JOHN ELLIS

The Gore metaphor

By John Ellis, Globe Staff, February 13, 1999

What's the metaphor for Al Gore's presidential campaign? Is it the Mondale campaign of 1984? Is it a Democratic version of George Bush's campaign in 1988? Or is it a replay of Hubert Humphrey's doomed effort in 1968? The lens through which Gore's campaign is perceived will determine to some degree how it is understood.

The early metaphor for the Gore campaign is Mondale. Both are Democrats, and Mondale aligns with many people's idea of Gore (liberal but safe, safe but stolid). Like Mondale, Gore has raised the most money, garnered the most endorsements and has the backing of the most important interest groups. He leads in the polls, and many commentators insist his nomination is "inevitable."

Even Gore advisers use Mondale as their metaphor, although they burnish it a bit by describing Gore's campaign as "Mondale-plus."

"He's Mondale without the base," is the way one Gore advisor put it recently, meaning that Gore commands the Democratic stage but carries none of Mondale's baggage (too liberal, too labor).

Gore's Democratic primary opponents, Bill Bradley and John Kerry (if he runs), employ the Mondale metaphor, imagining themselves in the role of Gary Hart, the challenger who emerged. When you trail in every poll in every state in every region of the country, you need a hopeful metaphor to sustain the troops. The Hart metaphor (minus the womanizing) works for them.

The working press is also likely to lock onto the Mondale metaphor, since it holds out the promise of a spirited contest. Political reporters are irrelevant if presidential primary politics is simply a matter of fund-raising, photo ops and tracking polls. To justify their existence, reporters must insist that "anything can happen." The Mondale metaphor allows them to assert that anything might happen and probably will.

If Gore's campaign staffers had any sense, they would lose the Mondale metaphor immediately (he did, after all, lose every state but Minnesota) and instead press forward with the Bush metaphor. The Bush metaphor works for Gore because it communicates two central themes of a Gore general election campaign: successful economic management and political comity.

The Bush metaphor also works for Gore because it allows for some certain margin for error. Bush (who is my uncle) ran in the shadow of a scandal (Iran-Contra), which ultimately had little impact on his campaign. He hit some bumps in the road, losing to Dole and Robertson in Iowa. He trailed in early general election "trial heat" polls. Yet he emerged triumphant.

He did so because he argued successfully that you shouldn't change horses in the middle of a good economic stream and you certainly shouldn't go with a horse from outside the mainstream. Throw in some technological mumbo-jumbo to appeal to New Economy types and there, in a nutshell, are the makings of a successful Gore campaign.

The Humphrey metaphor is likely to be employed by Republicans and disaffected liberal Democrats, frustrated by the Clinton administration's tactical successes. The metaphor seems like a stretch (Vietnam and the Great Society are not even remotely comparable to cruise missile launches and school uniforms), but there are parallels that should give Gore pause.

First, it is likely that someone will have to pick up the tab for what might charitably be called the Clinton debacle. For the moment, Republicans are paying the price for pressing the case. In the near future, after the Republican "threat" has receded, the Clinton administration scandals may come to be seen differently. There are reports all over Washington that Clinton is planning to fire Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. More shoes are expected to drop in the various Clinton investigations. The stench of scandal is unlikely to subside anytime soon. Some analysts believe that it may be Gore who will ultimately end up eating the cost of all this.

Second, President Clinton is determined to win "vindication" in the year 2000 elections. Thursday, his minions planted a story in The New York Times informing us all that he would personally direct the Democratic campaign to recapture control of the House of Representatives to get his revenge on House Republicans. Clinton is certain to cast himself for a starring role in the year 2000 presidential campaign, desperately seeking "exoneration." The danger for Gore is that unlike Reagan in 1988, Clinton will not step back from public view but rather continue to hog the spotlight.

If the year 2000 presidential campaign is about Clinton, and not about us, Gore will be unable to campaign on his own terms. And by then, in the wake of yet more scandal and yet more awful behavior revealed, it may appear that Gore can't get out from under Clinton, just as Humphrey never got out from under Johnson. This is the metaphor Gore cannot afford. It is the one Republicans will press, along with the promise of a new day.