Gore More Years?

It's not over till the dull man sings. But Al Gore's acceptance speech in Los Angeles, while perhaps not singing, was not dull. This election won't be dull either.

Gore had some contradictory tasks to perform. He had to deal with the highly mixed legacy of his predecessor, and he had to fuse, Janus-like, both the party's liberal and New Democratic faces.

He mentioned Bill Clinton exactly once, with a thank-you in his opener. Back to Arkansas, Wild Child. But he used Clinton's most valuable bequest, the nine-year boom over which he has presided (the Democrats call it a seven-and-a-half-year boom, to make it coincide with Clinton's inauguration, but who's counting?). "Now we turn the page," Gore said, "and write a new chapter." His new chapter is actually old, a New Deal/Great Society list of governmental good works: spending on public schools and prescription drugs; hands off Social Security and Medicare; more community police; a cure for cancer. He promised tax cuts, but only for "the right people."

Conceptually, the new and the old may seem to pull apart, but rhetorically they work in tandem. The surplus generated under the New Democrats is the cupboard from which the Old Democratic goodies are to be distributed. It is also the guarantee of future good behavior: Who will fear class warfare from the man who was vice president while stocks flew to the moon?

Gore's speech was also notable for its omissions: The culture war was soft-pedaled (and he had nixed the fundraiser at the Playboy Mansion). He backed abortion, once, without mentioning the A-word. He even threw in a line about protecting children from "entertainment . . . that glorifies violence and indecency." This was pretty cheeky, after four days of shaking down the violent and the indecent on their home turf, but everyone in the Democratic party behaved.

As a performer, Gore did a decent job. It should be no consolation to Republicans that their nominee has an even lower threshold of expectation to cross.

Republican fantasies of a blowout, along the lines of Bush-Dukakis in 1988, should be retired. Michael Dukakis was hobbled by the Pledge of Allegiance fiasco; by furloughing Willie Horton (a deed first publicized, nota bene, by Al Gore); by his absurd ride in the tank. He had not helped preside over a boom and burgeoning surplus; the Soviet Union still existed. Even so, when at the end of that campaign Dukakis made populist appeals of the kind Gore has now begun with, he picked up points. George H. W. Bush's margins in key midwestern states-the battlegrounds in this election-were narrow.

The better parallel to this election might be McKinley-Bryan in 1896. Bryan was electrifying, which Gore is not. McKinley (and his wily manager, Mark Hanna) stopped him by making the case that populism, however attractive, would actually hurt American workers. The late 19th century's workers are the early 21st century's new investor class, who can understand that you can't target the "right people" without harming everyone.

But the case has to be made. A moment's flinching at the charge of favoring the rich, and Gore will be all over George W. Gore is not the Boy Orator of the Platte, but he knows how to slug it out.