Gore Is Covering The Bases
Although Vice President Al Gore was spending much of the weekend pitching his message to African-Americans, he also found time to talk about issues that have been in the public eye recently.
Gore used a breakfast with students to assert the importance of religious faith in politics and launched a fresh assault on the violence of Hollywood movies.
Speaking to the National Student Leadership Forum on Saturday, Gore said that while religion was a personal issue, it has helped him in public life to choose “the hard right over the easy wrong.”
“There has been a big debate this year about the role of faith in politics,” Gore told the college students, some of whom were wearing shirts with religious slogans.
“I really support what Joe Lieberman has been saying about that. I think he is right,” he said, referring to his running mate's assertion that it is appropriate for a candidate to affirm his personal religious faith.
Lieberman, the first Jew to be picked on a major party ticket, has been criticized by some in recent weeks for making too many references to religion in his public appearances.
Gore also used the early morning appearance to launch a fresh attack on the violent material produced by Hollywood.
“A report came out by the Federal Trade Commission about how movies rated inappropriate for children are being aggressively marketed to children. That's wrong and it has to stop,” Gore said, adding that the average high school student sees 20,000 killings in movies before graduating.
The FTC report, released earlier this week, found that violent games and movies were actively marketed to children even when they carried adult ratings.
The report was immediately seized upon as a campaign issue by Gore and his Republican opponent, Texas Governor George W. Bush, who both urged the entertainment industry to shield children from violence.
The Bush campaign has painted Gore as a hypocrite on the issue, saying the Democratic candidate slaps the wrists of the Hollywood set one day before taking their money at fund-raisers the next.
The low-key student event is one that Gore attends every year and was not an official campaign event.
Gore finishes up his Saturday with an address at a dinner marking the 30th anniversary of the Congressional Black Caucus. This event may be the last official function he will attend with President Clinton before election day on November 7th.
Clinton won 84 percent of the African-American vote in 1996 and recent polls have shown Gore could win almost 90 percent of the black vote in November.
But Gore is hoping his stances on such issues as a hate crime law and a commitment to affirmative action will spur more African-Americans to register to vote.
Gore will use his appearance before the Congressional Black Caucus to encourage a drive for voter turnout, a key to his success in November.
On Friday night, Gore spoke to an overflow crowd of black appointees of the Clinton administration. “In a lot of previous administrations, they wouldn't have needed a room this big to hold an event like this, you know what I'm saying?” Gore said.
The audience erupted into cheers of “Go Al! Go Al!” as the vice president recited a list of Clinton minority appointees and ended it by saying “53 judges and not a Clarence Thomas among them.”
He also promised to work for hate crimes legislation and increased federal efforts to end racial profiling by law enforcement.
Earlier Friday, Gore spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of students at Washington's historically black Howard University.
“There is still a lower and lower participation in our democracy. Why is that?” Gore asked, addressing some 1,600 students. “Disillusionment... cynicism, disaffection, civic lethargy are the enemies of progress.”
Cotilya Brown, a Howard freshman who turns 18 on Sunday, has already registered to vote, and plans to cast her first ballot ever for the vice president. “Not even an earthquake could keep me away” from the voting booth, she said.