucuses and Carrick, campaign manager for Rep. Richard Gephardt, was angry at one of Gephardt's Democratic rivals....
...We say illuminate, they say interrogate...
...And so what if it doesn't have a coherent foreign policy...
...Gore's staff apparently learns what is on Bradley's agenda and then tries to gain attention by doing the same thing, only a day earlier...
...Instead, Gore appears to be influenced by the advice of Naomi Wolf, who has apparently told Gore that he needs to confront and attack Clinton to prove that he is equal to the president...
...I hate him," Carrick said...
...Number one, deus ex there is good reason to believe that Bush was simply an excep machine—some external event, an international crisis that thrusts tion—and it remains a valid point in 1999...
...But it was a valid point in 1988 — "It's tough," says pollster John Zogby...
...This is the place to come and sign up and be part of a rip-tootin' campaign that is going to win in the year z000r Gore told the small crowd...
...Sinai Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, just days before the 1998 mid-term congressional elections...
...He's so programmed," says another Democrat...
...Just look at his speech on October 6 in which he "relaunched" his campaign by moving his staff to Nashville...
...All their responses are predicated on the assumption that, somewhere underneath his animatronic surface, there is a real, warm, funny, engaging Al Gore who, if his genuine nature were somehow revealed to the voters, would easily be elected president...
...and the congregation answered "November third...
...find himself taking the oath of office on the Capitol steps on JanAnd in California and the rest of the West, Clinton fought his rivals uary 20, 2001, an alpha male at last...
...FOUR MORE YEARS Remember Martin van Buren...
...Now it's 6.3, the lowest in more than 3o years...
...Gore is just the opposite, and as a result, he has veered wildly between equally unconvincing styles, depending on what kind of audience he is addressing...
...If he had any sense, he would stop all that talk about how angry and disappointed he was with the president...
...The vice president's appearances before black audiences have seemed equally contrived...
...The rap went on and on and on, finally ending in a call-and-response exchange in which Gore screamed "What's the word...
...Wolf's presence might also explain Tipper Gore's otherwise inexplicable announcement during a television interview that, "I tell you, he isn't wearing anything when we go to bed...
...Tennessee Senator Al Gore had decided to make only token appearances in the early primary states, gambling instead that he could win big in the South on Super Tuesday...
...In a just-folks voice, he announced that he was so happy that Bill Bradley was kicking him around in the polls...
...And it Then what...
...In any event, Gore should make the rest of his campaign and the convention—if his candidacy gets that far—a showcase for his quiet side...
...And from now on, he said, the world had better watch out...
...Gore could help himself, too—if he embraces Clinton...
...We say educa, they say castigate...
...He quickly apologized to Gore...
...There are big regional differences in a Democratic presidential mix," says Ron Faucheux...
...A Wall Street Journal poll in late October showed what Moynihan says, he might well beat the odds...
...So far Gore has been wavering between positions...
...In 1988, when Vice President George Bush was running for the White House, virtually every reporter and pundit covering the campaign pointed out that vice presidents have rarely gone on to be elected president...
...If you go back to '92, you see that Gore can survive losing a substantial number of primaries in the Northeast, as long as he can keep the Southern base and the black base and at least hold his own in California...
...He's having the feeling now," Gore announced...
...At times he has said he is proud of his record in the Clinton administration...
...And it certainly seems obvious that Gore would be crazy not to make such a record the centerpiece of his campaign...
...The annual federal budget deficit was about $255 billion...
...The notion that Gore is unsure of his own identity is strengthened by the vice president's almost pitiably bad management of his own campaign...
...All those results are a significant improvethem as a liberal composite candidate—composed of Paul ment from Gore's position just a few weeks earlier...
...Nothing is the matter with Mr...
...He should, in fact, flood the proceedings in sentiment, even by today's standards...
...Bradley's rise, Gore declared, "has been an opportunity for me to let 'er rip...
...the whole nine yards...
...It's possible...
...But in a rough way, Carrick framed the issue that still defines Al Gore's political style...
...And a Newsweek poll put the numbers at 49 perdidate Bill Clinton ran against a left-leaning group—think of cent to 40 percent...
...Just ignore the bad part," says another Democrat...
...The nation's unemployment rate was 7.4 percent...
...She couldn't speak," a solemn Gore told a national television audience of his last visit to her hospital room...
...A CNN/USA chances of dispatching Bradley are better than some analysts Today survey from the same time showed Bush ahead 52 percent believe...
...WorkThe American Spectator • December 1999/ January 2000 25...
...With a few breaks, Gore might posite...
...He's trying too hard to be relaxed....the harder you try the worse it gets...
...A CBS News poll released in early November showed that he enjoys an approval rating of 57 percent—five percentage points higher than Ronald Reagan's when he left office...
...Yet Clinton was perfectly at home with his phoniness...
...It's that he's such a bad phony...
...He's part of it," says a Democratic consultant...
...Van Buren and Bush...
...And he has millions and millions of dollars' worth of help from labor unions...
...And then there was Gore's transparently desperate decision to move his campaign headquarters from Washington to Nashville...
...And so what if the administration weakened the military to scandalously low levels of readiness and morale...
...today he says his words were "intemperate BYRON YORK is a writer with TAS...
...Tsongas, Tom Harkin, and Jerry Brown (leaving out the more mod And who knows...
...Now it's 165, again the lowest in 30 years...
...Which leads to the question: Why is Gore so hard on Bill Clinton...
...Time magazine, which uncovered the story, reported that in private, "Gore expresses an almost primal bitterness about his relationship with Clinton, contending that while he was crucial to getting the president elected in 1992, the public's disgust with Clinton now threatens his own ambitions...
...said in September as he gave his endorsement to Bill Bradley...
...Gore had a strategy in Iowa and New Hampshire where he would dip his toe in the water," Carrick recalls...
...Given all that, and given the poll numbers, it's possible that Bill Clinton himself could be re-elected were he allowed to run...
...The problem is that he's beginning to have this image of a loser," the strategist says...
...I'm throwing away the prepared text," Gore declared...
...First, he should quit trying to be genuine and become more comfortable with the idea of phoniness...
...is not heard much today...
...It's going to mean massive mobilization on the ground," says an AFL-CIO official...
...If I were him, I would talk favorably about the record of the Clinton administration...
...That line of analysis disappeared on election night...
...To his critics—and some of his friends — Gore's performance was nothing short of appalling...
...And it echoed another successful Gore convention speech, his 1992 account of his son's near-death after being struck by a car...
...That seems to indicate that Bradley could win New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and perhaps others, and Gore would still win...
...Just roll your eyes and say that's never gonna happen with Al Gore, so it's not relevant...
...now it is routinely over 10,000...
...He's headed for disaster unless he does the one thing he's afraid to do: embrace Bill Clinton, scandals and all...
...Gephardt, on the other hand, had gone through the entire Iowa ordeal, and Carrick was unhappy that Gore "had missed all that and was coming in and claiming the right to be the challenger of Dukakis...
...The Bradley bubble didate beat Clinton...
...And the best example of that was Gore's famous speech to the 1996 Democratic National Convention in which he described the smoking-related death of his sister Nancy...
...Gore would seem much more at home —and it might work better than yelling about respecto . MY MAN BILL "I'm happy to bind my future with Bill Clinton," Al Gore told the New Yorker magazine in late 1994...
...to a draw and won the nomination...
...Gore shouted "What's on the note...
...Despite everything that has happened, most people seem to still like the president...
...Why bother...
...Rarely in this country's history have all those indicators looked so good...
...But I felt clearly, I knew she was forming a question: 'Did you bring me hope?'...All I could do was to say back to her with all the gentleness in my heart, 'I love you.' And then I knelt by her bed and held her hand...
...Gronbeck and others believe that the vice president should stop yelling, stop being folksy, stop speaking Spanish, and return to a public style that has worked for him in the past...
...The primary season is so compressed—the New Hampshire primary is February and the California primary is March 7 — that Bradley could use his early victories to build unstoppable momentum...
...You want a list of reasons...
...Things might get better still for the vice preserate Bob Kerrey...
...Welfare rolls have been reduced by an almost equal margin...
...It's a rare and unusual event...
...Each action intensified what one well-connected Democratic strategist calls the "pall of death" surrounding the campaign...
...Gephardt and Gore both lost, and Carrick went on to become a successful political consultant and a top official in the California Clinton/Gore re-election campaign in 1996...
...Bringing Hispanic workers to the stage, he announced that "What this is all about is respecto, which as you know is Spanish for respect...
...Across a broad spectrum of American life, things are much better today than they were when Clinton moved into the White House...
...Onthe day Clinton took office in 1993, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 3,254...
...He has the support of the so-called "super delegates," elected officials who have already endorsed him...
...In the industrial Midwest, Clinton again beat the composite...
...He would show up at those debates and play the role of the skunk at the picnic, to attack Gephardt or Dukakis...
...Ju your eyes and sa never gonna Kapp Al Gore, so i relevant...
...and the congregation responded "Get out the vote...
...That's what this comes down to...
...Does he distance himself from the scandal-tainted president or embrace him...
...We say legislate, they say investigate...
...In early November he had to concede that he paid sexobsessed feminist author Naomi Wolf $15,000 a month to give him advice on such topics as wearing earth-colored suits and becoming an "alpha male...
...At other times he has called his campaign a "very personal journey" and hinted that he might not even want Clinton's help on the campaign trail...
...And if he lets that go on too long, he'll become a loser...
...had really gotten Ronald Reagan's third term...
...The campaign has to be, 'Do said...
...You tie Dubya to the policies of his father...
...Is there a victory scenario over George W. Bush...
...Does anyone think all of Bill Clinton's lip-biting, feel-yourpain compassion was genuine...
...But Gore's father died in the past year, making him an obvious possibility for a weepy memorial in 2000...
...Consider his Jesse Jackson-like performance at Mt...
...And it was made more so in light of subsequent revelations that Gore had remained loyal to tobacco interests even after his sister's death...
...But in the South, Clinton beat the com might burst...
...So we are left with the question: What can Gore do now...
...It's now 4.2 percent...
...And in a very short time her breathing became labored and then she breathed her last breath...
...Nobody else is...
...So there is really only one solution for Gore, and that is to embrace his boss and his record, flaws and all...
...Don't dwell on it...
...own obvious deficiencies as a candidate...
...Bush might implode...
...It fits his personality a whole lot better than shouting does...
...While the remark was widely reported as another setback for Remember that in all those before-and-after numbers that make Gore, what was less widely discussed was Moynihan's ratio the Clinton administration look so good, the "before" numbers are nale for his blunt assessment...
...Gephardt was forced to apologize, too not a pleasant task, given the rivalry between the two men...
...But putting aside 23 questions of taste, ethics, and honesty, the speech worked far better than any other rhetorical style Gore has tried this year...
...And you want to go back or do you want to go forward?' says one of the many people say that George Bush was a wonderful man who Democratic strategists...
...Gore shouted as he compared his party to Republicans...
...And in 1991, teenagers were giving birth at a rate of 62 per 1,000...
...The deus ex machina might appear...
...My attitude is, 'let 'er rip...
...It will also highlight Gore's 22 December r 9 9 9/January 2000 • The American Spectator DENT GORE The vice president needs to face facts...
...If only Gore still believed it...
...And has done unspeakable things to the Justice Department...
...Gore, except he can't be Number two, a Bush implosion...
...A week later, speaking in Los Angeles before the AFL-CIO, Gore embarrassed audiences with a particularly patronizing The American Spectator December r999/January 2000 display of Latino awareness that seemed no more genuine than his down-home act in Nashville...
...One obvious feature might be what Gronbeck calls "Heroes Night," the convention session in which the party presents the emotion-laden stories of Americans suffering from one misfortune or another—poverty, AIDS, racial discrimination, spinal cord injuries—as a means of communicating Al Gore's bottomless well of empathy...
...The robbery rate was 256 per ioo,000 residents...
...What seems to be the most powerful thing he can do is to become dewy-eyed," Gronbeck says...
...And if opponents or reporters bring up the seamy side of the Clinton years...
...Put another way, Gore is such a bad candidate that he'd be crazy to decline even the tiniest shred of help from Bill Clinton...
...There are problems with that scenario...
...And at still other times he has ignored the issue...
...But Gore has the machinery of the party on his side...
...That kind of pleading with an audience doesn't go too far...
...But even if that were true, everything we know about Gore's public behavior suggests that such an epiphany will never happen...
...It's hard to deny that each of those performances was, well, strange...
...NATURAL Ask Democratic politicos about Gore's image problem and they'll try to be gentle, even as they fairly scream with anxiety about his campaign...
...Many voters simply see Gore as a phony, and the more he tries to convince them that he is not, the phonier he appears to be...
...So on the night before the caucus, talking to a Washington Post reporter, Carrick just let loose on Gore...
...Gore has also had to deal with revelations that he regularly copies his campaign schedule from that of Democratic rival Bill Bradley...
...A look at Gore's record and discussions with a variety of experts—including Democratic strategists not affiliated with any presidential campaign—suggests that distancing himself from Bill Clinton will not just rob Gore of the only positive record he can present to the voters...
...Of course, he's already used those two stories...
...The problem is less his ability and more his efforts to make himself something that he is not," says a third...
...I think they are the phoniest two-bit bastards that ever came down the pike, starting with Al Gore...
...he the work of President George Bush...
...and stupid...
...He was just as bad in '88...
...In the end, there was no great damage done...
...It's something he cannot afford to continue, because the vice president's Clinton problem is at the heart of all his other problems...
...I'm proud to do it, I'm happy to do it....I believe that he will be regarded by historians as one of the greatest presidents this country has ever had...
...It appears that none of that—not to mention the campaign finance scandal and Whitewater— is terribly important to voters...
...Bradley will score, but Gore will win...
...He tries to crank up, but he doesn't do it very well," says Bruce Gronbeck, a University of Iowa professor who has studied the increasing role of emotionality and sentiment in American campaigning...
...The man remained utterly silent, apparently overcome with emotion...
...Whenever he attacks the president, it looks like it's politically motivated...
...The remarks caused no end of grief for Carrick...
...The biggest is that while Gore would definitely win in the long run, this time, unlike 1992, there won't be a long run...
...On the day Clinton took office, the murder rate was 9.5 r per ioo,000 residents...
...He needs to get a handle on the message that things are better than they were eight years ago and use all the positive statistics," says Ron Faucheux, editor of Campaigns 6 Elections magazine...
...So what if the president was impeached...
...Gore has spent seven years defending Bill Clinton...
...First, his Bush leading Gore 49 percent to 39 percent...
...It just flabbergasts me that he won't try to capitalize on that...
...Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Gore's image as inauthentic and weak has been brought into stark relief by his inability to come to terms with his Clinton problem...
...I believe it...
...After all, the problem is not really that Gore is phony...
...Bush, according to the conventional wisdom, site leafleting, phone banks, getting union members out to vote, faced nearly insurmountable odds...
...He's over-coached," said one Democratic consultant after watching the vice president's first New Hampshire debate with Bradley...
...Look at the 1992 Democratic primaries, when centrist can to 43 percent...
...I believe that...
...Yet Gore is still afraid...
...I hate all of them...
...The last time that happened, they reminded us, was when van Buren part," says Dem of the Clinton stand "Don't dwell on it...
...There is real evidence to support the majority...
...Last year, the surplus was $123 billion, the second surplus in a row...
...Bush is still untested, and I'm not elected president," New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan ready to bet the farm on him...
...It's too late to change now...
...24 December 1-99 9 /January 2000 The American Spectator won in 1836...
...He then asked an immigrant to describe his feelings when he arrived in the United States and saw the Statue of Liberty...
...Gore into a leadership role and makes him look presidential...
...In the Northeast, the liberal composite can ident...
...Despite all his problems, Gore is not all that far Now Gore is running for Bill Clinton's third term, and despite behind Bush...
...In addition, 52 percent of those surveyed believe Clinton has made the United States a better place—and only 14 percent say he has made it a worse place...
...now that number is 51, a decline of 18 percent...
Vol. 32 • December 1999 • No. 12
