Soft Gore

There was a reason, beyond simple fatigue, why the reporters couldn’t be bothered with Gore: They suspected he’d just repeat what he’d said hundreds of times before, using language with less zip than he had in the past.

And they were right. After being criticized recently for personalizing his objections to proposals advanced by George W. Bush — calling them “smug,” “arrogant,” and “reckless” — Gore has begun to soften his language and, he hopes, his image. At three Social Security-related campaign events last week, the vice president was significantly more restrained than he’s been in recent weeks. Indeed, he even trotted out his 87-year-old mother at an AARP event in Orlando, Florida, on May 17 and devoted a few minutes of his speech to her, in his effort to mitigate the popular caricature of him as a ruthless partisan.

Not a bad idea. A number of national polls released in the past two weeks show Gore trailing Bush by healthy margins — even in Democratic strongholds like West Virginia. Gore professes not to be worried. During a May 16 press conference at Fordham University in New York, I asked him about a New York Times poll released that day showing Bush with an eight-point lead nationally. “None of the polls matter at this stage,” he replied. “Most of the people have not really begun to tune in to the political campaign.”

Belying Gore’s airy confidence was his campaign’s scramble to put together last week’s events only after the Bush campaign had announced a major address on Social Security for May 15 (Gore was supposed to be off the campaign trail the entire week). And whether or not the polls matter at this stage, Gore is reading them. When I mistakenly said the Times showed him trailing Bush by six points, he interrupted to say the margin was actually eight.

Even more ominous for Gore is another set of numbers buried in the Times poll. Specifically, Gore lags behind Bush even though on weighty issues like health care, education, and Social Security, survey respondents say they prefer Gore’s positions. This suggests many voters simply don’t like Gore and may not be able to stomach having him as president.

The Times poll, for example, showed that 36 percent of those asked had an unfavorable impression of Gore, and just 34 percent had a favorable impression (Bush’s numbers were 40 percent favorable, 28 percent unfavorable). That’s deeply problematic at a time when there are few hot-button issues that can dramatically alter the political landscape. Similarly, after seven and a half years in the spotlight, and after reinventing himself during the Democratic primaries, Gore is unlikely to pull off another makeover.

It doesn’t hurt to try, though, which explains the subtle softening of Gore’s rhetoric at last week’s campaign appearances. Rather than framing his opposition to Bush’s proposal for partially privatized Social Security accounts in terms like “smug” and “arrogant,” or referring to Bush’s conspiratorial “secret” plans, Gore stuck to bland policy themes: Market downturns could lead to reduced benefits, the transition costs will be high, and so on.

At a town meeting at Beaver College in suburban Philadelphia on May 15, the vice president said little about his Republican opponent, and his most barbed comment was that Bush “takes the security out of Social Security.” In an interview with National Public Radio afterwards, he hinted he may stick with this subdued approach: “The American people deserve more light than heat on an issue of this magnitude.”

Yet this leaves Gore in a Catch-22. Smoothing out his rough edges neutralizes the charge that he’s a pit bull, but also deprives him of his most potent weapon: going negative. During the Democratic primaries, Gore surged only after he began hammering Bill Bradley for failing to “stay and fight” and for proposing an overhaul of the health care system. In short, Gore is at his most effective when he’s attacking his opponents and demagoguing their proposals. This year, that approach won him the Democratic nomination. But it doesn’t always succeed. Twelve years ago, when he waged a brash campaign for president, his slash-and-burn style won him more enmity from the Democratic establishment than support from primary voters.

If last week’s events suggested Gore is looking to be more nuanced in his criticism of Bush, they also showed he remains an uneven campaigner. At Beaver College and Fordham, he displayed a masterful command of Social Security’s details and deftly fielded almost every question from the audience. At Columbia Law School, he gave an inspiring commencement address (his daughter, Karenna, was one of the graduates). But at the AARP event, he often sounded more like an economics professor — there were frequent references to principal, percentages, and interest rates — than someone running for president. He also reverted to his somniferous monotone delivery, which yielded few applause lines. Promising to have the United States debt-free by 2013 isn’t quite up to JFK’s “ask not” or Reagan’s “tear down this wall.”

Gore’s final problem? In flatly opposing any tinkering with Social Security, he looks more like a Henry Waxman-style liberal than a New Democrat. Even Democratic senators Pat Moynihan and Bob Kerrey have criticized Gore for his opposition to modernizing Social Security, as has Robert Reich, a smart liberal who was secretary of labor in Bill Clinton’s first term. Writing in the American Prospect, Reich says Gore is trailing Bush “because he’s not talking about what could be. He’s riding on what is.” On Social Security, writes Reich, “Gore is fighting to preserve the status quo. Who wants to go to battle on these grounds?” It’s a good question, and one for which Gore, even if he can soften his image, needs a better answer.

BY MATTHEW REES