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"Scam" ads the norm Trail Mix: Hillary haters spam cyberspace Gunning for the center Democrats make Hillary legit The blundering pundit Don Giuliani Campaign video: |
Al Gore: Born to run
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Feb. 14, 2000 | But as the candidacies of both Gore and Republican front-runner George W. Bush indicate, being the annointed candidate of the establishment is no guarantee of smooth political sailing. Gore faced an early, well-financed challenge from Bill Bradley, though Gore seems to have regained momentum after victories in Iowa and New Hampshire. But the Bradley surge is indicative of Gore's flaws as a candidate. He's had trouble connecting with voters. For most of last year his campaign was a Washington-centric operation that spent money hand over fist and seemed to regard the vice president's ascension as a foregone conclusion. The media had a field day writing about Gore's wooden presence and the shifting chairs on his campaign deck. As Melinda Henneberger put it in the New York Times, "Most of the press about Gore on the stump could run under the headline, 'Stiff Man Still Stiff.'" Gore is a scion of Washington, raised in the city's most powerful circles. The second child and only son of Sen. Albert Gore and his wife, Pauline, he prepped at the tony St. Albans high school and soaked up the words of the Fulbrights, Cliffords and Alsops at his parents' cocktail parties. Gore did spend time in Tennessee. Each summer he decamped to the family's farm, where his father put him to work in the fields with the hired hands. Still, Gore was not the product of rural Tennessee life his campaign video would have you believe. As David Halberstam, who covered Gore's father in the Senate, said, "Gore is a prince of American politics."
Harvard came after St. Albans, and in 1969 the newly minted graduate faced a wrenching quandary over whether to serve in Vietnam to help save his father's political career. Gore's father, an outspoken critic of the war in a conservative state, was mired in a difficult reelection bid. Al Jr. was an entrenched opponent of the war himself, but he thought that skirting duty could tip the scales in his father's election (not to mention hurt his prospects in his own future campaigns). Gore ultimately enlisted, and appeared in a TV commercial where his dad told him: "Son, always love your country." Albert Gore Sr. lost the election, and his son went off to war. Gore was so embittered by the experience that when he returned to the United States he insisted he wanted to steer clear of politics. He enrolled in divinity school and began writing for the Nashville Tennessean. By this point he was married to his high school sweetheart, Tipper Aitcheson, and they had the first of four children in 1973. Gore has said in interviews that his days as a hack were some of the happiest of his life. But when the local congressional seat opened up in 1976, Gore jumped into the political fray. He won the election handily, as he would in his next three House bids and two Senate elections in 1984 and 1990.
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