CARTHAGE, Tenn. -- Vice President Al Gore, beginning the delicate process of separating himself from Bill Clinton, formally opened his presidential drive yesterday with a promise to provide "moral leadership" for America.
"As important as prosperity is, there is more to long for," he told 4,000 supporters at a countrified announcement ceremony in his family's Tennessee hometown. "There is a hunger and thirst for goodness among us."
In what is likely to be a central theme of his candidacy, Gore stressed his experience, particularly in national security.
In doing so, he drew an implicit contrast with Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who took office in 1994 and lacks foreign policy training.
"The world today is complex and volatile in the extreme, more than it has ever been," said Gore, 51, who was a veteran of 16 years in Congress before becoming vice president. "You deserve a leader who has been tested in it, who knows how to protect America and secure peace and freedom."
He said "revolutionary improvement" in public education was essential to keeping economic prosperity going. Throwing "crumbs of compassion" at Americans is no way to do that, Gore added, apparently in a swipe at Bush, the Republican front-runner, who likes to call himself a "compassionate conservative."
Unsuccessful in his first try for the presidency, 11 years ago, Gore starts out as a strong favorite for the Democratic nomination.
His only rival, former Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey, lags far behind in national opinion surveys, though he is showing signs of strength in New Hampshire, the first primary state.
In seeking to become only the second sitting vice president in more than a century to be elected president, Gore confronts a unique combination of problems.
He must step out from Clinton's shadow and establish his own identity -- a tricky maneuver for any loyal vice president. By announcing his candidacy now, months earlier than initially planned, Gore says he has freed himself to differ publicly with Clinton on the issues.
Gore is trying to overcome his stiffness as a public speaker, a liability made worse by comparisons to Clinton, a master political performer. Gore recently brought in a speech coach, Michael Sheehan, who offered advice as the vice president rehearsed his address here Tuesday night.
Gore is also seeking ways to capitalize on the successes of the Clinton-Gore administration, particularly the booming national economy, even while persuading scandal-weary voters to overlook his close association with an impeached president.
His appearance in Carthage, along with a flurry of high-profile interviews this week, reveal that he plans to use both words and symbols to put distance between himself and the man who chose him as his running mate in 1992.
In his 22-minute speech, Gore pledged to bring his "own values of faith and family" to the White House. Underscoring that point, the only people joining him onstage were close family members, including his wife, Tipper, their four children and Gore's 86-year-old mother, Pauline.
His eldest daughter, Karenna, eight months pregnant with their first grandchild, introduced her father because Tipper Gore awoke yesterday with a mild case of laryngitis.
The vice president mentioned Clinton's name twice but made no reference to the scandals of the administration. In interviews this week, he termed the president's behavior "awful" and "inexcusable" and said the Monica Lewinsky scandal had "wasted time" for the Clinton administration.
The Gores were also featured in a prime-time interview last night on ABC's "20/20." Through much of the interview with Diane Sawyer, the vice president clasped hands with Tipper, his high school sweetheart and wife of 29 years, whom many regard as one of his strongest campaign assets.
Gore aides refuse to blame the Clinton scandals for polls showing the vice president trailing not only Bush but also another potential GOP opponent, Elizabeth Hanford Dole, by double-digit margins.
But the drawbacks of the Lewinsky scandal are undeniable, said some Gore supporters who came to the verdant, rolling Middle Tennessee countryside to see him launch his campaign on a mild sunny morning.
"They weren't his fault, but I do feel like that's going to hurt," said Volene Barnes, a retired teacher from Lebanon, Tenn.
"It will be a problem," agreed Arnold Stuke, a state legislator from Soddy Daisy, Tenn., who said Gore was right to "start talking about the values that are so important to him and to the rest of us in this country." He praised the speech as "the best one I have ever heard him give."
After the cowboy-hatted Nashville singer John Michael Montgomery warmed up the crowd with country tunes like his pickup hit, "Be My Baby (Tonight)," the candidate and his family took the stage to the beat of Shania Twain's "Rock This County."
Gore spoke from a platform erected in the middle of Main Street, just outside the brick-clad Smith County Courthouse, where he launched his first campaign, for the House of Representatives, in 1976.
The only son of former Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore, who died late last year, Albert Gore Jr. grew up in a posh Washington hotel and was educated at an elite private school in the capital and at Harvard University.
But he spent summers and vacations at the family farm here, about an hour east of Nashville, and calls Carthage his hometown.
Gore's carefully choreographed event was disrupted by a small group of AIDS protesters standing close to the stage, who began blowing whistles and chanting anti-Gore slogans shortly after he began to speak. Rattled, the vice president tried to ignore them, except to quip, "I love free speech."
But he seemed to race through his remarks, at several points speaking over loud applause in an effort to reach the end of his text.
Aides say Gore plans to give unusually detailed plans of what he would do as president for this early phase of the campaign. They are hoping he will be seen as more substantive than Bush, who has been criticized, somewhat unfairly, as speaking only in generalities.
Gore's speech yesterday contained no new initiatives. But it did highlight some of the themes he has already developed.
He is promoting long-standing Democratic issues (protecting Social Security and Medicare, raising the minimum wage) and current Clinton administration proposals (expanding the Family Leave Act and providing prescription drugs under Medicare).
Gore has also adopted fresher themes from the Republicans, such as his new emphasis on using faith-based organizations to supplement government social programs.
Democratic politicians appear split over how serious Gore's political problems might be, with the election still 16 months away. Some believe the vice president's organization has overreacted to criticism of his uninspiring performance and to early stumbles, such as his exaggerated claim to have invented the Internet.
And yet, even Gore aides have been dismayed by some of his missteps. Only this week, in an address to the nation's mayors, Gore mistakenly observed that any teen-ager could walk into a gun store and buy a weapon.
Gun purchases by minors have long been illegal, and the slip was compounded by the fact that Gore intends to put a heavy campaign emphasis on ending gun violence and making schools safer.
"It certainly wasn't the way we wanted to set the scene" for his announcement, one White House aide acknowledged.
Pub Date: 6/17/99