The faithful cheered, but Gore fumed. He hadn’t been warned of what the president would say. Gore thought he had made it clear–in private and public–that Clinton should butt out of the presidential campaign. Their relationship had always been an uneasy, vaguely competitive one. Gore was not about to ask for public help, or advice, even if Democrats (including the party chair, Ed Rendell) were agitating for Clinton to play a bigger role, and even if The New York Times–that same morning–had front-paged a story about Clinton’s exclusion from the campaign.
Gore had poll numbers to bolster his reluctance. His private polls showed that a visible president was a mixed blessing at best; he could excite the base, but turn off the rest. “His numbers in the swing states are lousy,” said a top aide. Goreans burned up the wires to the White House. They were told that the president, ever antsy about what he sees as Gore’s inability to make his case, had gone “off the reservation” and departed from the prepared text. “They said it was a ‘mistake’,” one insider said, “and that it wouldn’t happen again.” Clinton, the aides agreed, would remain far below the radar for the most part, appearing at private fund-raisers, recording get-out-the-vote messages for phone banks, doing radio spots. He’d make one high- profile trip for the entire ticket–to California. “We’ll see if the guy can follow the script he’s given,” said another aide.
But is it the right script? The Kibitzer-in-Chief was trying to be helpful–and Gore can use all the help he can get wooing and winning anyone with Democratic leanings. In the new NEWSWEEK Poll, Gore still leads 45-42 percent among all registered voters. But among likely voters–the better measure as Nov. 7 approaches–Bush has widened his lead, to 48-41 percent. Bush’s “base vote” is more solid. While 89 percent of Republicans say they have made up their minds, only 80 percent of Democrats now say that; while 88 percent of Bush’s supporters say they’re committed to their man, only 82 percent of Gore’s backers say so. Gore leads Bush among swing voters by 36-23 percent. But if those voters don’t show up, Gore could lose–big time–in a relatively low turnout. “We’ve simply got to get our people out–all of them,” said a top Gore strategist.
As Campaign 2000 enters the final fortnight, its contours are clear. Gore isn’t just distancing himself from Clinton. He’s abandoned Clinton’s run-to-the-middle strategy and is focusing on firing up his own rank and file. It’s Bush, a New South governor like Clinton, who has the savvy–or the luck–to follow Clinton’ s theory that victory lies in blurring partisan lines. Bush hasn’t made a compelling case for change. Most voters think the country is going in the “right direction.” But he’s managed to remove the horns from the Republican Party, and that may be enough.
The campaign’s late-inning moves show their divergent strategies. Bush’s team went up last weekend with new “soft” TV spots on family life and education. One features a black teacher from Houston. The aim: to stress Bush’s claim to be a “compassionate conservative.” Bush family women were scheduled to continue their “W Is for Women” tour for one more stop–so that George W could join them in Milwaukee.
The Republican National Committee is stepping up its ad campaign in California. Gore’s lead is shrinking, and California Democrats are warning of a potential disaster without additional time, money and attention. And, NEWSWEEK has learned, Bush is raising the stakes. He will campaign in California next week, perhaps simultaneously with Clinton.
Gore’s endgame, meanwhile, is essentially to attack Bush as a front man for the wealthy and the powerful. The Democrats are continuing their critique of his Texas record. In his first term as governor, they note, he championed emergency relief for the oil industry–and, as Clinton said, vetoed the patient’s rights bill. At the same time the campaign and the Democratic National Committee placed what may be their last major advertising bet, a huge buy on Social Security. Their focus: Bush’s proposal to allow younger workers to divert perhaps $1 trillion in payroll-tax payments to private investment accounts. Eventually, the ads say, the government will have to tap those accounts, cut benefits or raise the retirement age. “He’s going to have to break a promise,” said Gore strategist Tad Devine. “It may be our best argument.”
While the air war proceeds, Democrats are pushing pointillistic messages to their own rank and file. To unions that means workers’ rights; to minority groups, civil rights; to pro-choice voters, abortion rights. Union officials say they are leafleting 13 million rank-and-file members at work sites and mailing materials to 6 million more retirees and family members. In their agitprop the unions don’t focus on the “big” issues such as Social Security, Medicare and education. “There’s too much confusion and noise about them,” said a top labor strategist. Instead, they’re zeroing in on “union specific” issues: organizing rights, the minimum wage, overtime pay rules, pensions.
The course of the race may have been set last winter, when Sen. John McCain challenged Bush for the Republican nomination. At the time it seemed like Bush’s worst nightmare, but it forced the governor to bond in battle with his religious right Republican base. He’s been free to publicly ignore it since. Instead, he’s been able to pursue his “compassionate conservative” themes and cut into the Democrats’ traditionally overwhelming margins on education and Social Security.
Still, if voters don’t turn out for Gore, it won’t be because he was out of position on the issues. In the NEWSWEEK Poll he’s still seen as better able to handle almost every one: the economy, Social Security, foreign policy, health care, abortion and prescription drugs. Gore has a narrow lead on taxes, ties with Bush on education and trails only on defense, oil policy and “upholding moral values.” Nor could Gore blame a loss on the economy, which continues to thrive. Based on those healthy vital signs alone, academic numbers crunchers concluded that Gore had a lock on the election.
If Gore is falling behind, he may be able to blame other, more personal burdens of the Clinton years. Clinton set a new standard for genial accessibility on television–and Bush, not Gore, has benefited from it. The vice president may have “won” the town-hall style debate in St. Louis, stalking the stage like a lion with a doctorate. But it was Bush, hunkered down and smilingly subdued, who rose in the polls. Americans have never liked know-it-alls–and Bush is in no danger of being mistaken for one. Clinton’s mendacity may have put a premium on honesty, at least among voters who still believe in politics enough to bother voting. Gore has been hurt in that category by his embellishments, hairsplitting and displays of multiple public personalities. In the NEWSWEEK Poll Gore matches or exceeds Bush on intellect, caring and capacity to lead. Gore is nearly as “likable.” He badly trails Bush on only two qualities: honesty and willingness to state his true beliefs.
The truth is, Clinton and Gore weren’t friends when they teamed up in the summer of 1992. Gore had wanted to run in 1992, but didn’t. He was jealous of Clinton until the Democrats’ new nominee picked him to be his running mate. He and Tipper joined Bill and Hillary that July for a bus trip from Manhattan to Missouri. In one of those unintended ironies of political life, the four of them were together again last week in Missouri–in a limousine on the way to the funeral of Gov. Mel Carnahan. The first trip had been a euphoric adventure, the foursome basking in boomer togetherness as they waved to well-wishers who lined country roads and held lighted candles in the night. The trip had propelled the Clinton-Gore ticket to the White House.
Now, eight years later, the atmosphere was far different as the four, dressed in black, rode to Carnahan’s funeral in Jefferson City. There were no crowds along the roads, no mystical sense of destined victory, just heavy lifting. Gore was in a tough race and so was Hillary–in a closer-than-expected contest for the U.S. Senate in New York. When the funeral ended and the two couples parted, there were air kisses for the women, stilted smiles for the men. They were going their separate ways, which is the way Al Gore wanted it.
