Al Gore

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Al Gore Order: 45th Vice President Term of Office: January 20, 1993 - January 20, 2001 Followed: Dan Quayle Succeeded by: Dick Cheney Date of Birth March 31, 1948 Place of Birth: Washington, D.C. Wife: Mary Elizabeth Aitcheson Gore Profession: Journalist Political Party: Democrat President: Bill Clinton

Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American Democratic politician who served as the forty-fifth Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He ran for President in 2000 following Bill Clinton's two four-year terms, and was defeated by the Republican candidate George W. Bush in a close election whose outcome remained uncertain for over a month pending legal arguments over vote-counting procedures in Florida.

Table of contents

1 Early and personal life 2 Career as journalist 3 Early political career 4 Vice Presidency 5 2000 candidacy 6 Private citizen 7 2004 presidential election 8 Issues and views 9 Academic record 10 Military service 11 Influence on the Internet 12 Gore and the environment 13 Gore in the 2000 presidential election 14 External links

Early and personal life

Born the son of Albert Gore, Sr., a veteran Democratic Senator from Tennessee, and grandson of Thomas and Pauline Gore, Al Gore, Jr. divided his childhood between Washington, D.C. (where his father worked) and Carthage, Tennessee. During the school year, Gore Jr. lived in a hotel in Washington, where he attended the elite St. Albans School; during summer vacations, he lived in Carthage, where he worked on the Gore family farm.

In 1965, Gore enrolled at Harvard College, where he majored in government. His roommate was actor Tommy Lee Jones. He graduated from Harvard in June of 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

In 1970, Gore married Mary Elizabeth Aitcheson (Tipper Gore). The couple first met many years before at a dance held when both were in high school in Tennessee. With Tipper, he has four children: Karenna (born August 6, 1973), married to Drew Schiff; Kristin (born June 5, 1977), Sarah (born January 7, 1979), and Albert (born October 19, 1982). The Gores also have two grandchildren: Wyatt and Anna Schiff.

Former Vice President Gore owns a small farm near Carthage, and the family attends New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Carthage.

Career as journalist

Although opposed to the Vietnam war, on August 7, 1969, Gore enrolled in the army to participate in the Vietnam War effort. After completing training as a military journalist, Gore shipped to Vietnam in early 1971. He served as an Army war correspondent until May 24 of that year, slightly less than two years after he enlisted.

For more information on Gore's Vietnam service, see: [1], [2], [3], as well as further information below.

After returning from Vietnam, Gore spent five years as a reporter for the Tennessean, a newspaper headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. During this time, Gore also attended Vanderbilt Divinity School and Law School, although he did not complete a degree at either. Gore's mother was a member of Vanderbilt Law School's first class to accept women.

Early political career

In the spring of 1976, Gore quit law school to run for the U.S. House, in Tennessee's Fourth District. Gore defeated Stanley Rogers in the Democratic primary, then ran unopposed and was elected to his first Congressional post. He was re-elected three times, in 1978, 1980, and 1982. In 1984 Gore did not run for the House; instead he successfully ran for a seat in the Senate. Gore served as the Senator from Tennessee until 1992, when he was elected Vice President.

In 1988, Gore ran for President but failed to obtain the Democratic nomination, which went instead to Michael Dukakis.

On April 3, 1989, Gore's six-year-old son Albert was nearly killed in an automobile accident while leaving the Baltimore Orioles opening game. Because of this and the resulting lengthy healing process, his father chose to stay near him during the recovery instead of laying the foundation for a presidential primary campaign against eventual nominee Bill Clinton. Gore started writing Earth in the Balance, his book on environmental conservation, during his son's recovery.

Vice Presidency

Bill Clinton chose then-U.S. Senator Gore to be his running mate on July 9, 1992. After winning the U.S. presidential election, 1992, Al Gore was inaugurated as the 45th Vice President of the United States on January 20, 1993. Clinton and Gore were re-elected to a second term in the U.S. presidential election, 1996.

Gore was mostly a behind-the-scenes player in his tenure as Vice President. Early in their first term, the president enlisted Gore to study the entire federal government to pinpoint wasteful areas. Gore's National Performance Review guided Clinton when he downsized the government. The vice president was also instrumental in the passage of 1993's North American Free Trade Agreement.

The president often looked to Gore for advice on foreign-policy issues; coming from the governorship of Arkansas, Clinton lacked foreign policy experience, and had chosen Gore as his running mate in part to offset this weakness. Gore favored action against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in 1998. He also supported the bombing campaign (Operation Desert Fox) in Iraq in response to Saddam Hussein's unwillingness to cooperate with UN inspectors.

The Clinton Administration led the United States into the longest period of sustained economic growth in American history -- marked by 22 million new jobs, and real incomes rising for the first time in a generation.

2000 candidacy

After two terms as Vice President, Gore ran for President. In the Democratic primaries, Gore faced an early challenge from Bill Bradley. Bradley withdrew from the race in early March 2000 after Gore won every primary election.

During the entire U.S. presidential election, 2000, Gore was neck and neck in the polls with Governor of Texas George W. Bush. The actual vote on November 7 was so close that it gave rise to litigation that took more than a month to settle. Although Gore won the nationwide popular vote by more than 500,000 votes, he eventually lost by 5 electoral votes, with the outcome ultimately decided by only a few hundred popular votes in Florida. Gore ended up receiving the most votes of any Democratic candidate in history.

For more information on the 2000 election, see: 2000 Presidential Election

Private citizen

Following his election loss, a bearded Gore accepted visiting professorships at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and Middle Tennessee State University. In 2002, Al Gore accepted a consulting job with a Los Angeles law firm and become an adviser to Google. Following the November 5, 2002 midterm elections Gore re-emerged into the public eye with a 14-city book tour and a well-orchestrated "full Gore" media blitz which included a pair of policy speeches. On September 23, Gore delivered a speech on the impending War with Iraq and the War on Terrorism that generated a fair amount of commentary. Less than two weeks later, on October 2, he made a speech on Bush's handling of the economy to the Brookings Institution. Also, during this time period Gore guest starred on several programs such as the David Letterman Show and Saturday Night Live appearing much more relaxed and funnier as a private citizen than he did while holding public office.

In 2003 Gore joined the board of directors of Apple Computer. He also made the news around this time when it was reported that he was looking to buy the Vivendi Cable Network to start a news station that would have a combination of CNN and MTV and would try to reach to young viewers. However, till this point in time, no deal has been struck between the Gore led group and Vivendi. On the political front, Gore kept his promise of staying involved in public debate when he offered his criticism and advice to the Bush Administration on key issues such as the Occupation of Iraq, USA Patriot Act, and the environment.

2004 presidential election

Initially, Al Gore was touted as the most logical opponent of George W. Bush in the 2004 United States Presidential Election. "Re-elect Gore!" was a common slogan among many Democrats who felt the former Vice President had been unfairly cheated out the presidency, despite winning of the popular vote. On December 16, 2002 however, Gore announced that he would not run in 2004, saying that it was time for "fresh faces" and "new ideas" to emerge from the Democrats. When he appeared on a 60 Minutes interview, Gore said that he felt if he had run, the focus of the election would be the rematch rather than the issues. Gore's former running mate, Joe Lieberman quickly announced his own candidacy, something he vowed he would not do if Gore ran.

In a surprise move that shocked many political pundits, Al Gore publicly endorsed Howard Dean (over his former running mate Lieberman) weeks before the first primary of the election cycle. Many believe that while Dean was the front-runner with respect to polling in the early primary states and the top fundraiser, this move in many ways legitimized Dean into the establishment faction of the Democratic Party, leaving Dean in a very strong position to win the Democratic nomination. But this move also legitimized Dean in the eyes of the media and his competitors, who began a relentless simultaneous attack against Dean. Despite substantial leads in pre-election polling, Dean was hurt enough that he failed to win any of the initial contests in democratic nomination process and his poor performance prompted him to stop campaigning after losing the Wisconsin primary.

On February 9, 2004, on the eve of the Tennessee primary, Gore gave what many consider his most harsh criticism of the president yet when he accused the President, George W. Bush, of betraying the country by using the 9/11 attacks as a justification for the invasion of Iraq. "He betrayed this country!" Mr. Gore shouted into the microphone. "He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place." Gore also urged all democrats to unite behind their eventual nominee proclaiming, "any one of these candidates is far better than George W. Bush."

Issues and views

Below is a list of major issues and the views of Former Vice President Al Gore. These views were taken from public statements, speeches, debates, interviews, etc. from throughout Mr. Gore's career.

Abortion

• Supports woman's right to choose and will defend against any attack.
• Ban partial-birth abortion, except for maternal health.

Civil Rights

• Tipper & Al pushed for voluntary record lyric labeling.
• Confederate flag divides-remove it, but no boycott.
• Review disenfranchisement of felons but keep the concept.
• Affirmative action: mend it, don't end it.
• Close gender gap; equal pay for women.
• Find some way for civic union; but not gay marriage.
• Eliminate don't ask, don't tell; allow homosexuals to serve in the army.
• Repeal parts of USA Patriot Act that invade privacy and that violate civil liberties.

Education

• Favors increased federal spending to cut class size, recruit teachers and assist districts in paying for special education.
• Supports creating universal pre-school education and savings programs as well as assisting individuals in saving for college and higher education.
• Against vouchers; build up public schools instead.
• For-profit schools OK within public system.
• Shut failing schools, but then re-open and turn them around.

Health care

• Wants subsidies to ensure that children, even in working poor and lower-middle class families, have access to health care.
• Would increase tax credits to make insurance more affordable to small businesses.
• Would add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.
• Wants some form of non-government universal health care.
• Physicians, not HMOs should make medical decisions.
• Stronger penalties for HMOs who drop seniors.
• Remove stigma and treat mental illness like physical illness.
• Medicare Rx plan: you choose, Medicare pays.
• Allow 55-65 year olds to buy into Medicare.
• Protect Medicare's funds with lockbox.
• Patient rights: power to doctors, but patients should have the right of appeal.

Social Security

• Wants to use $1.8 trillion of the projected surplus over the next 10 years to secure program until 2050.
• Social Security Plus: voluntary tax-free private investment.
• Use stock market for private investment, not Social Security.
• Privatization is stock market roulette.
• Opposed cutting Medicare; commit more funds instead.

Immigration

• English is our language, but being English-only divides us.
• Citizenship for 1.2 million cleared backlog, but sacrifices quality.
• More immigrants to alleviate labor shortage.
• Immigrants from communist Cuba are different.
• Immigration leads to diversity and cultural tolerance.

Agriculture

• Existing policy needs to be replaced with a safety net that increases income assistance to farmers when prices fall, depressing farm income.
• Safety net for farmers and focused rural development.
• Supports ethanol subsidies and farm safety net.

Trade

• Link trade to the environment and labor.
• Agrees with unions on most of the issues, but not on free trade.
• Free and fair trade means economic growth and jobs.
• Protectionism only protects us from prosperity.
• WTO requires Japan & Europe to deal with our trade issues.
• Open markets with safeguards for labor and environment.

Taxes

• Favors targeted tax cuts to help working families save for education and retirement.
• Except for wealthiest, people should be exempt from estate tax.
• Cut taxes for 99% of middle class, but not the wealthiest 1%.
• Lower taxes for working families with targeted tax reform.
• Save Social Security, Medicare, and address debt before cuts.
• Eliminate the estate tax for the little guy, not the wealthy.

Campaign finance reform

• Favors broad campaign finance reform that would ban soft money, provide free and discounted TV and radio time.
• Favors tighter limitations on PAC and individual contributions.
• Campaign finance reform will help end cynicism in politics.
• Free TV and radio for candidates during campaigns.

Principles and religion

• I have kept the faith with family and in office.
• America's mission: prove that freedom and diversity work.
• Teach morals and character in schools.
• God should play an important role in life.
• Voluntary school prayer is OK, if teachers aren't involved.
• Respect the Constitution and others when affirming faith.
• Faith-based organizations should replace government programs.

Crime

• National hate crimes law is needed badly.
• Invest in police and prosecutors to reduce crime.
• Recognizes disparities in sentencing blacks.
• Tough second-chance schools for kids.
• More after school programs to keep kids out of trouble.
• Lead a national crusade against drugs.
• Careful death penalty for deterrence.
• Use DNA techniques to make death penalty more fair.
• Death penalty for murdering federal officers.
• Crime plan: more police, tougher penalties, and victims' rights.
• Three strikes law should apply only to truly violent crimes.

Gun control

• Favors requiring child-safety locks on all new guns.
• Wants gun buyers to obtain a photo license after passing a background check and safety test and to impose a three-day waiting period.
• Focus on gun safety, not hunters and/or sportsmen.
• Passed the toughest gun control law in 30 years and the same for the next 30.
• Zero tolerance for guns at school.
• Raise minimum age to 21.

Environment

• Has supported strengthening clean-air standards, accelerating toxic-waste cleanup and expansion of public right-to-know rules.
• Supports reducing emission of carbon dioxide and other gases to improve global warming.
• Suppors the Kyoto Treaty
• Supports national parks
• Against drilling ANWR.
• Global Marshall Plan: five strategic goals.
• Global warming is a clear and present threat, but it is preventable.
• The Bush Administration is entirely owned by special interests.
• Tax credits and business incentives for energy efficiency.
• Release oil from Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
• Energy policy: focus on future tech & incentives.

Defense

• As a Vietnam veteran, Senator and Vice President, Gore believes in the importance of a strong military force to defend America's vital interests.
• The best technology makes the U.S. military the best.
• Reform the military to a smaller, but more effective one.
• Use military as last resort, only when effective and shared.
• Sensible increases in defense spending.
• Personnel: better pay, better housing, family services, and health care.
• Test Ban Treaty is the tide of history; ratify it.

2003 invasion of Iraq

• Opposed the invasion of Iraq due to repeated "false impressions" given by the Bush Administration.
• Iraq posed no real threat to the United States, so preemption was unjustified.
• The removal of Saddam Hussein was a positive accomplishment.
• War with Iraq diverted attention from the real objective: Osama bin Laden
• President Bush abused the trust of the people by exploiting the fears of the American people in order to take this nation on an adventure that had been preordained before the attacks of 9/11 ever took place.

Academic record

On March 21, 2000, The Washington Post reported that in his second year at Harvard, Gore earned a D in one science course, a C-minus in introductory economics, and two C-pluses and a B-minus in other, unspecified courses and during his junior year, Gore earned a B, B-plus, and an A-minus in three government courses. (See United States academic grade.)

During the 2000 Presidential campaign, conservatives pointed out that this evidence seemed to contradict the popular perception that George W. Bush was the less intelligent of the two candidates. Conservatives added that Gore failed five of the eight classes he took over three semesters at Vanderbilt Divinity School, and that Gore never completed his degree at Vanderbilt Law School.

In rebuttal, Gore defenders noted that:

• Prior to his attending Harvard, Gore graduated from St. Albans ranked 25th in a class of 51, and scored 1355 on his SAT test, well above average.
• Gore graduated from Harvard with honors (cum laude) based on his strong senior thesis, on the impact of television on the U.S. presidency. His sophomore year was his worst year, academically, and was not representative of his college career.
• On IQ tests taken in 1961 and 1964, Gore scored 133 and 134 respectively, which placed him above the 95th percentile in the general population.
• Gore was working at the Tennessean, and also dealing with his recently born baby daughter, during his time at Vanderbilt Divinity school. Under such conditions, it was perhaps understandable that Gore would not prioritize his studies.
• Gore left Vanderbilt Law School because he decided to run for Congress instead. It was therefore unfair to accuse Gore of being an academic failure for not completing his law degree.

Therefore, Gore advocates claimed, it was reasonable to assume that Gore was intelligent and academically successful, although perhaps not exceptionally so.

Military service

Gore served in the Army from August 1969 to May 1971. The chronology of his military service is as follows:

• August 1969: Enlisted at the Newark, New Jersey recruiting office.
• August to October 1969: 8 weeks of basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey
• Late October 1969 to December 1970: Fort Rucker, Alabama, on-the-job occupational training at the Army Flier newspaper.
• January 1971 to May 1971: field reporter in Vietnam, part of the 20th Engineer Brigade, stationed primarily at Bien Hoa Air Base near Saigon.
• May 24, 1971: Discharged, after granting of early discharge request, as part of general troop reductions.

Gore stated many times that he opposed the Vietnam War, but chose to enlist anyway. Some observers have noted that Gore could have avoided Vietnam in any number of ways:

• He could have married Tipper, to whom he was already engaged.
• He could have gone to graduate school and received a deferment, as many of his peers at Harvard did.
• He could have used his father's connections (as a Senator) to avoid service.
• He could have escaped to Canada, as many men his age did.

Gore considered all these options, but claimed that his sense of civic duty compelled him to serve. On the other hand, some have suggested that Gore already foresaw that military service might be advantageous in his future career in politics.

During the 2000 presidential election, some conservatives accused Al Gore of insufficient military service, because he was "only" a journalist and spent only five months in Vietnam, which some sources have characterized as "less than half the standard two-year tour". Although this is true, Gore served in the Army only 75 fewer days than the standard two-year term. Gore was not shipped immediately to Vietnam after completing basic training, spending most of his term in Fort Rucker.

Because Gore was a journalist, he was never exposed to front-line combat, and some allege that his famous father's influence helped him to obtain this position. However, others argue that any man who enlisted with a Harvard degree had a good chance of being assigned a support specialty rather than an infantry position.

Once in Vietnam, some also allege that Gore received special treatment as a former Senator's son (Gore Sr. lost the 1970 election, and was no longer a Senator by the time Gore arrived in Vietnam). According to combat photographer H. Alan Leo, Gore was protected from dangerous situations at the request of Brigadier General Kenneth B. Cooper, the 20th Engineer Brigades Commander. Leo stated that Gore's trips into the field were safe, and that Leo "could have worn a tuxedo." These remarks seem to contradict Gore's public statements that he "walked through the elephant grass" and "was fired upon".

For his part, Gore has stated that he knew Leo but rarely traveled with him in Vietnam, and that he never felt that he was being given special protection. On the other hand, Leo's testimony is that Cooper gave the orders before Gore arrived, so Gore would not know about them. The question of whether Leo freqently traveled with Gore or not still has not been conclusively answered.

Influence on the Internet

On March 9, 1999, Wolf Blitzer interviewed Gore on CNN. During this interview, Gore said, "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." His statement caused no surprise at the time, and none of the journalists who covered it thought it worth including in their stories. [4]

But two days later, the Republican Party began issuing press releases and statements denouncing Gore for claiming to have "created the Internet". Conservative news outlets, pundits, and activists quickly repeated many variations on this theme in order to discredit Gore. The statement soon metamorphosed into the meme "Al Gore said he invented the Internet!" One Republican press release noted that the ARPANET, the Internet's predecessor, existed in 1971, five years before Gore even ran for Congress.

However, observers noted that the ARPANET was a relatively small public-sector research project, whereas the Internet is a massive private-sector project that was created much later. Gore's statement referred specifically to his introduction around 1990 of a bill designed to fund the creation of an "information systems highway" for education. The bill itself, and the phrase "information superhighway" in particular, were widely seen as factors in advancing the growth of the Internet.

On September 28, 2000, an email jointly signed by Vint Cerf (often called the "father of the Internet") and Robert Kahn stated the following:

As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship. Though easily forgotten, now, at the time this was an unproven and controversial concept. Our work on the Internet started in 1973 and was based on even earlier work that took place in the mid-late 1960s. But the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early stages of its deployment, Congressman Gore provided intellectual leadership by helping create the vision of the potential benefits of high speed computing and communication. As an example, he sponsored hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural disasters and other crises.

 

As a Senator in the 1980s Gore urged government agencies to consolidate what at the time were several dozen different and unconnected networks into an "Interagency Network." Working in a bi-partisan manner with officials in Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush's administrations, Gore secured the passage of the High Performance Computing and Communications Act in 1991. This "Gore Act" supported the National Research and Education Network (NREN) initiative that became one of the major vehicles for the spread of the Internet beyond the field of computer science.

 

As Vice President Gore promoted building the Internet both up and out, as well as releasing the Internet from the control of the government agencies that spawned it. He served as the major administration proponent for continued investment in advanced computing and networking and private sector initiatives such as Net Day. He was and is a strong proponent of extending access to the network to schools and libraries. Today, approximately 95% of our nation's schools are on the Internet. Gore provided much-needed political support for the speedy privatization of the Internet when the time arrived for it to become a commercially-driven operation.

When presented with this evidence (which is still not widely known), many conclude that, although worded poorly, Gore's statement was essentially correct. Gore did take the initiative in creating the Internet within the United States Congress. Gore, however, was never fully understood on this point and did not clearly rebut George W. Bush when teased about the issue during their debates. He did however often attempt to play-up the perceived silliness of the allegation, by often making jokes about his influences over the internet. On the David Letterman Show, he joked that Americans should vote for him because "I gave you the internet, and I can take it away!"

Gore and the environment

Gore's book Earth in the Balance (ISBN 0452269350) gave Gore a reputation for strongly pro-environmentalist views. This reputation was an asset with some constituencies, but because of it Gore was often accused of environmental hypocrisy, environmental radicalism, or both.

Corporate use of Gore family land

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Gore was accused of hypocrisy because of the behavior of corporations that had contracted to extract resources from land owned by his family. The corporations were the Occidental Petroleum Corporation and the Pasminco Zinc Mine.

Al Gore owned (indirectly through his father's estate) several thousand shares of Occidental Petroleum Corporation. Occidental Petroleum angered environmentalists by trying to open a new oil/gas drilling field in Colombia.

Additionally, the Gore family licensed mining rights on their Cumberland River Valley farm to Pasminco Zinc, which was fined in 2000 for exceeding water pollution limits. Specifically, the Environmental Protection Agency found that zinc levels in the Caney Fork river near the mine were 1.480 mg/L (milligrams per liter); the maximum allowed monthly average was .65 mg/L, and the daily allowed maximum was 1.30 mg/L. Therefore, Pasminco Zinc was found on one occasion to exceed the daily maximum for zinc pollution by about 14%.

However, even the conservative Wall Street Journal stated that "mining is intrinsically a messy business, and Pasminco Zinc generally has a good environmental record" (The Wall Street Journal, June 29, 2000). Two independent tests sponsored by the Wall Street Journal, conducted in September 1999 and June 2000, found that the water in the river was within legal limits, although soil tests near the river revealed troublingly high levels of heavy metals.

Gore and the internal combustion engine

Ironically, even as Gore was criticized for being insufficiently environmentalist, he was simultaneously attacked for being too radical an environmentalist. Conservative commentators frequently claimed that Gore wanted to "ban the internal combustion engine". The basis for these claims was quote on p. 326 of Earth in the Balance:

[I]t ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a twenty-five year period.

This quote clearly does not advocate the banning of the internal combustion engine. The relevant chapter advocated the replacement of the internal combustion engine with more advanced technology. Many agreed with Gore's assessment, and not only radical environmentalists---in 1998, John Smith, then C.E.O. of General Motors, said:

No car company will be able to thrive in the 21st century if it relies solely on internal combustion engines. (New York Times, January 5 1998)

In corroboration, the Wall Street Journal reported that

[Smith] predicts a "slow phase-off" of the internal combustion engine in 20 to 30 years . . . Any auto-maker that doesn't do so risks being left in the dust. (Wall Street Journal, January 5, 1998)

Or, in other words, the C.E.O. of General Motors agreed with Al Gore that the internal combustion engine should be phased out in a few decades in favor of more advanced technology.

Nevertheless, conservatives attacked Gore, attributing different positions to him. For example, Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican National Committee, stated that Gore was "a wasteful dreamer" who was trying to "do away with the internal combustion engine [and] the automobile". (New York Times, March 16, 1999) (note also that Gore never advocated the elimination of the automobile). Nicholson also said that

. . . unlike Clinton (who is liberal but pragmatic), Gore is an ideologue who believes the combustible engine (i.e., the automobile) is the earth's greatest enemy. (Washington Post, April 30, 1999).

Jack Kemp, former U.S. House Representative from western New York and former Chairman of the House Republican Leadership Conference, stated:

Al Gore said the other day he wants to eliminate the internal combustion engine. Now let me ask you-we've got 162 million internal combustion engines on the earth. Do we want 162 million horse-drawn carriages?

Note that Gore never called for the elimination of the engine, just the replacement of internal combustion engines with more advanced technology.

Throughout the election, the United States press did not call attention to the gulf between Gore's statements and the claims of his critics on this issue.

Gore in the 2000 presidential election

There are many opinions, frequently contradictory, on why Gore lost the 2000 election.

Some contend that, since Gore received a larger share of the popular vote, he actually won, and failed to become President only because of a technicality. Some call this fact irrelevant, as the processes of the American electoral system do not grant any explicit power to the popular vote. However, others note that, in previous elections in American history wherein the popular and electoral votes did not coincide, the elected President was assumed to lack a strong "popular mandate". These people claim the electoral college is a systemic flaw that should be corrected; and that Al Gore should not be faulted for "losing" when he received more votes than his opponent.

Some supports contend that a plurality of Florida voters did vote for Gore, and George W. Bush won by successfully preventing the votes from being counted; however, the evidence regarding the final vote tally is inconclusive. Since the election, recounts have been conducted by dozens of news organizations from around the world with results that are confusing at best. Some have claimed that Bush would have actually increased his lead if state wide recounts had taken place, others claim that Gore would have won the recounts.

Speculations as to the failure of Gore's political strategy include the following:

• The Clinton problem: It is widely believed that Gore made insufficient efforts to link himself to the Clinton administration's policies. Many speculate that Gore was too eager to dissociate himself from Clinton's personal scandals.
• Gore's personality: Much attention was paid to Gore's audible sighing while Bush was answering questions in the first of the Bush/Gore debates. CNN instant polls immediately following this debate found that viewers felt Gore had won by a narrow margin. Twenty-two voters were interviewed by CNN, and none of them volunteered comments on Gore's behavior (CNN, October 3 2000). When given explicit, leading questions by conservative Frank Luntz of the MSNBC channel, an equal number of viewers were troubled by Gore's sighs and Bush's repeated invocations of "fuzzy math" (see George W. Bush). Some conclude that the observation of Gore's alleged personality flaws seems to have originated with (and been propagated by) conservative news organizations. Regardless of voters' original reactions, however, subsequent press coverage concentrated heavily on Gore's sighs and other perceived flaws. Gore's behavior during the first debate was even the basis for a sketch on NBC's Saturday Night Live television program, which according to some sources, members of Gore's campaign asked him to watch before the next debate. Whether or not he watched the sketch, his behavior was noticeably subdued in the second debate. On Election Day, Gore himself would appear on a Saturday Night Live prime time special to make a few jokes about this behavior.
• Populist rhetoric: Gore ran on a somewhat more populist platform than his predecessor Clinton. Although Gore supported trade liberalization and many other Clintonite reforms, he also used rhetoric that drew attention to growing gaps between rich and poor in American society. Some found this language divisive. However, the notion that this position hurt his popularity is contradicted by the fact that his poll numbers went up substantially shortly after his strongly populist speech on August 16, 2000 at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.

External links

• General
  • Al Gore Support Center:: The Home of Hardcore Gore Supporters
  • Clinton-Gore Accomplishments
  • The Life of Al Gore- Washington Post

• Recent Speeches by Al Gore
  • Gore Speaks on the Use of "Fear" in Politics
  • Gore Speaks on Global Warming and the Environment
  • Gore Calls for the Repeal of the Patriot Act
  • Gore Blasts Bush for Mis Leading America

• Al Gore and the Internet
  • An Examination of the Origins of the "Al Gore invented the Internet" Memo
  • Full Text of Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn's Email on Gore and the Internet
  • A Wired News Piece on Al Gore's Claimed Contribution to the Internet

• Al Gore Myths and Media Bias
  • Gore Myths Page
  • Media Bias Against Al Gore Exposed

Preceded by: Dan Quayle

Vice Presidents of the United States

Succeeded by: Dick Cheney