HICAGO - Looking tanned and rested after returning from a week's beach vacation, Vice President Al Gore delivered a blistering attack on the Republican Party and its convention yesterday, accusing his foes of stealing his lines and pandering to ''special interests.''
''We all know that our opponents put on quite a show in Philadelphia,''' Gore told thousands of firefighters who were holding their convention here.
''When it comes to political pageantry ... to nice-sounding slogans and sound bites, I'll give credit where credit is due,'' Gore said. ''But you and I know that slogans never put out a raging fire, that sound bites never saved a child from a burning building, and political positioning will never heal sick children who don't have health care, or help senior citizens afford their medicine,'' Gore added, bringing the boisterous crowd to its feet in raucous applause.
The vice president mocked Republican vice presidential nominee Dick Cheney's use of Gore's 1992 slogan: ''It's time for them to go.''
''Let me tell you what time it's not,'' Gore bellowed. ''It's not time to give in to the big oil companies. It's not time to go backwards. It's time to take America forward.''
Countering a Republican convention message aimed at working people and minorities, Gore offered a traditional Democratic agenda for union members: the right of workers to strike, equal pay for woman workers, and a promise not to give a tax cut to the rich at the expense of lower-income earners.
''I am here today to serve notice: This is day one of the fight for working people,'' Gore said, repeating a theme he was invoked many times since his presidential campaign began. ''All my life, I've been pro-union and pro-working family.
Gore never once mentioned Bush by name, instead focusing his attack on Bush's party, which he derided as out-of-date and disingenuous.
''If you ask me, the Republican National Convention was kind of like a masquerade ball for special interests,'' Gore said.
But ''behind the mask, we found the same politics of personal attacks. Behind the balloons and the buttons is a massive, budget-busting tax giveaway primarily benefiting the wealthy in this country.
''They're for the powerful, and we're for the people,'' Gore said.
On his first full day of campaigning in a week, Gore got a predictably strong welcome from the International Association of Fire Fighters, which is a member of the AFL-CIO.
The vice president made a brief visit to a local firehouse, posing for pictures with his wife, Tipper, his daughter, Sarah, several firefighters and a dalmatian. From there, Gore shed his jacket, rolled up his shirt-sleeves and marched a few blocks to the hotel where he was to speak.
Led by police cars and Secret Service agents, the hundreds of firefighters who accompanied him yelled ''More Gore! More Gore!'' as they marched, although there was no audience for the display on the empty downtown street.
Gore also hinted at the biographical picture he is to present at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles later this month, describing his family life, his days as a journalist, and his time in Vietnam as an Army journalist.
Gore noted that he had volunteered for Vietnam. While Gore made no reference to the Republican ticket, the remark was a clear jab at Bush and Cheney. Bush served stateside in the Texas Air National Guard. Cheney avoided service altogether through a series of deferments.
Gore, meanwhile, remained cagey about his choice for a running-mate, telling reporters on Air Force Two that he had narrowed the field to six candidates, ''plus one out-of-the-box possibility.''
The six are Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts, John Edwards of North Carolina, Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, as well as New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen and House minority leader Richard Gephardt, of Missouri.
Asked if the wild-card candidate had been vetted, Gore said, ''assume that that process is over with.''
Edwards is enjoying ''a boomlet'' in the vice-presidential speculation, said a political consultant close to the Gore campaign. Edwards is appealing, the consultant said, but is widely believed to be too young and, with just two years in the Senate, too inexperienced.
Kerry is considered a strong contender, especially with his Vietnam war record, the consultant said.
Firefighters at yesterday's convention said they were not united around one vice presidential candidate.
''I had a personal favorite in Tom Harkin,'' a senator from Iowa and a strong labor proponent, said Terry Stewart, a Dubuque, Iowa, firefighter. ''But now I'd like John Kerry. He's a real progressive,'' he said.
''I'd like to see Dick Durbin'' on the ticket, said Illinois firefighter Dave Defraties, speaking of the Illinois Senator. ''But Gephardt or Lieberman would both be good guys. Anyone he picks, we're with him.''
Jill Zuckman of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
