Beating around the Bush.

The 2000 campaign could end up a showdown between the Texas governor and Al Gore 

In the November 3 elections--which featured a surprisingly strong showing by Democrats--two politicians with presidential aspirations solidified their positions as front-runners for the 2000 campaign, which will get under way early next year.

Texas Republican governor George W. Bush--the son of the former president--was reelected with a landslide 69% of the vote. A political centrist who has worked to woo Latino and African-American voters, Bush may have a tough time surviving early primaries, which are dominated by socially conservative voters. Vice President Al Gore, who crisscrossed the country on behalf of Democratic candidates, was given much of the credit for the Democrats' resurgence, in which his party picked up seats in Congress, and may sail to the nomination.

While Bush has advocated tolerance for gay men and lesbians, Texas gay activists who have worked with him are skeptical of his record. "While it is true that Bush has said that there should not be [antigay] name-calling in the Republican Party, he is hardly an ally," said Dianne Hardy-Garcia, executive director the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas. "He calls himself a `compassionate conservative.' Maybe that means he would discriminate politely."

Hardy-Garcia criticized Bush for falling to support repeal of the state's sodomy law, which is being challenged by two men who were arrested September 17. Responding to a report of a burglary in progress, Houston police burst into the apartment of one of the men and found the two of them having sex. Hardy-Garcia also faulted Bush for not pushing hate-crimes legislation that includes sexual orientation. Bush has not directly addressed the spate of murders in Texas in which 28 men have been killed since "He wants to crack down on every kind of crime except for hate crimes," she said. "What does that tell you?"

Gore, on the other hand, has worked assiduously to court gay voters. Speaking at a dinner sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign, a gay lobbying group, September 19 in Washington, D.C., Gore touted the record `number of gay appointees in the Clinton administration as well as his support for federal hate-crimes legislation. "We are one of the most successful administrations in history," he said, "not in spite of that diversity but because of it."