Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Will Gore really be different from Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 16:22:11 EST Message-ID: \SE A \HD Will Gore really be different from rest? \BY Donald Lambro and J. Jennings Moss \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES Since they stood side by side beneath the sugar-white columns of the Old State House in Little Rock on election night, President-elect Bill Clinton has sent signal after signal that his vice president, Al Gore, will be a full partner in his administration. That's what every president-elect says, and every vice president eventually becomes the butt of Washington humor. This is the job that John Nance Garner, the first of FDR's three veeps, once scorned as "not worth a pitcher of warm spit." And when Mr. Gore stood at the president-elect's side at his first news conference in Little Rock this week, erect and stiff as a cardboard cutout, nodding silent agreement with everything his boss was saying, some people wondered whether the Tennessean was on his way to an early exile to state funerals and ceremonial trivia. "Nobody asked him a question," explained George Stephanopoulos, the president-elect's senior spokesman. "Senator Gore is going to be a full partner in this transition and in the administration. He's been a full partner in the discussions so far and I expect that'll continue." With the exception of a brief trip to Washington for a Veterans Day ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Mr. Gore has in fact been in Little Rock since the election. Transition officials say he has participated in all of the key meetings. He is said to be providing advice on how the incoming administration can get its proposals through the thorny congressional process that has frustrated presidents in the past. One transition aide, who asked not to be identified, said the only important meetings in which Mr. Gore did not participate were the one-on-one sessions Mr. Clinton held with top staffers the day after he was elected. "Al has been in the room and at the table," he said. "But this is about Bill Clinton and the direction he's going to lead the country in, and Al Gore sees his role as sort of an adviser." Their close relationship is generational as well as political, two career politicians from neighboring Southern states who come from dissimilar social backgrounds but share a passion for government and policy. Both are baby boomers. Mr. Clinton, 46, grew up in a hardscrabble environment in rural and small-town Arkansas and after a public-school education got his degrees at Georgetown University and Yale Law School, and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Mr. Gore, 44, grew up amid privilege and affluence in the nation's capital, the son of a U.S. senator, and went to private schools and graduated from Harvard. His colleagues in the Senate joke that he is not so much a Tennessean as "the senator from St. Alban's," the exclusive and expensive Washington prep school. Mr. Clinton broke with tradition this year to campaign extensively with his running mate. The two men and their wives, who said they have become fast friends, toured parts of America by bus, shared the stage at rallies and made joint appearances on television talk shows. The most visible indication that this close public association would continue was Mr. Gore's election night presence in Little Rock beside Mr. Clinton, rather than getting the election returns in his home state as running mates have done in the past. Mr. Gore has been there since, most recently at that first post-election news conference on Thursday at which the president-elect praised their working relationship. "Senator Gore and I have continued the partnership we established in the campaign," Mr. Clinton said. "He has been here all day working with me and I think that this is perhaps unprecedented but quite good for the country. I think it will strengthen and help us as we move along." Throughout their campaign, Mr. Gore didn't shrink from expressing his own views. When a question was directed to Mr. Clinton, Mr. Gore on occasion did not hesitate to offer his opinion first. Once or twice Mr. Clinton made pointed jesting remarks about it. Democratic strategists say Mr. Gore, elected to the House in 1976 and to the Senate in 1984, could be valuable if Mr. Clinton avoids the mistakes of Jimmy Carter, the last Democratic president. Mr. Carter's team often angered House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill and other congressmen, who in turn blocked Carter initiatives. "The vice president will become a key part of the administration's congressional relations, doing the heavy-duty lobbying to push the president's agenda in the House and Senate," says Leslie Francis, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who served in the Carter administration. "Gore has friendships and ties on both sides of the Congress and clearly they're going to take advantage of that," he says. "Gore is well respected on the Hill. He's viewed as a smart guy who will be a strong asset to the Clinton White House." Jimmy Carter tried to make Vice President Walter Mondale a major player, and often listened to him before setting policy. Presidents Reagan and Bush tried to do that with their vice presidents, too. Mr. Gore expects to have a major role in environmental policy, arms control and high technology, subjects in which he believes he has unusual competence. Both men will have to accommodate their positions in areas where they have not agreed. Unlike Mr. Clinton, Mr. Gore has not advocated the line-item veto, which would allow presidents to veto parts of legislative bills while leaving other parts intact. Mr. Clinton, for his part, does not agree with some of the ideas that Mr. Gore advanced in his book on the environment, including proposals to impose a tax on petroleum-based carbon fuels. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. 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