Is Gore Off Stage, or On for '04?
Gore's Low Profile Since 2000 Election Has Some Democratic Strategists Worried
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 15, 2002; Page A01
URL: washingtonpost.com
DUBUQUE, Iowa, Oct. 14 -- Dave Neil is the kind of Democrat Al Gore will want in his corner if he decides to run for president again in 2004. Neil is political director of the United Auto Workers in Iowa, and two years ago the union's endorsement helped Gore win the Democratic caucuses that kick off the presidential nominating process.
So it wasn't surprising that when Gore arrived here for two days of campaigning for four House candidates today, Neil was one of the first people he wanted to see. But how much had Neil heard from Gore over the past two years, until today? "I haven't heard anything from Al," Neil said a few weeks ago. "He came into the JJ [Jefferson-Jackson Day] dinner last year and I talked to him then. But in the last six to eight months, I haven't heard anything from him."
Phil Bredesen is another Democrat Gore cares about. Bredesen is the party's candidate for governor in Tennessee, where Democrats have a good chance to take a governorship away from the Republicans. Gore lost Tennessee in 2000, and he said that mending fences back home would be a major priority. Helping win a governorship seemingly would be part of that effort, but he has yet to appear with Bredesen on the campaign trail.
Sometime near the end of this year, Gore will decide whether to seek the presidency again in 2004, and if the answer is yes, he will become the instant frontrunner for his party's nomination -- the man who won the popular vote but lost the presidency. Whether he has used the past two years effectively to build the foundation for another presidential bid is a different question, and on that the balance sheet is far less encouraging.
Gore still commands a bigger stage than all his potential rivals. His dissenting speech on Iraq last month proved that was true, not only in the coverage it generated in newspapers and on television, but also in its effect on the Democratic Party.
While unwelcome by some Democratic congressional leaders, the speech helped galvanized many rank-and-file Democrats who were hungry for someone to challenge President Bush and raise serious questions about the administration's policy. Donna Brazile, who was Gore's campaign manager in 2000, called the speech "a brilliant stroke" by the former vice president. "That speech put him back on the map for the closing weeks of the election season," she said.
But as the Neil and Bredesen examples show, Gore has neither spent much time tending to the mundane tasks of keeping a political network stitched together, nor necessarily improved his political standing in areas where he needed to work. Former supporters or advisers grumble he has not touched base with them. One Democratic strategist said that, some months before Gore had lunch with union presidents in Washington last summer, he was given a list of labor leaders to call. "He didn't make the calls," the strategist said.
The UAW's Neil said he was not surprised or offended that Gore had not called until this weekend. "It's way too early to talk about '04," he said today after spending time with the former vice president . But Neil said he had been in contact with other potential Democratic presidential candidates, among them House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), who will be Gore's biggest rival for labor support, Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), John F. Kerry (Mass.) and John Edwards (N.C.), and Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.
For Gore, the Iraq speech marked the beginning of a period of renewed political activity, but it followed a summer of virtual invisibility. In all of July and August, Gore participated in just two political events, according to advisers. In the last month, he has given two major speeches (the second on the economy) and has campaigned for candidates in about 10 states, and will hit at least another five before Election Day.
Despite his relative invisibility the past two years, Gore remains a polarizing figure. He generates hostility among Republicans and many independents, and even some Democratic insiders who believe he ran a poor campaign.
A Gallup poll late last month showed that as many people have an unfavorable impression of Gore as favorable (46 percent favorable, 47 percent unfavorable). When he left the presidential race, after giving a gracious concession speech, it stood at 57 percent to 40 percent. Trial heats pitting Gore against Bush in a 2004 rematch were reasonably competitive before Sept. 11, 2001; now they show Bush with a sizable advantage.
How Gore has used the past 21 months continues to be a source of curiosity and often complaint among many Democratic activists and strategists. But one former adviser who knows him well believes Gore has done just what he set out to do after the bitter loss to Bush: disappear.
"I think he's accomplished what he thought was the most important thing to accomplish, which was to get out of the public light and put himself into a place where he could step back into the arena, after some break," this Democrat said. "One of his favorite sayings to folks in early 2001 was, 'They can't miss you if you're never gone.' I think he's done very well with that."
Friends say that Gore's sense of patriotism prompted him to stay out of the spotlight and give Bush time to establish himself immediately after the 2000 campaign. They also say it took a long time for the former vice president to get over the sting and disappointment of the bitterly contested recount battle in Florida and the 5 to 4 Supreme Court decision that awarded the presidency to Bush.
Gore also threw himself into a book project, with his wife, Tipper, about family and community. As the deadline for submitting the manuscript approached last summer, Gore was immersed in the book to the exclusion of politics. The book will be published after the midterm election and will include a national promotion tour that could mark another coming-out event for Gore.
He has used the past two years to build some financial security for his family after a quarter-century in elective office, and he has spent more time than usual with his family. Friends and supporters who have had informal contact with him say Gore appears far more relaxed and at ease than he was before.
Gore also has spent considerable time in Tennessee, where he has bought a house and is teaching at two universities. But the fact that he is not campaigning for the party's gubernatorial candidate there underscores that the former vice president is still not a terribly popular politician outside the Democratic Party. Asked why Gore had not appeared with Bredesen, aides to the candidate sounded defensive, eventually answering with a written statement.
"Al Gore is a Democrat," it said. "He is supportive and we appreciate it. This is not a race about who's going to appear with whom and when. This is a state race about state issues and Phil Bredesen is going to stand on his own two feet." Translation: In Tennessee, Gore's assistance probably would hurt more than help.
Although Gore may not be welcome on Bredesen's campaign, his advisers say he has done a substantial amount of fence-mending in his home state, campaigning with other candidates, raising money for local Democratic parties and quietly reconnecting with people.
"But he is also aware that one way of helping candidates is by not making their race about him," one adviser said. "Republicans would love to make these local elections about Al Gore, and it's a credit to the fact that he is mending fences and is in tune with state politics there that he's done other things to help these candidates."
This adviser also sought to counter critics who say the party needs to look for a new candidate in 2004 and not attempt to rerun the 2000 race.
"At this point, Gore faces criticism not only from the Republican Party but from some Democrats who hope to run in '04 themselves and are quietly whispering," the adviser said. "But despite two barrels coming at him, there are nearly 51 million reasons why people are targeting Gore and they're aware of those 51 million reasons. This comes down to the fact that everyone on the Democratic side realizes that Gore doesn't have as big of a pie as he had in 2000, but no matter how you look at it, his share of the pie is significantly larger than what they're looking at currently."
The "51 million" was a reference to the approximate number of votes Gore received in 2000.
Friends and former advisers contend it has been much more important for other potential presidential candidates such as Edwards and Kerry to run around the country this year because they have no national network and are barely known among party activists. If Gore decides to run, they say, he can quickly reassemble an organization. What is crucial for him, these friends say, is whether he has come to terms with 2000 and has found the right rationale for running in 2004.
"What matters for him is, first, recovering from the last election, and second, figuring out if he wants to do this again, and how and why he would do it, if he does," one Democrat sympathetic to Gore said. "That's pretty much all inside his head. It's not in a ballroom in Iowa or a gymnasium in New Hampshire. . . . The biggest question of whether he's used these two years well is whether he's found the right place in his heart and head to put the 2000 election."
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