OS ANGELES - So now we have a closer race.
Al Gore made the biggest speech of his life his best before 20,000-odd Democrats who wondered if their guy had it in him. They headed for the exits Thursday night with more confidence than when they trickled in through the sweaty gantlet of cops, metal detectors, and ragtag demonstrators.
It was Pumped-up Al, not the plodding and phlegmatic Throttlebottom Al, who bounded on stage to a passionate smooch from second lady Tipper. He had to wait out a series of chants and martial airs before he could blurt out what his party wanted to hear, was desperate to hear:
''I stand here tonight as my own man!''
Yayyyyyyy! Finally, the Ghost of Big Bill, the shade of Christmas Past, was ushered from the stage. Till that moment, the race was cast as one between Bush Jr. and Clinton Jr. But there was more pressure on the vice president here than there was on Texas Governor George W. Bush in Philadelphia. The Republican hope enjoyed a wide but shallow double-digit polling lead as Gore stepped to the mike. Where GOP delegates were confident, even cocky, Gore's crowd wondered if their guy has what it takes.
Gore stilled a lot of doubts about the Second Banana in the White House with a speech that was confident in tone, skillful in delivery, larded with specifics, and most important, laced with fighting spirit. It was the tonic this crowd needed after a week of programmed pitches geared to the middle of the spectrum, those 20 percent or so of voters who slosh and slide from one party to the other as the professional pols try to pique their interest.
Now all four of the national candidates performed adequately in their baptismal convention acceptance speeches. Bush had a very good convention in Philly, and running mate Dick Cheney, while the most partisan of the four, didn't do badly either. Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman's folksy half-hour of introduction to a national prime time audience was similarly successful.
Calm, poised, energized at the right moments, and very much in control of his pace and his material, Gore came out from under the shadow of Mount Clinton steering a freight-train load of specifics. His handlers say he wins only if he persuades moderates there are major differences between him and Bush.
But it was an evening more Freudian than fractious. Gore never mentioned Bush, except once as ''my opponent.'' It was a text purged of partisanship, except upon issue grounds. Every allusion to the Ghost of Bill triggered wild joy in the bleachers. ''I won't always be the most exciting politician,'' he ventured, and everyone knew to whom he referred. Then came the kicker: ''But I pledge to you tonight: I will work for you every day, and I will never let you down.''
Every major bloc in Gore's base got stroked appropriately: For the 300 teachers union delegates, there was ''Education has to be the number one priority.'' Astonishingly, the percentage of voters surveyed by Voter.com who named education the most important issue was 18 percent nationally. Why astonishing? That's the same percentage as the combined total of voters who list tax cuts, the environment, guns, crime, and foreign affairs as their biggest concern.
For the 30 percent of the delegates who are union members, Gore waved a minimum wage hike, and health insurance soon for all kids. For the elderly, there was a pledge to safeguard Social Security, Medicaid, and a new prescription drug benefit. For pro-choice women, it was abortion: ''I will protect and defend a woman's right to choose.'' His hole card in this race is the choice issue: ''The last thing this country needs is a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe v. Wade.'' The next president may get three or four Supreme Court vacancies to fill.
For parents of college students, it was a tax deduction for tuition payments. For the reformers, he vowed campaign finance reform, and background checks, and trigger locks on guns. For minorities, he embraced affirmative action. For gays, it was a promise to push for a law against hate crimes. The list was long. ''We've got to win this election,'' he urged. It was populism-plus, middle-class warfare by the numbers. ''I will fight for you.'' The foes he named were not Bush-Cheney, but the bogeymen named Big Tobacco, Big Oil, HMOs that ''play God,'' big polluters, and drug and insurance combines that offer fat targets for working-class resentment.
Even as the Ghost of Clinton receded, the Goblin of Ken Starr crept back onstage. In a news leak whose timing could not have been coincidental, Robert Ray, Starr's obscure successor as chief cook and bottlewasher of L'Affaire Lewinsky, is impaneling yet another grand jury to criminally indict Clinton for whatever. It smelled awfully fishy, considering the timing.
Despite his strong speechifying, Gore left town with the same problems he flew in with. His problems are his race, region, gender, and economic bracket. He trails among whites, in the South, among men, and the upper-income crowd.
His handlers crafted a strategy that depends upon him holding California and New York with appeals to women on abortion, minorities on affirmative action, and liberals on guns and the environment. If he makes this a referendum on the Four E's - education, economy, environment, and equality - his game plan envisions, he leapfrogs Bush's edge in likability.
''But the presidency is more than a popularity contest,'' Gore said in his closing pitch. ''It's a day-to-day fight for people.'' He's got a little over 10 weeks to clinch the sale, and looming between now and election are the Olympics, the World Series, and two or three debates with Bush. His speech should bump him up in the polls, so the race should be closer today than it was last week.
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
