OS ANGELES - He's serious-minded. He's intelligent. He's well prepared. But for the challenge that Al Gore faces here, none of that may matter.
Tonight he claims a presidential nomination he has yearned to capture for years. It would be a moment of high emotion for any political figure, but is especially stirring for Gore. This is the prize that has mesmerized, teased, and eluded two generations of men named Albert Gore.
And so now Gore, a careful student of politics and an erudite connoisseur of the political moment, knows the Democratic presidential nomination requires a difficult bargain. Now that it is being given to him, he must do what seems more difficult for him than for most nominees: give himself entirely to it.
In the American political tradition, that means delivering a convention acceptance speech that is alternately rousing and poignant, inspiring and insightful. But the insights that successful nominees bring to their acceptance speeches are transmitted quietly, subtly, and, above all, personally. Successful convention speeches aren't full of the candidate's insights; successful convention speeches prompt listeners to gain insights about the candidate.
That is Gore's challenge and his difficulty. He has been part of the political wallpaper for eight years. Like the Hollywood billboards here advertising a new fall-season film, he is ''Almost Famous.'' The public thinks there is nothing new to learn about him.
And the task is made all the more arduous by his opponent, Governor George W. Bush, whose very appeal comes from his likability and his ability to skim blithely above the surface of things. To draw a distinction between himself and the GOP nominee, Gore almost always succumbs to the temptation to show his command of the material, his mastery of detail.
''The presidency is not an academic exercise,'' Gore told former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley during the winter primaries. The line, which was crafted by Gore's daughter, was a devastating critique of Gore's Democratic rival, but its lesson hasn't been fully learned by Gore himself.
Indeed, the Democratic Convention here has had a vaguely academic whiff to it so far, more like a seminar than a revival meeting. For three days, a parade of earnest speakers have taken the podium, full of just the sort of specificity that was absent two weeks ago in Philadelphia. The speeches about health care have been full of statistics. The talks about Social Security have been full of projections. There have even been panels of citizens and public officials holding dialogues about issues.
As a result, the message rumbling out of Los Angeles has been a blur: lots of small type, no big headline. Wittingly or unwittingly, the convention is a remarkable reflection of the candidate the party is putting forward in the general election.
Now the convention reaches a new, critical stage, requiring Gore to alter substantially the tone and focus of the proceedings and of the public's view of him.
Gore has spent the last five months reaching for America's mind; tonight he must touch its heart. He is perhaps the leading debater in American public life today. Tonight that skill is of little use. An acceptance speech is not a debate; it is won more often with poignancy than on points.
The phrase ''New Frontier,'' outlined in an outdoor acceptance speech here 40 years ago, helped propel John F. Kennedy to the White House. When Bill Clinton, born in the tiny community of Hope, Ark., told the 1992 Democratic convention in New York that he still believed ''in a place called Hope,'' he stirred the nation, and the glow from that moment remained with the Clinton and Gore team as they rode the backroads of America in their famous bus trips.
Gore's task is much like that of President George H.W. Bush in 1988. Like Gore, Bush was vice president to a two-term president. Like Gore, Bush was regarded as a pale imitation of the president. Like Gore, Bush was familiar, but largely unknown. And so he told the New Orleans convention: ''Now you must see me for what I am: the Republican candidate for president. ... And now I turn to the American people to share my hopes and intentions, and why and where I wish to lead.''
All week, a sense of anticipation has filled the Staples Center, where delegates have exchanged pleasantries and political gossip. The delegates expected a strong valedictory from the president, and they got it. They expected a series of appearances from party luminaries, and they got them. They expected an uplifting address last night from Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the vice presidential candidate, and they got that, too.
They aren't quite sure what to expect from Gore, but they know what they need from him.
They know that he is behind in the polls. They know that he has political skills. They know that he has to speak in a different idiom, to a different audience, and for a different purpose than anything he has ever attempted before. And they know one thing more, that the outcome of the election may depend in no small measure on that.
