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| MAKING A RUN FOR IT | |
 June 17, 1999 
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In his hometown of Carthage, Tennessee, Vice President Al Gore officially kicked off his campaign for presidency. Following a background report, Jim Lehrer discusses Mr. Gore's presidential bid with James Brosnan of The Memphis Commercial- Appeal and Ceci Connolly of The Washington Post.
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| Kicking off the campaign. | |||||||||||
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VICE PRESIDENT GORE: You know what it was like here seven years ago. New Hampshire was losing 10,000 jobs every single year. Now you are creating 16,000 jobs every single year.
VICE PRESIDENT GORE: Come with me toward America's new horizon, across that horizon stands the values and the promise and prosperity of strengthening every family, lifting every child, leveling every barrier, leaving no one behind. Here at the center of my hometown, in the heart of America, in the midst of the people I love, that is the new horizon I see! (Applause)
AL GORE: I did not enter this race to pursue the vice presidency and I still have no interest in it. I think incidentally that George Bush is going to prove again this fall that that is a political dead end, and I'm not interested in trying to fill his top-siders. (Laughter)
VICE PRESIDENT GORE: The Al Gore version of "the Macarena." (Cheers) Would you like to see it again? KWAME HOLMAN: Traditionally, it is difficult for a vice president to draw attention to himself, but Gore grabbed the spotlight in 1993 by casting the tie- breaking vote in the senate to push through President Clinton's deficit reduction package. And last month, Gore again broke a senate tie to pass major gun control legislation, requiring background checks of weapons buyers at gun shows. SEN. TOM DASCHLE: I don't know about the rest of my colleagues, but I love the vice president's voting record. He continues to vote right and every time he votes we win. |
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| The focus of a congressional investigation. | |||||||||||
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VICE PRESIDENT GORE: My counsel tells me there is no controlling legal authority that says there was any violation of any law. KWAME HOLMAN: Gore never was tied directly to any fund-raising illegalities. And as they geared up for this campaign, Gore's advisors have tried gradually to separate Gore from the various investigations targeting President Clinton. Candidate Gore began that subtle process by stressing moral leadership in his official announcement yesterday, yet
KWAME HOLMAN: Yet, Gore is expected to embrace the accomplishments of the administration. VICE PRESIDENT GORE: Under the policies President Clinton and I have proposed, instead of the biggest deficits in history, we now have the biggest surpluses in history. I want to keep our prosperity going and I know how to do it. I want to do it the right way, not by letting people fend for themselves or hoping for crumbs of compassion, but by giving people the skills and knowledge to succeed in their own right in the next century. (Cheers and applause) And I want to extend our prosperity to the unskilled and underprivileged, to Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta, to our farms and inner cities, to our new immigrants -- y tambien en las comunidades.
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KWAME
HOLMAN: He still is the vice president, but the signs around the school
gymnasium didn't mention it. This was candidate Al Gore, campaigning
today in Manchester, New Hampshire, site of the first 2000 presidential
primary. However, Gore did tell voters they've benefited from the policies
of the Clinton-Gore administration. 
KWAME
HOLMAN: Gore told the crowd that as president he would help create even
more jobs by using tax cuts to bolster high-tech research. This was
the second of a four-day inaugural swing. The vice president opened
his presidential campaign yesterday at the Smith County Courthouse in
his hometown of Carthage, Tennessee, where 5,000 supporters cheered
on their favorite son.
KWAME
HOLMAN: It was at this same courthouse that Albert Gore, Jr., announced
his first run for the presidency 12 years ago. Gore won several primaries
on Super Tuesday in 1988, but his campaign faltered as the primary race
headed North. Eventually Gore withdrew from the presidential campaign,
and as he did so, said he would not be interested in the job of vice
president. 
KWAME
HOLMAN: But four years later, Gore agreed to pursue that very position,
sharing the spotlight with Bill Clinton as the Democrats took back the
White House for the first time in 16 years. Though they presented themselves
as a leadership team, it was candidate Clinton who was credited with
exceptional people skills, while Gore developed a reputation for being
wooden. He's never been able to shake the characterization and it's
become a running joke. 
KWAME
HOLMAN: But Gore also drew attention of another sort, from congressional
investigators after the successful 1996 re-election campaign. Gore had
attended an event at a Buddhist temple in California where money for
the Democratic Party was raised illegally. He also made questionable
fund- raising phone calls from the white house, although he denied any
wrongdoing. 
VICE
PRESIDENT GORE: I make you this pledge: If you entrust me with the presidency,
I will marshal its authority, its resources and its moral leadership
to fight for America's families. (Applause) With your help, I will take
my own values of faith and family to the presidency to build an America
that is not only better off, but better. 
KWAME
HOLMAN: Gore's last statement in Spanish may have been aimed at potential
Republican opponent George W. Bush, a fluent Spanish speaker who expects
to do well among Hispanic voters and Gore's "crumbs of compassion"
reference may have been a slap at Bush's campaign theme, "compassionate
conservatism."