ou're Al Gore, and you're steamed.
They call you Al Bore. They say you can't do anything right. Bill Bradley is raising more money, and that's supposed to be telling. But if you were outraising Bradley, you'd get no credit for it. Your campaign organization has been staggering, shifting operations to Nashville from D.C., fumbling out apologies for campaign chief Tony Coehlo's expense account shenanigans, on the defensive as Bradley pulls even or ahead in New Hampshire and New York.
The press is unfriendly-to-hostile. Bradley refuses debate, and all those let's-debate-the-issues media types give him a pass. George W. Bush is raising money as it's never been raised before, and you hear hardly a word of media criticism about the auction of influence in the next Bush administration.
Bill Clinton has given you more rein and range than any VP in history, but not a day goes by someone doesn't dare you to blast his morals. They taunt you as the inventor of the Internet and Clinton as the inventor of sin. Being vice president means always having to say you're sorry. Sorry we did this; sorry we didn't do that. You've had it drummed into you that most recent presidents had to go through purgatory to get to the top: Truman, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Bush Sr. All things considered, being veep gives you a leg up. But Americans have these screwy notions about their presidents.
We want them to be father figure, moral leader, partriotic patriarch, chief of our civic religion as well as the state, symbol as well as politicial tactician. So we demean the people who have come close. Finish second in a presidential election and there's no silver medal: You're a loser, to be shunned, shamed, dismissed as broken goods.
There's a corollary to that; serve as vice president, and you're a lackey, a bootlicker, a coat-holding, time-serving, dust-collecting appendage, as useless as an appendix. Until you do some damage.
Vice presidents regain the respect they lost only when they lay someone out. Drop a hurt on someone who's asking for it. Demolish a target. Flatten a foe. But you have to find the right opportunity.
Right now Bradley is hot, but Dollar Bill is running the national race for the first time. If you're Al Gore, you reason thus: People forget this is my fourth time around the national track. I'm organized on the ground in every state, not just Iowa and New Hampshire. I'll roll out Ted Kennedy's endorsement, and Jeannie Shaheen, the governor of New Hampshire is with me; her husband's running my New Hampshire campaign. I should collar the AFL-CIO endorsements shortly. Those people who say endorsements don't count were oohing-and-ahhing when Pat Moynihan and Bob Kerrey endorsed Bradley. Well, which is it? They count? Or they don't? Who'd you rather have? Pat Moynihan or Ted Kennedy? Bob Kerrey or the AFL-CIO? No contest.
The Gore campaign has the following problems, none insurmountable: Typical Democratic voters, who have prospered over the past seven years, don't want to vote for a loser. They need some proof you can win. Winning Iowa's caucuses and New Hampshire's primary will be huge. After New Hampshire, there are 18 primaries in 30 days. It'll be all over by St. Patrick's Day, in all likelihood, in both parties.
There's no time for anyone to recoup after losing New Hampshire except the front-runners in both parties. A Gore and a Bush can recoup in the South and the industrial states; a Bradley and a McCain cannot, for all practical purposes, survive losing New Hampshire.
If you're Al Gore, you're licking your chops at the prospect of debating George W. He's not even the smartest Bush brother; sibling Jeb, the Florida governor, is supposed to be the brighter one. But Bradley plays it cute. No debates, he yawns; he's doing fine the way he's going. Tosses out his health plan and everybody says, ''Wow, gee, what a detailed health plan!''
Gore wants to get in some body shots in a TV debate: ''So, Bill, how come you wouldn't support the NATO bombing campaign while we were at war with Serbia? Couldn't decide which way to jump? If you want to play with the big boys, buddy, you have to tell us if you're for or against a war when we happen to be waging it! Whatsamatter? Cat got your tongue?''
Bradley thinks he can get away with blowing off debates. There's the end-of-October ''town meeting'' in New Hampshire, otherwise nothing nailed down before the holidays. And Bradley has some Massachusetts and New Hampshire money people ramped up to come out for him.
But Gore is not the establishment candidate for nothing. He's got support in the South and the West that Bradley does not have. Gore has the lion's share of the ''super delegates.'' The Democrats have a system in which 20 percent of the convention delegates are governors, mayors, congressmen, officeholders who have ties - political, financial, or ideological - with the incumbent regime.
These people understand that Clinton is going to be in office for another 15 months, with Gore right next to him. This means that Bradley has to run the equivalent of four laps around the track, and Gore needs to run only about three. Without a single voter being polled, the Gore campaign may already have close to one-third of the delegates needed to nominate.
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
