The Softer Side Of Gore

Al Gore hopes to reignite his lagging presidential campaign with a new approach grounded in personal experience and relationships. The Gore makeover follows several frustrating months in which George W. Bush's policy proposals have dominated the race and given the Texas governor a lead in the polls.

On Wednesday in Maryland, Gore announced several initiatives aimed at expanding mental health care coverage. With wife Tipper, a mental health care advocate, at his side, the vice president promised to improve coverage and treatment for mentally ill kids, veterans and homeless persons; and to provide training for school teachers so they can identify kids in trouble.

Despite the grim statistics on mental illness cited by the Gores, the tone of the presentation to a Washington-area audience was positive and proactive, and that's the way the Gore campaign hopes things are going to be from now on.

Gore spent the better part of May trying to frighten voters away from Bush's Social Security plan. Before that, he spent his time running down the Texas governor's "risky tax scheme." The vice president is now focusing his energies on selling his own ideas and transfering responsibility for criticizing his opponent to others.

The tone of his campaign has been revamped to reflect this new, softer side of Gore:

• At a Memorial Day commemoration, the vice president personalized his remarks by talking about his military service in Vietnam and sharing memories of being a young Army husband.
  
• At an environmental event on Tuesday organized around an endorsement and substantive policy announcements, he reminisced about "learning how to spot a gully" on the family farm in Tennessee.
  
• On Thursday in Georgia, Gore is scheduled to offer some new proposals on cancer policy, and he may touch on his sister's illness and death from the disease - a subject he spoke about for the first time at the 1996 Democratic convention in Chicago.
  
• An ad campaign in the works at the Democratic National Committee will highlight Gore's life experience, including his post-collegiate Vietnam service and first career as a journalist.

"I think both camps are surprised from their polling that most voters don't know" the presidential candidates, says Scott Reed, a Republican strategist who ran Bob Dole's 1996 campaign against Bill Clinton. "Gore has a real challenge, because if you look at the battleground states in the Midwest, his unfavorable ratings have risen to danger levels."

Reed thinks voters will be skeptical of Gore's softer side. "A big part of Gore's problem is voters think he’s phony." On television, Reed says, the vice president "comes across as the guy who's struggling to tell you what you want to hear."

But Gore's embrace of the personal as political may play to one of his strengths. A CBS NewsNew York Times poll conducted in mid-May showed that while Gore trailed Bush in "leadership" by ten points, he scored higher for "cares about people."

Should Bush change his strategy in response to the latest "new Al Gore?"

"Bush ought to continue to ignore Gore," counsels Reed. "Bush needs to keep doing what he’s been doing: Going out and laying out strong policy positions to put meat on his bones."

Reed says the Democrats have two things going for them: "They are still running, in a way, an incumbent campaign based on the economy, and they have Bill Clinton as campaign manager in chief."

Time may be on Gore' side as well. "They’ve been plodding along in a clumsy way for a couple months," says Reed, "but it’s only June. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and you don't win by editorial headlines in April, May and June."