In wings, Gore's 2000 momentum builds

By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff, January 19, 1999

WASHINGTON -- As President Clinton delivers his State of the Union speech tonight, many Democrats in the audience will be thinking about the impeachment trial, but they also may be focusing on a subplot: the growing power of the man sitting behind the president, Vice President Al Gore.

Gore's image as a wooden figure in the Clinton administration is never more on display than at such events, when protocol requires that he sit silently or clap politely. But this year, with Clinton burdened by impeachment and the first primary of Campaign 2000 to be held in 13 months, Gore's grasp on the Democratic presidential nomination seems as strong as ever.

But is Gore's nomination really certain?

The theory of Gore's inevitability is touted by an array of aides and supporters. Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, for example, has decided not to run partly because Gore controls so many key assets, from major contributors to major backers to the unlimited resources of vice presidential travel and prestige. But before Kerrey dropped out, his aides compiled a 300-page blueprint for beating the vice president that other candidates might try to follow.

The plan goes like this: Gore is likely to be a cautious front-runner, offering Clinton continuity rather than boldness, providing an opening for the sort of "new ideas" candidate who tends to do well among Democratic activists who vote in caucuses and primaries.

"A sitting vice president without question is very difficult to beat," said Steve Jarding, Kerrey's top political adviser. "But no one is absolutely safe in American politics." Gore, who has filed papers for his candidacy, has only one formally announced opponent, former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey. Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts still is studying a race. In addition to Kerrey, Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota dropped from contention in recent weeks. House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt is expected to announce as early as this week that he will stay out of the race, Democratic sources said.

Thus, the question is whether Bradley, Kerry or another prospect such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson will catch the public imagination and create a two-man race that would be Gore's to lose. A New Hampshire poll released last week found that Gore was leading Bradley by 34 percent to 14 percent, not an overwhelming margin at this stage of the campaign. The WMUR-TV poll gave Gephardt 12 percent and Kerry 10 percent.

The Gore strategy has been on full display in the last two weeks, even as the Senate began Clinton's impeachment trial. On Jan. 8, for example, Gore delivered the pork, so to speak, to a very important constituency in Campaign 2000: hog farmers in the first-caucus state of Iowa. He announced $50 million to help farmers "cope with disastrously low hog prices" and threw in another $80 million to help Iowa farmers who have 479,000 hogs affected with a type of rabies.

Four days later, Gore oversaw an event dubbed "The Vice President's Summit on 21st Century Skills for 21st Century Jobs." The underlying message was that Gore himself has trained for the last six years under Clinton and is ready to campaign and govern like his mentor at the dawn of the 21st century.

Borrowing a page from the Clinton campaign playbook, Gore conducted a town hall meeting on the future, appearing before a George Washington University audience here with satellite hookups to 1,000 locations. Sitting on a stool, Gore conducted a series of carefully scripted questions and answers with members of the audience who have gotten good jobs.

Gore presented a theme that could be summed up as "I am the future." He gave a glittering account of the economy during the Clinton-Gore administration and then portrayed himself as the politician who would guide workers from one well-paying job to the next.

Like a salesman at a computer trade show, the techno-savvy Gore, who popularized the phrase "information superhighway," marveled about microprocessors and said a bright future was a mouse click away for anyone with an education. When one member of the audience said he had gotten a good job through a community education program backed by Gore, the vice president, responded, "You sound pretty excited about the future."

Such events underscore the power the vice president brings to the campaign. Without spending a penny of campaign funds, Gore connected with leaders from labor, industry and government, assuring all three sectors that he will help them through the millennium.

Less publicly, Gore is raising campaign money at a furious pace, hoping to bring in $35 million this year, a pace of $673,000 a week. By contrast, Bradley, who hopes to raise $20 million this year, is just beginning his fund-raising, and Kerry hasn't raised a penny for a presidential bid because he hasn't decided whether to run. While Gore aides said it is too early to announce who is endorsing Gore, many party leaders are expected to do so.

All this makes Gore campaign manager Craig Smith more than a little optimistic. Asked if he could envision a way for Gore to lose, Smith said: "I'm sure you could come up with a scenario if the stars and moon all align right, in this 12-minute window on this one particular day, Thing X could happen."

While Smith hastened to add that he is taking nothing for granted, it is widely assumed that part of the Gore strategy is to scare away possible opponents. The strategy worked in the case of Kerrey.

The Nebraska senator, who ran unsuccessfully for president in 1992, may have studied whether Gore can be beaten more closely than anyone in America. His conclusion was that while there was a small chance, the odds were too long. Kerrey, meanwhile, had promised not to run for reelection to the Senate in 2000 if he ran for president, meaning he faced a possible lose-lose situation.

Jarding, who runs Kerrey's political action committee, known as BackPAC, helped draw up a detailed strategy for beating Gore.

The plan concluded that next year's truncated primary schedule, widely perceived as a plus for the well-financed Gore, could help a challenger more than is realized.

Under the old, drawn-out primary schedule, someone like Gore could afford to establish grass-roots organizations in many states. But under the shorter schedule, in which New York, California and other states hold primaries soon after New Hampshire, the importance of grass roots would diminish, while the value of momentum would increase. Thus, a challenger who does well in Iowa and New Hampshire could trump Gore in New York and California even without a major grass-roots effort in the latter states.

The key to beating Gore, Jarding said, is to come up with a maverick message that attracts attention in the early states and then beat Gore at the expectations game. That is what then-Senator Gary Hart of Colorado did in 1984, when he ran against former Vice President Walter Mondale. Although Mondale won in Iowa against Hart by 49 percent to 16 percent, Hart gained a stunning victory in the New Hampshire primary. Although Hart eventually lost the nomination to Mondale, his effort is considered the model for beating Gore.

Kerrey aides informed the senator that he would probably have to spend four or five days a week raising money across the country, and two or three days a week visiting Iowa, New Hampshire and other early primary states. That didn't leave Kerrey much time to be a senator -- a dilemma Kerry now is considering. Gore also was strengthened by Attorney General Janet Reno's decision not to seek an independent counsel to examine his campaign finance dealings, and Gore does not appear to have been hurt by the Clinton impeachment. To the contrary, many activists applaud Gore's loyalty to the president.

Meanwhile, the most important factor in the race, the sizzling economy, continues to work in Gore's favor.

John Martilla, a longtime Kerry adviser, said Gore is beatable by either Bradley or Kerry. Kerry declined to comment.

"The Democratic Party will take a fresh look," Martilla said. "The question is whether one of these candidates can light the Democratic primary voters' fire."

Bradley is free of Senate responsibilities and insists he can raise the money to compete. Asked how Bradley could win, spokesman Eric Hauser said Bradley has "the power of ideas and leadership."

For good measure, Hauser added, the former New York Knicks star could challenge the vice president to a playground basketball game. "It's a very simple strategy," Hauser said. "Best two out of three games of Horse."