The Lessons Of Oprahland

Such contortions can throw Gore off balance. Even when he's good on TV, you can almost see him pulling the strings on his own back. He calibrates and modulates endlessly, but not well. The mark of a skillful politician is to pander without being called a panderer; Gore fails at this (e.g., the Elian case and, now, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve). He's a man of convictions who somehow makes people think he has none; a politician who acts more fake than he really is. The motto of his prep school, St. Albans, is "the hard right over the easy wrong" (a line he used in his acceptance speech). Gore always seems to manage to make the hard right even harder. He's effortful, when he should seem effortless, perhaps because he went into politics almost out of a sense of duty to his parents. Because he's not a born manipulator, like Roosevelt or Johnson or Clinton, Gore might have a tough time getting big things done.

It is to these areas--gravitas and grandiosity--that Lehrer should turn his attention during the debates. He needs to frame the questions so that Bush must think three-dimensionally and philosophically, and move beyond the prefabbed substance modules he'll have crammed in his head. Lehrer should mix "campaign issues" like Social Security and taxes with "presidential issues," like debt relief and Russian President Putin's relationship with his Parliament. For Gore, Lehrer should press him on his broader aspirations, from his call for raising gas taxes in his book to the true nature of his populism. Before long, these candidates, fleshed out in Oprahland and the great state of Regis, questioned at length by a real journalist, may even begin to look real.

© 2000