WASHINGTONAl Gore and Joe Lieberman are pulling off another smart stunt this week - reminding the country why they are indeed New Democrats and illustrating what being on a roll looks like.
All the more reason to kick 'em while they're up - for not doing more of it and relying too much on progressive economics at the expense of the values issues that matter to independent voters. What Gore has not been doing enough of can be summed up in two words - John McCain.
With excellent timing, the Democrats have taken advantage of a devastating Federal Trade Commission report to hit the entertainment business in its most vulnerable spot - the flagrant advertising of violence and smut to teenagers in ways every bit as shameful as the cigarette racket's practices of recent decades.
There is no censorship or intimidation issue of any kind here. Instead, this is a classic case in which public officials can help empower people (parents especially) who feel powerless in the face of all-pervasive, mass culture. It is also a classic case of a powerful industry caught doing what it explicitly pledged not to do.
And politically, the timing of a campaign issue on the release day of a superbly documented report on entertainment marketing that also happens to be the day Gore appears on Oprah is sheer brilliance.
But the fact is that Gore has been neglecting his New Democrat duties while he was consolidating his now-strong intra-party constituencies. It hasn't been generally noticed, but the Democratic campaign, for all its August proficiency, is still something short of scintillating among the people who are most likely to decide this year's presidential election - the broadly defined middle-class and nonpartisan voters.
Several of Gore's more important campaign officials recognize this, as does a more than interested observer, President Clinton. Fortunately for them, the Bush campaign is so fixated on its own internal wars and on attacking Gore personally that it is missing a big opportunity to do some real communicating.
No way, however, that Gore was going to miss the opportunity presented by the FTC investigation. Pouncing on it as he and Lieberman did with credible threats of a policy response to what amounts to fraudulent marketing put them smack in the middle of a major national news story. The previously scheduled Oprah gig was gravy, but the beat is only going to go on, thanks to McCain.
Entertainment industry behavior happens to be one of the Arizona senator's crusades. As chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, he will be conducting angry hearings starting tomorrow, featuring among others his Senate partner in all this - Joe Lieberman.
But this is only one of McCain's moves as Congress reconvenes. He has also served notice on both parties that he will be an angry fly in whatever pork-barrel ointments get concocted as part of a Clinton-Congress budget deal. And he has scheduled several campaign finance reform events in the coming weeks, including one later this week, to highlight an unbreakable commitment to his signature issue.
No Republican can accuse McCain of disloyalty after his embrace of George W. Bush and his performance in Philadelphia, and he pointedly stayed out of the Bush campaign kibbitzing many Republicans indulged in last week. But his mere presence in the news underlines what a wild card he is.
It also remains the case that Bush has not moved toward him on a single issue since the primaries ended. It's not just McCain's war to get soft money out of politics; it's also his opposition to cutting the top income tax rates, his belief that Medicare needs a major infusion of money, and his continuing hostility to the tactics of the religious right.
A smarter Gore would be embracing McCain-ism more openly to broaden his appeal. A mischievous Gore and Lieberman would be selling themselves as Reformers with Results.
Thomas Oliphant is a Globe columnist.
