THOMAS OLIPHANT

Down to the letter with Gore

By Thomas Oliphant, Globe Staff, May 18, 1999

LAMONI, Iowa - Vice President Al Gore's strength is his attention to detail. But that attention to detail is also one of his great weaknesses.

In a flag-showing bus tour of a part of Iowa that Democrats traditionally ignore -- the rural south of the state -- Vice President Al Gore delivered a speech about education at a college commencement over the weekend. It gives us a peek at his nascent presidential campaign that is stronger -- politically and conceptually -- than most Washington sharpies give it credit for being.

In the first of several orations that will sketch a post-Clinton America, Gore's speech to Graceland College exuded what might be called continuity-plus.

As he begins to blend substance with his politics, Gore is anything but the George H. W. Bush of 1987 who mumbled "kinder and gentler" as a code for something different than Ronald Reagan.

He runs in unabashed pride for the Clinton-Gore record and makes suggestions about the future that are natural extensions of Clinton policy. Indeed, he has in part drawn on the brainpower of Secretary Dick Riley's Education Department for his ideas.

One of them involves saving for college, something that is very hard for middle-income families to do under current tax laws.

The idea Gore outlined here -- and it is a potential whopper -- is that just as there is now a mechanism for employers to help employees save for retirement, that same magic should help accumulate money for job-training, additional education, or a kid's college tuition. With tax-free accumulation and other encouragements, Gore proposes a major new savings instrument -- a 401(j).

As an indication of how thoroughly work is done in Gore's world -- possibly to the point of absurdity -- most people know that the employer-employee retirement plan is called a 401(k). Logic would indicate that a new wrinkle in the tax code for education savings would get the next letter: (l).

But Gore instead chose the letter "j" for his program.

Now why would he do that? Since practically nothing is done in this game anymore without a bunch of meetings and memos, it turns out there is a reason: Because "j" and "k" rhyme, the Gore reasoning was that using the "j" would make people think of the popular retirement funds and thus make the new accounts more attractive.

To an ignorant generalist like me, every instinct says, "Gimme a break."

But upon reflection, it's hard not to imagine that Gore may have a point even on this tiny detail, or worse, that Clinton-Gore pollster Mark Penn may have the research to prove it.

Details and vision clash on occasion in Gore's world. The fact that he may be right on his details, however, shouldn't obscure the fact that he doesn't always play the violin enough. What he talked about in his speech would transform the family economics of education, and yet if anything he undersold it.

Gore was much more clear and expansive about the second element of his proposal to expand savings incentives for education. This would take savings programs now in more than 30 states and make the system national.

These programs allow families to begin putting money aside after a child's birth that accumulates tax-free for use in state. If the rest of the states had incentives to join, the money saved would be available for higher education in any participating state -- a major change for the better.

The buzz in Washington and New York may be concerns about Gore's headquarters staff and impolitic expressions of worry by the president and Mrs. Clinton. But all that junk was inaudible out here, where Gore did major business with the region's Democratic activists as his motorcade traced a line from well south of Des Moines east to Burlington on the Mississippi.

In tow, significantly, was the area's increasingly safe Democratic congressman from the conservative 3d District, Len Boswell, who decided to back Gore even before his buddy, minority leader Dick Gephardt from neighboring Missouri, decided not to run.

The tour got another boost from Iowa's first Democratic governor in 30 years, Tom Vilsack, at whose white-shingled home in Mount Pleasant Gore paid a courtesy call. With a crowd outside, the new and officially neutral governor chose to be gushy, not reticent, in his praise, claiming, "We have been working off the playbook Al Gore essentially developed."

And all this was happening out here on a weekend when Gore operatives in Massachusetts sucker-punched an overeager, not-ready Bill Bradley operation in a straw poll at the state party's convention.

This is a campaign that is likely to unfold on parallel tracks for some time -- Gore on his, Bradley on his. And its shape cannot be known until Bradley shows more of himself and his ideas than he has.

But Gore is no slouch in either the ideas or the political mechanics departments. His advantage could not be more real. And it will get bigger if he focuses more on the forest of continuity-plus and less on little trees like the letter "j."