ASHINGTON - Al Gore, distancing himself from the entertainment industry executives who have donated generously to his campaign, yesterday said that as president, he would find ways to punish Hollywood for marketing violent material to children if it ''does not clean up its act.''
''It's hard enough to raise children today without the entertainment industry making it more difficult,'' the vice president said as he campaigned in Belleville, Ill. He asked the industry to implement an immediate ''cease-fire'' in marketing material with inappropriate, sexual, or violent content to young people.
Gore, who was reacting to a blistering Federal Trade Commission report on the entertainment industry's advertising of R-rated material to young teenagers, was mocked by the Bush campaign as ''reaching new levels of hypocrisy.''
''Suddenly, Al Gore is telling Hollywood to clean up its act after aggressively cleaning out their wallets for the past year,'' said Dan Bartlett, a spokesman for George W. Bush. ''Al Gore waving around a report that he denounced at a Hollywood fund-raiser just a year ago makes him a deserving candidate for an Oscar award in hypocrisy.''
The Texas governor did not make an issue of the new FTC report as he campaigned in Florida yesterday. A spokeswoman said he supported the agency's inquiry, which was ordered more than a year ago by President Clinton after a White House summit was held on media violence and school shootings.
Political observers said it was smart for Gore, who is working hard to woo female voters and who is determined to remove any taint of the Clinton administration scandals, to seize the opportunity to champion a family-values issue. Gore's running mate, Joseph I. Lieberman, has been a staunch Senate critic of the entertainment industry, and Gore's wife, Tipper, led a fight in the mid-1980s to get record companies to agree to put parental warnings on albums and later CDs with dirty lyrics.
''Gore and Joe Lieberman are playing the moral card, and it makes sense strategically because the Gore ticket is most vulnerable on moral issues,'' said Robert Knight, senior director of cultural studies at the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian organization. ''Given the Democrats' ties to Hollywood, one would think this would be perilous ground for them to occupy. But Gore has made an end run, largely because the Republican ticket has not been aggressive in addressing issues like entertainment violence.''
There is some disagreement about how aggressive Vice President Gore was on media violence before the issue started popping up in opinion polls as a concern, particularly of women. Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Malden, who pushed Congress to enact legislation requiring program-blocking V-chips in televisions, says President Clinton has ''subcontracted'' telecommunications issues to Gore.
''On every issue that dealt with children's television, with media violence, with the ratings systems, it all came out of the vice president's office,'' Markey said.
But the Los Angeles Times reported last year that shortly after the president called for the FTC probe, Gore attended a Hollywood fund-raiser and said privately that the investigation had not been his idea, nor had Clinton sought his input before initiating it. During the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in August, neither Gore nor Lieberman attacked gratuitous sex and violence in the media, though Lieberman has for a number of years bestowed the ''silver sewer'' award on Hollywood's worst ''cultural polluters.''
Barbara Wyatt, president of the Parents Music Resource Center, which Tipper Gore founded in 1984, said she was asked by the Gores to close the organization in 1988, when Gore first ran for president.
''The Gores absolutely backed away and said, `our mission is completed,''' Wyatt said. ''I want to give him his due, but Clinton and Gore could have done much more over the last eight years to use the bully pulpit on this issue, and they have not.''
Many believed it was because the Clintons, in particular, had become too friendly with Hollywood entertainment executives and entertainers. Since 1990, the television, film, and music industries, including their corporate leaders, have contributed $83.9 million to political races. Democrats received 65 percent of the money, Republicans 35 percent, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign-finance watchdog group. So far in this election cycle, Gore has received $929,000 and Bush has received $728,000 from those industries, the center reported.
''I don't know if he is biting the hand that feeds him, but to some extent Gore is distancing himself from Hollywood the way Bush and [running mate Dick] Cheney need to distance themselves from the oil industry,'' said Larry Makinson, who directs the center. ''I think Gore perceives that in the mind of the general public, there is too close a connection between Democrats and Hollywood, and he needs to break that connection.''
The head of an entertainment industry trade group who did not want to be identified went further, suggesting that Gore and Lieberman have adopted the political strategy that ''there is hay to be made in vilifying our industry.
''By speaking out against this big constituency, by standing up to the people who fund their campaign, Gore and Lieberman are blunting the effort to be painted as captives of Hollywood and special interests and affirming, `we have integrity.''' he said.
Tomorrow, Lieberman will get another opportunity to do that when he testifies at a hearing on media violence before the Senate Commerce Committee, which is chaired by Senator John McCain. Lynne Cheney, Dick Cheney's wife, will also testify, a committee spokeswoman confirmed last night.
