wo events last Thursday gave Al Gore a much-needed boost in his campaign for the White House.
Gore, accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for president on Thursday night, gave perhaps the best speech of his political life at a time when he needed to do so. His populist approach, framed in such phrases as, ''They are for the powerful. We are for the people,'' resonated with the throng at the Democratic convention and earned him high marks among delegates interviewed afterward.
The other event, which happened just hours before Gore took to the podium, was the leak to the media that Independent Counsel Robert Ray had convened a grand jury to determine whether President Clinton should be indicted on criminal charges involving his testimony in the Monica Lewinsky case.
No doubt the leak was timed to cloud Gore's most important moment in the political sun. But the immediate reaction among Democrats and even independents suggested that this tactic, whether by Republicans or Ray's office, had already begun to backfire in Gore's favor.
Virtually every delegate interviewed saw the leak as a deliberate attempt by the Republicans to keep the vice president linked to the Clinton scandal on the very night when Gore announced that he was his own man.
If anything, this tactic will rally Clinton's supporters, many of whom were only lukewarm to Gore's candidacy. As Republicans know, the attempt by the right-wing element of their party to convict Clinton on impeachment charges not only failed, but backfired. The polls showed after Congress acquitted Clinton of the charges that the president's popularity was still high, if not higher, while the GOP's favorability ratings dropped.
That's why it was no coincidence that none of the right-wing Republicans involved in the impeachment crusade was on prime time during the Republican National Convention. Now the Bush campaign is attempting to keep the leak about the grand jury at a distance, knowing that any link to it will harm Bush's candidacy while energizing Gore's.
Gore, who looked as presidential last Thursday to his supporters as Bush did to his backers during the GOP convention, caught up to Bush in at least one poll because of the bounce he got from his speech.
Gore's speech achieved its purpose of showing the television audience that Gore was more than a candidate of substance, a positive attribute on its own. He also showed he was someone whom voters could feel comfortable with, an important emotional factor for the electorate.
As his campaign had hoped, Gore's speech gave a huge lift to his candidacy. And the leak about the grand jury investigation is likely to help Gore even more as the reaction of Clinton supporters to the timing of the leak continues to grow.
There is some speculation among Republicans as to whether the leak came not from Ray's office but from the White House. Even some political pundits familiar with the White House suggested that was a possibility, arguing that White House strategists would be wise enough to know that the timing of the link would backfire against the GOP.
In addition, some GOP supporters further argued that the leak was not likely to have come from Ray's office since Ray had cleared the president and the first lady in the Travelgate investigation.
And, they added, there is the strong possibility that Ray could have convened the grand jury as a process toward closing the investigation of whether Clinton committed criminal perjury violations in his testimony about his relationship with Lewinsky.
But these scenarios have as much credibility as the suggestions that the leak came directly from Clinton.
Clinton and his advisers may be wise enough to know that an attempt to wreck Gore's big night with such a leak would backfire against the Republicans. But it's entirely another matter to take such a risk that, if traced to the president or his staff, would do irreparable harm to Clinton and destroy Gore's candidacy. It's more likely that this leak, especially its timing, was by people not working in Gore's best interests who wanted the grand jury investigation to overshadow and diminish his acceptance speech at the convention.
Ironically, the grand jury leak is receiving almost as much attention as Gore's speech - but not the kind of publicity the leakers apparently intended.
Many Democrats and independents see this leak as a desperate attempt by the GOP or an anti-Gore element to keep Gore connected to the negative side of the Clinton presidency.
However, the leak did not overshadow Gore's substantive agenda. Rather, it exposed the GOP's lack of such an agenda and its never-ending dependence on the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal to bring first Clinton, and now Gore, down.
While the Bush campaign vows to end the Clinton-Gore era, this grand jury leak, and Gore's strong performance at the convention, may do more to bring an end to the Bush-Cheney era before it even begins.
Robert A. Jordan is a Globe columnist.
