ASHINGTON - Wooing the growing Latino vote, Vice President Al Gore last night peppered his stump speech with Spanish and pledged to give Americans ''of all backgrounds the chance to live out their values and reach for their dreams'' as he addressed a convention of Hispanic activists.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who received an enthusiastic response from the audience, offered few specifics to a voter group that candidates can no longer ignore but is proving too disparate to win over as a single ethnic constituency.
In remarks to the League of United Latin American Citizens, Gore tossed around the names of a few famous Hispanics and took a brief shot at Capitol Hill Republicans for not confirming Clinton administration nominee Enrique Moreno, a Texas judge, to the federal bench.
But despite the fierce battle being waged for the Latino vote, the vice president otherwise stayed away from politics in his speech, not once mentioning by name his rival, Texas Governor George W. Bush.
Instead, Gore focused on two issues polls show are important to many Latinos - education and health care - and underscored what he described as the accomplishments of the Clinton-Gore administration.
''Let's be a decent nation that honors and protects our mothers and fathers, and safeguards them in their old age with an iron-clad commitment to Medicare and Social Security,'' the vice president said.
''We must commit ourselves, as a nation, to building an America that celebrates and transcends our differences.''
Both presidential candidates have been assiduously courting Latinos, who are expected to be the biggest minority group in the United States some time in the next five to 30 years. Each candidate offers Spanish-language information on his campaign Web site.
Bush has also commissioned his nephew George Prescott Bush, a 24-year-old whose movie-star good looks won him the recent distinction of being one of People magazine's 100 most eligible bachelors, to appear in Spanish-language TV campaign ads.
''They're putting a tremendous amount of effort into it,'' said Larry Gonzalez, director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
Still, some Latinos are irked by the dearth of Hispanics being mentioned for vice presidential picks by both parties. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson is considered out of the running because of high gasoline prices and the recent security troubles at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory, although the beleaguered secretary received a standing ovation when he introduced Gore last night.
''There's just a total lack'' of Latinos being offered as potential running-mates, lamented Gonzalez.
Representative Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, who occasionally has been mentioned as a vice presidential possibility, explained: ''It's part of our problem nationally.'' Candidates ''have got to be at the level where you have national recognition,'' he said.
But candidates are finding the task of winning over the Latino vote is an onerous one. Latinos are a diverse group in the United States, comprising the traditionally conservative Cuban-American community, as well as Puerto Ricans, Mexican-Americans, and Central Americans.
Neither Bush nor Gore has a lock on the Latino vote, analysts say. Bush is popular among Hispanics in his native Texas and among Cuban-Americans in Florida, but he is not expected to do well among typically left-leaning Puerto Ricans in New York and New Jersey. Gore is well ahead among Latinos in California, in large part, political consultants say, because of the anti-immigrant policies of former Republican California Governor Pete Wilson.
''I don't think speaking a few words of Spanish by either candidate is going to do it,'' Menendez said. ''We're not monolithic. That's a mistake that's often made.''
