CAMPAIGN 2000 / THE EMERGING FIELD

Gore ready to get candidacy into gear

By Ann Scales, Globe Staff, June 16, 1999

PROVIDENCE -- After his unsuccessful run for president in 1988, Al Gore came to a conclusion.

"I decided after the '88 campaign that if I ever ran again, I would run as an older candidate," he deadpanned.

After a long pause, he added: "And I am keeping that commitment."

Today, when the vice president formally declares his candidacy for president on the steps of the century-old courthouse in Carthage, Tenn., he'll be running not only as an older candidate, but also one with a decided advantage in on-the-job experience.

The dutiful understudy to President Clinton for the past seven years is eager to step out on his own and emerge from the shadow of the man to whom he owes his present power and influence.

With opinion polls showing him trailing in hypothetical matchups with the two top Republican presidential candidates -- Texas Governor George W. Bush and Elizabeth Dole -- and with an accelerated start to the campaign season, there is a real urgency in Gore's need to establish his own identity with the public, separate from the more charismatic Clinton.

He is beginning to tell the story of his life, introducing himself to voters, letting them know where he wants to lead the country, and trying to erase the caricatures that have provided fodder for late-night comedians.

"He's well-known, but he's not known well by the American public," said Democratic consultant Mark Mellman.

There may be plenty of reasons why, but Gore -- who has been a US senator, US representative, a serviceman in Vietnam, newspaper reporter, and divinity school student -- has not helped himself.

He has clumsily stated his accomplishments, claiming, for example, to have invented the Internet. He has taken much flak for highlighting the more Rockwellian images from his childhood, saying he slopped hogs on a farm, while ignoring his prep school days in Washington as the privileged son of a US senator.

His serious demeanor and sometimes extreme self-consciousness have masked his wry sense of humor and contributed to a sense that he is aloof or wooden or boring -- if not all three.

In an interview in his suite on the top floor of a hotel here, Gore joked that such labels were "a total mystery" to him. "You're not going to get me complaining in this Q and A," he quipped. "Truthfully, I think that the voters really don't know me. In the absence of any in-depth knowledge about the candidate, caricatures come into it."

And he is starting to put more daylight between him and Clinton, saying at one point, "I think any two people are different."

But don't expect the vice president to begin rushing to repudiate Clinton administration policies that he played a role in creating. Instead, he said he will try to put his own stamp on things. "The year 2000 will bring challenges that are completely different from the ones we faced in 1992," he said.

Gore said Wednesday's announcement will end the "juggling" of responsibilities that comes with being vice president and a would-be candidate at the same time. He said it will let him spend "virtually all my time" campaigning.

"The formal beginning of my presidential campaign also marks the beginning of a new kind of dialogue between me and the American people, a dialogue in which I'm not working as vice president to amplify this administration's message, but a dialogue in which I'm suggesting my own proposals and vision for the future," Gore said.

He went on, "I intend to articulate a vision for the future of our country that will make it easier for families to stay strong, to keep our prosperity growing, to bring about revolutionary change in our public schools, to build safer, more livable communities that can provide for families the structure, the support, and connectedness that they need, and to ensure US leadership in the world. I also want to reconnect the American spirit to the body politic, and encourage the rekindling of the American spirit."

So far, it's not been Gore's message that has been attracting most of the attention, but the slow and rocky start of his presidential campaign. During last week's heat wave, David Letterman joked: "It was so hot in Washington, even Al Gore's presidential campaign was starting to heat up."

Even Clinton unwittingly underscored the weaknesses in Gore's campaign when, in an effort to be helpful, the president recently told a New York Times reporter that he had advised his vice president to loosen up and shed his blue suit more often. Clinton also acknowledged that he had been worried about the start to the campaign before Gore hired former California Representative Tony Coelho to run it.

A source close to Gore said Clinton's actions "bordered on lunacy." But the person added that the president was so dedicated to seeing Gore as his successor that "if he thought endorsing Steve Forbes would help Al Gore get elected, he would do it," referring to the millionaire publisher and Republican presidential candidate.

Tony Podesta, a Democratic strategist and adviser to Gore, said Clinton's desire to see Gore prevail and his innate political skills and instincts made it tempting to try to micromanage the vice president's campaign.

"You couldn't have a better fan and cheerleader and campaign manager than Bill Clinton," said Podesta, brother of Clinton's chief of staff, John Podesta.

"But Tony Coelho has that job, and I think the vice president understands," he said. "And he will strike out on his own, which is what the situation requires. He'll be the leading actor in the play. He won't be a stand-in for Bill Clinton."

For his part, Gore said he wasn't being flip when he responded to Clinton's newspaper remarks by saying that the president has a full-time job.

"I expect that he'll be extremely supportive of my candidacy at the appropriate time, and I am grateful for that," Gore said. "But I am quite aware that he has his hands full, and that no endorsement or no expression of support from anyone else is very meaningful compared to the decisions the voters make on their own."

Gore said he was not worried about the increasing likelihood that Hillary Rodham Clinton will run for a US Senate seat from New York.

"I'm all for her running," he said. "I think she'd be a great candidate," and with a bit of hesitation, added, "I think, likely to be elected. And I think she'd be a great senator." He also said her candidacy would be "a positive" for his presidential effort. "I think it will bring a lot of enthusiasm and momentum, not only to New York but around the country."

In a preview of a Gore campaign theme, Andrew Cuomo, the US housing secretary and a key adviser to Gore, said: "The public wants both change and they want continuation. They are very happy with the Clinton economy, they don't want to change that," he said, underscoring what is likely to be an emphasis on the economy, a winning issue for Clinton over President George Bush in 1992.

"They would not want to go back to a Bush economy," Cuomo said.

Gore's supporters play down the significance of former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley, who is challenging the vice president for the Democratic nomination. And despite Gore's missteps and sluggish campaign start, they say the clock doesn't really start ticking until today, when Gore declares his candidacy.