LINT, Mich. - Al Gore yesterday closed out his quest for the presidency with a round-the-clock tour of battleground states that left him exhausted and hoarse, but hopeful that he had showed middle-class Americans his pledge to work tirelessly on their behalf was no empty promise.
''As I close here, I do want you to know that I'm well aware that I won't always be the most exciting politician, but I will work for you every day and I will never let you down,'' the son of a Southern senator told 3,000 supporters whose cheers echoed through a St. Louis convention center.
As he appealed for support from undecided voters, the Democratic vice president alluded to the fact that the Republican nominee, George W. Bush, is commonly viewed as the more likable candidate. ''I don't think the presidency is just a popularity contest,'' he said. ''I think it's a day-by-day fight for real people who need somebody willing to fight to do the right thing, to pick the hard right over the easy wrong.''
In a radio interview, he said a vote for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader would be ''a vote for Bush,'' but he said he did not expect Nader voters to tilt the contest to the Texas governor. ''Most people are going to want to participate in the main choice,'' he told talk show host Alan Colmes.
Gore started his day at 5:30 a.m., holding an umbrella in the pitch black as he shook hands at a John Deere factory gate in Waterloo, Iowa, while a steady rain soaked his business suit. Popping throat lozenges and chugging coffee, he followed a schedule that later sent him to a meeting with auto workers in Michigan, a midnight rally at South Beach in Miami, and a 4 a.m. chat today with workers at a cancer center in Tampa.
As the polls open this morning, the campaign was not only surrendering its fate to the voters, but also to the weather.
Yesterday's storms in Iowa were forecast to move into Michigan and Pennsylvania, two vote-rich states where the campaign hopes heavy urban turnout would eliminate the slight lead in several national polls that Bush had going into Election Day. At least one national tracking one poll last night put Gore narrowly ahead, though by a margin well within the poll's margin of error.
The campaign, which in the Democratic tradition had already drafted elaborate get-out-the-vote plans involving 50,000 volunteers, added vans and drivers in Detroit, Minneapolis, and St. Louis to shelter would-be supporters from the elements.
''We said, `All souls to the polls.' Well, we're going to provide rides,'' said campaign manager Donna Brazile. ''Democrats know what to do when elections are close, and they know how to get their voters out.''
Specifically, Gore was hoping for large turnouts among blacks and union members, both traditionally Democratic blocs.
Gore, 52, is a native Tennessean who was groomed for politics. The son of the late US senator Albert Gore Sr., he grew up mostly in Washington before heading to Harvard University. After graduation, he enlisted in the Army, serving in Vietnam as a military journalist. He subsequently worked as a reporter for The Tennessean in Nashville before beginning a political career.
Today's balloting closed out Gore's second bid for the nation's highest office. At age 39, he ran for president in 1988 a little more than three years after he joined the Senate. He failed, but in 1992, then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton tapped him to be his vice presidential running mate and the pair went on to defeat Bush's father, President George Bush. Clinton and Gore handily won reelection in 1996.
After a perfectly symmetrical eight years in the US House, eight in the Senate, and eight years as vice president, the candidate who prides himself on hard work and doesn't shy from tough campaigning finished up in that style.
In speech after speech, Gore said the nation's booming economy should be sustained with a blend of middle-class tax cuts, education investments, and a commitment to pay off the national debt by 2012.
He relentlessly attacked Bush's $1.3 trillion tax cut proposal, saying it would disproportionately benefit the wealthy while leaving little for social programs. He also chastised the Texas governor for proposing to let younger workers invest some of their Social Security payroll taxes in the stock market, while at the same time promising retirees no cuts in their existing benefits.
''It's ironic to me that the folks on the other side are still living on a reputation of being good managers and having a good sense of the economy,'' Gore told union members at a United Auto Workers hall in this city that has seen the boom and bust of the automobile industry. ''They drove the economy into a ditch when they had control of economic policy. ... We've been able to balance the budget and start to pay down the debt and invest in the right things.''
The stop in Waterloo, Iowa, was a nostalgic one for Gore, since it took him back to the state where he began his march toward the Democratic nomination by handily defeating primary challenger Bill Bradley in January's Iowa caucuses.
Standing in the rain with his wife, Tipper, Gore told campaign workers outside the Black Hawk Democratic Headquarters, ''Once again, it's in your hands, and I know it's in good hands.''
Gore was to vote this morning at Forks River Elementary School, near his home in Carthage, Tenn.
