8/18/00 8:00 a.m.
The Loser
Gore's speech will not dispel the stench of death around his campaign.

By Ramesh Ponnuru, NR senior editor

hat smell in Los Angeles isn't just the whiff of patchouli wafting over from the protesters; it's the stench of death emanating from the Gore campaign. It's a scent that would be familiar to any Republican who was in San Diego in 1996. The delegates here think Al Gore is going to lose. They think that Gore is an uninspiring party hack who got the nomination because it was his turn, and that George W. Bush has far better political skills. They think, in short, that they have put up their Bob Dole against the Republicans' Bill Clinton. Gore's speech tonight did nothing to dispel that impression.

The best that can be said about Gore's performance tonight is that nothing in it would make viewers actively dislike him. He did not come across as condescending or arrogant. This is progress of sorts. In every other respect, the speech was a failure. It contained not a single memorable line, not one good joke. And one still had that disconcerting feeling that Gore is running for president in order to prepare the way for an alien invasion. He explained that for 25 years he had "been listening to people — holding open meetings, in the places where they live and work. And you know what? I've learned a lot." I half-expected him to continue, "I have learned that you are drinkers of milk and eaters of meat. That you require oxygen to survive. . ."

For the most part, Gore pitched his speech to liberals. He was more adamant in his hostility to vouchers than Clinton was in 1996, saying he would oppose "any plan" that sent tax revenues to private schools. On affirmative action, he did not even use the Clintonian evasion of "mend it, don't end it"; he just pledged to "defend" it. He was more interested in regulating trade than in freeing it.

Perhaps his boldest move (keeping in mind that there is a fine line between daring and stupid) was to distance himself from the Clinton record. He explicitly said he was not asking for votes on the basis of the Clinton administration's past performance. While noting his approval of the stock-market boom, he said that his "focus on working families — people trying to make house payments and car payments, working overtime to save for college and do right by their kids." A lot of those working families are putting their savings in the stock market. A majority of the electorate now holds stocks, either directly or indirectly. Doesn't everyone know this by now? Apparently not. Gore is the candidate that time forgot. One of the success stories he mentioned was a woman who went off welfare to become "a proud member of IBEW Local 288" — surely the name of every child's dream.

We are supposed to elect Gore because he will "fight" for us. Is there a hunger in the land for someone who will fill that role? And why should we think that Gore would be a more effective fighter than Clinton? If Clinton was unable to enact HMO regulations, a prescription-drug subsidy, and the like, why should we think Gore would be able to do so? What Gore is promising is another four years of fruitless fighting. Gov. Bush is calculating that the public has had enough of that. His mission is to pacify our politics; his essential appeal is that with him as president you will never have to think about Washington again. Whatever else one thinks about what Bush is selling, there is at least a public demand for it.

Gore might have been better off making a slashing attack on Bush as not up to the job. Instead, he tried to make Bush's likability into a liability. "The presidency is more than a popularity contest," he said in what might become the speech's most-quoted line. He also conceded that he "won't always be the most exciting politician." What he is arguing, then, is that the ability to excite the nation and to engage its affections is irrelevant to leadership. The public is not going to be persuaded of such an absurd view.

No wonder the few Republicans in Los Angeles are giddy. This convention was one of Gore's two or three opportunities to turn this race around. Now he's only got the debates, and he's already lost the pre-debate expectations game. And his strategy — discarding the Clinton record and Clinton's centrism and offering himself alone to the electorate — is, um, questionable. Clinton isn't the problem. Gore is. It appears that he did indeed write his speech himself. He should fire the speechwriter.