espite a campaign that has tended to minimize their differences, the two major party candidates for president diverge in profound ways. Where it really makes a difference - from America's role in the world to the complexion of the US Supreme Court - the choice is as clear as an unpolluted stream. The Boston Globe strongly endorses Vice President Albert Gore Jr. for president of the United States.
Few recent candidates have come to the president's job as well-prepared as Gore. Even before his eight years helping to shepherd the country through the most sustained prosperity in its history, Gore spent 16 years in Congress, becoming expert in arms control and energy policy. President Clinton gave Gore the widest portfolio of any recent vice president, especially on matters involving US relations with Russia and Europe.
A US role abroad
Gore is the first vice president to serve as a full member of the National Security Council. He supports a responsible, active role for America overseas and understands that foreign policy is a web of issues involving not just geopolitical maneuvers but health care, human rights, sustainable development and the environment. His readiness to lead the United States in a tumultuous world is far superior to his Republican opponent, Texas Governor George W. Bush.
Gore cast the tie-breaking vote in 1993 that assured passage of the Clinton-Gore deficit reduction bill, which in hindsight catalyzed an economic expansion defined by low interest rates, the first balanced budget in nearly 40 years, 22 million new jobs, and rising incomes across every social class. The importance of carrying these successes forward cannot be overstated.
The Clinton-Gore administration also played a crucial defensive role against the more extreme proposals of the 104th Congress, stopping by sometimes a single vote or a presidential veto the worst excesses of the radical Contract with America. They stopped deep cuts in Medicare and a ''reform'' of the country's regulatory laws that would have gutted public health and safety standards involving everything from commuter airlines to hamburger meat. More recently, Gore's was the tie-breaking vote to advance a modest gun-control proposal requiring unlicensed dealers to do background checks at gun shows.
Gore is a thinking-person's candidate, with an elegant analysis of the new economy and a visionary commitment to the environment. By contrast, Bush is given to homilies and easy slogans that reveal a lack of seriousness about the issues facing the nation in a new century.
A rational economy
On the issues, Gore has the better tax cut: more responsible because it is more modest, and more fair precisely because it targets the most relief to those who have been left out of the economic boom. The deep tax cuts proposed by Bush limit his ability to achieve another priority - education reform - that is critical to the nation's continued prosperity.
On Social Security, Gore has already helped extend the solvency of the fund through 2037 and has a plan to keep it strong through 2055. The Bush proposal to privatize Social Security - still lacking specific numbers after six months of campaigning - is a hazy and, yes, risky overhaul of a system that keeps millions of elderly out of poverty.
Bush deserves credit for being ahead of his party on immigration issues, but Gore has a much more pluralistic view of American society, and his choice of Joe Lieberman as vice president is only the start. Gore is eloquent in describing America's responsibility to ''expand the circle of rights'' with each generation; gays and the disabled will surely be brought into the circle under Gore. Bush, hamstrung by fealty to a Republican Party that opposes ''special rights'' for minorities, can only offer vague cliches like ''affirmative access'' that mean little.
A legal legacy
A Gore Supreme Court might tip the balance away from the federalists who want the states and not Congress deciding things. But a Bush court, composed of what he calls ''strict constructionists,'' would set back the clock for women's reproductive freedom, environmental and consumer protection, and civil rights by dismissing federal solutions in favor of an uneven system tied to the whim of each state. The impact of these court appointments - and hundreds of others in lower federal and appeals courts - will echo long after Gore and Bush are writing their memoirs.
The corrupting power of money in the political process has dispirited voters and skewed the debate in favor of those with the ''loudest'' wallets. Gore is tainted by this system; his explanations of the fund-raising violations at the Buddhist temple in California are not credible. But Gore has said he will file the McCain-Feingold ban on soft money as his first bill to Congress; Bush and his party oppose it outright.
A taming hand
This campaign has minimized the connection between Bush and the congressional Republicans. Bush claims to be an anti-Washington outsider who will heal the ''partisan bickering.'' More likely a Bush presidency would facilitate the partisan agenda of a Congress unfettered by a veto threat in the White House. Divided government may not be efficient, but it does tend to tame the excesses of either party.
Gore's over-earnest pedagogy certainly annoys many voters, but it compares well to Bush's amiable vacuity. Skimming the surface will not cut it in an intensely competitive world. It is important to think hard and deep about this election and choose Al Gore as president.
