WHY AL GORE IS SUCH A BORE
By DICK MORRIS
NOW that he has fallen from 10 points
ahead of Gov. George Bush of Texas to 20
points behind the likely Republican
nominee, Democrats are entitled to ask why
Vice President Al Gore remains so stiff,
lifeless and formal. The cardboard cutout of
Gore that tourists pose beside for photos
seems warm and genuine by comparison.
In private, Gore is witty, warm, subtle,
emotional, and caring. In public, he is the
opposite. (The president, by contrast, is
cold, morose, withdrawn and remote in
private. In public, he is like Gore is in
private.)
Gore's advisers have endlessly berated him
for his standoffish platform style. He's heard
their gripes. The VP even satirizes his
stiffness in carefully rehearsed and scripted
jokes which only reinforce his reputation for
rigidity. Even when he pokes fun at himself,
he still cannot summon animation. Only in
routinized partisan bombast does he find
any platform passion, hammering home
each cliche with something that passes for
fervor.
So why can't he change? Because he's
afraid to.
This disturbing truth became apparent in the
summer of 1996 when the White House
convention planners suggested to the vice
president that he address the Democratic
National Convention on Wednesday - the
day before Clinton spoke - rather than wait
until Thursday, when he and Clinton would
traditionally have appeared.
With Sarah and Jim Brady and Christopher
Reeve speaking on Monday, the
convention's opening night and Hillary
speaking on the second night, the
campaign needed a "star" to hold the
audience on Wednesday. The vice
president was vociferous in objecting to the
idea. "Wednesday doesn't get the ratings.
Everybody watches on Thursday" he
insisted. (It wasn't true. In 1992 and, as it
turned out, in 1996, the Wednesday night
ratings were almost as high as Thursday's.)
"You don't understand," he lectured
patronizingly. "I don't just give a speech on
Thursday night. I accept the nomination of
my party for the post of vice president of the
United States of America. Besides, I can't
just switch to Wednesday, my speech on
Thursday has a time-honored function - to
introduce the president."
Told he could do his bit on Thursday, and
still be the highlight of Wednesday night, the
vice president ran out of arguments. "What
if I screw it up?" he asked in low, barely
audible voice. Here was his real fear -
screwing it up.
As history will record, Gore didn't screw
anything up. His speech on Wednesday,
where he recalled his sister's lonely battle
against tobacco-caused cancer, held
America in its grip for an hour. Perhaps his
finest hour.
But in that moment when he confessed his
inner fear, the real Al Gore was on display.
Reared in a family accustomed to power,
overshadowed by a great senator who was
his father, educated in Washington D.C. in
a school not unlike the British public schools
where aristocrats are bred, Al Gore clings
to the traditional, the formal, and the stiff
because he fears that if he shows his real
face, he'll blow it.
In 1988, he betrayed this same lack of
confidence when his nerve failed as he
pursued the Democratic presidential
nomination. In that year, he had succeeded
in mounting a strong populist campaign in
the Super Tuesday Southern states, thereby
jump-starting his candidacy after a
lackluster start.
The next step was for this a son of the South
to show he could win in the North: He had to
make good in the Illinois primary which
immediately followed Super Tuesday. But
Gore chose this moment to fire his populist
consultants and trimmed his rhetoric.
When he told his consultants why he was
dismissing them, he is reputed to have said
"I wanted to keep you, but my advisers felt I
needed to make a change."
The switch cost him dearly. His overly
cautious ads in Illinois didn't work. Without
populism, his message fell flat and Dukakis
took the nomination from under his nose.
Under Clinton, Gore has really been the
chief of staff. It is he who has handled most
of the difficult tasks and much of the heavy
lifting. But on the platform, he has proven to
be a pale imitation of the publicly garrulous,
personable, charming president.
In even his choice of topics, Gore seems to
cling to the traditional. No longer does he
tap into the brave passion of his past
environmental activism, his truest self.
Instead he announces the grant du jour from
the White House lectern, safely crouching
behind the conventional and the expected.
It's time for Al Gore to realize that a close
association with President Clinton is not
healthy for vice presidents or for other living
things. He needs to get out on his own, with
his genuine convictions on display.
Vice presidents do not get elected
president if they remain in the master's
shadow. Nixon lost in 1960 when his slogan
"experience counts" hewed too close to
Eisenhower. Humphrey failed in 1968 when,
despite his past liberal activism, he came to
be seen as LBJ II. Mondale lost in 1984
when the legacy of Carter fitted his neck like
a hangman's noose. Lee Atwater saw the
need to distance Bush from Reagan in
1988 and seized on the crime issue - Willie
Horton and all - to craft a separate identity
for the vice president.
The greatest myth in Washington these
days is that Clinton's poll numbers remain
high. While his job approval is, indeed,
solid, his personal favorability has crashed
by more than 20 points since Monica. To
win, a vice president must leave the White
House nest, fly on his own, and make a new
home in a new tree.
Start flying, Al. |
