Gore's Lessons
CBSNews.com producer Jarrett Murphy is reporting from Boston this week.
When Al Gore took the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Boston on Monday, it was not to exorcise his demons, but to embrace them.
And he had company.
When New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson introduced him as "the man who in 2000 more people chose to be president of the United States," the FleetCenter was consumed by cheers. Gore appeared, pressed his heart to his chest and mouthed, "Thank you."
"I had hoped to be back here this week under different circumstances," Gore joked, speaking with a heavier Tennessee accent than as a candidate. "But you know what they say: You win some, you lose some - and then there's that little known third category."
Speaking four years after he was nominated in Los Angeles, Gore addressed a party that overwhelmingly believes the former vice president won the 2000 election. A CBS News poll shows 91 percent of delegates do not believe President Bush was legitimately elected.
As party chairman Terry McAuliffe told delegates shortly before Gore spoke, Democrats believe things would be different "if only we'd gotten one more vote on the Supreme Court."
"Take it from me: every vote counts," Gore said, describing one of the "very important lessons" from 2000. The other was "what happens in a presidential election matters."
But there may have been other lessons, too, according to interviews with delegates and other Democrats in Boston this week.
While there is great sympathy for Gore — more than 80 percent of Democratic delegates have a favorable impression of him — there is also recognition that his own 2000 campaign was flawed.
Democrats recall the candidate who said, in his acceptance speech, "Sometimes people say I'm too serious" - and may have been dead right. Now they see a more passionate Gore.
"What we know is that Al Gore seems a lot more animated than he was four years ago," said James Amann, Democratic majority leader in the Connecticut state house, noting that Gore always had the reputation of being about as exciting as "watching wallpaper dry."
"Suddenly, maybe because he's freed from the reins of being vice president, he's more expressing the Al Gore" that people used to talk about in Tennessee, Amann said.
"I don't know, maybe he's got the fire back in his belly," said John Gaines, an aviation worker and delegate from Broken Arrow, Okla.
In 2000, there was also Gore's awkward relationship with President Clinton, who was to speak later on Monday in a brighter spotlight than Gore's. Gore may have been acknowledging this on Monday night when he thanked Mr. Clinton, to roaring applause.
After disparaging the Bush administration's record on the economy, Iraq, civil liberties and the conduct of the war on terrorism, Gore told delegates who were "angry or disappointed" by the 2000 result to "focus the feeling on putting John Kerry and John Edwards in the White House."
Inside the hall, delegates revealed they had plenty of feeling to focus.
"Every one of us has a wound in our hearts about what happened four years ago," said Mary Somoza of New York City. "To me, he is the president of the United States."
"It shows he's not the wooden person he was accused of being," Warren Campbell of Roanoke, Va. said of the speech. "I could tell he was genuinely moved by the reception of the convention. It just goes to show how disappointed people are."
But while Keisha Carter of Lexington, Ky., said she also loved the speech, she especially liked the part about looking forward.
"It's obvious has some regrets, but we've got to move past this."
As Gore finished his address, wife Tipper Gore ran out for a somewhat less intimate version of their famous L.A. convention kiss. They stood and waved.
Gore touched his heart again, and walked off the stage to make way for Mr. Clinton, and Mr. Kerry.
By Jarrett Murphy