How Would Al Gore Govern?

August 16, 2000

Transcript prepared from a tape recording

Moderators:	E.J. Dionne, Washington Post
	David Brooks, Weekly Standard
Panelists:	David Maraniss, Staff writer, Washington Post
	Edward Markey, U.S. Representative (D-Mass.)
	Roy Neel, Former Chief of Staff to Gore
	James Sasser, Former Ambassador to China and U.S. Senator (D-Tenn.)
	Bill Turque, Washington correspondent, Newsweek
	Pete Wilson, Former Governor and Senator (R-Calif.)
Project Directors:	Norman Ornstein, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
	Thomas Mann, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

Proceedings:

MR. ORNSTEIN: My name is Norman Ornstein, with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. I want to thank you all for coming. I will give a brief introduction of who we are and what we're about today, then turn things over to my colleague, Tom Mann, of the Brookings Institution, and then introduce our panelists.

Tom and I direct a project called The Transition To Governing Project. Through our institutions, the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution, think-tanks in Washington, along with the Hoover Institution, out here, in California, it is a project dedicated to trying to bring governing as a focal point back into the political process in an era, in the United States, of what is often called the "permanent campaign."

Campaigning takes place year-round, throughout the four-year presidential cycle, the two-year congressional cycle, the six-year senatorial cycle, and sometimes has crowded out the focus on governing, because, after all, a campaign is, in many ways, a means to an end.

We also have, of course, here, in the United States, a transition period from an election that is over early in November until Congress convenes on January 3rd, and the President gets inaugurated on January 20th. That's a time to create a little breathing space between these processes, but also to begin to establish the machinery for governing. We don't do it very well, frankly, and we're hoping, along the way, that we can improve that process, and also do something about what has become close to a disaster in the United States, the process of nominating and confirming people to the 3,000 positions in the executive branch that a new President or a continuing President controls, positions that now take an extraordinarily long period of time to fill, that are also dominated by a process in which we put people through several "rings of hell" before they seem to be established in their posts, and then assume that they're guilty, until proven innocent, of some awful positions, and we hope to do something about that along the way.

Right now, our focus has been on trying to make sure that governing becomes an issue in the campaign itself. Oftentimes, as we look at our presidential candidates--and this is journalists, pundits, and voters--we will look at their issue positions, often in exhaustive detail, without taking into account the reality that positions on issues matter, but it's not as if Presidents can dictate, in a political process such as ours, what will happen.

How can you take issue positions and move them through the "meat grinder" of our politics? What strategies do you have? How will a President deal with Congress, deal with the press corps, deal with international situations and leaders? We look at, sometimes, in great detail, the backgrounds of candidates, but often the focus has been more on whether a candidate smoked marijuana or used other substances, or position on the draft, rather than looking at the elements of personal style, character and background, that would relate to what kind of a President you would make. Great strides, I should say, have been made during this campaign season towards ameliorating that particular problem, and we have two reporters, fortunately, with us today, who've helped to tilt things a little bit in the other direction.

This is the eighth in a series of panels that we've run in this process. We did four during the primary campaign, in January, on the four major candidates, including, of course, Gore and Bush, and McCain and Bradley. We did two in the spring of this year on how would, respectively, George Bush and Al Gore govern in foreign policy. We did a session at the Republican Convention in Philadelphia on "How would George W. Bush govern?," and, now, of course, we have this session on "How would Al Gore govern?" But I should note that we are not simply going to focus on Al Gore.

We have people here who know George W. Bush, who've covered him in different venues as well, and I hope we will, and expect that we will have some comparative analysis along the way.

I would also mention that we will be doing a ninth session on how would the two candidates govern, to kick off the period right before the first presidential debate at the Kennedy Library. That will be on October 3rd, and our session will be on Monday, October 2nd. We are hopeful that we will be able to do two more events.

We are hoping that we can get the candidates themselves, in separate venues, to talk about governing, and then perhaps interact with several of us on that subject also.

I want to acknowledge the support of the Pew Charitable Trusts for the project, note that neither our project nor Pew, nor anybody associated with this process has endorsed a candidate. This is not a partisan pitch, or effort here.

Acknowledge the wonderful support of NDI, and, personally, I might note that my first major experience with NDI came as a member of the observer delegation to look at the first election in Rumania after the fall of Ceausescu, which was co-sponsored with the International Republican Institute, and our delegation leader at that time--this is, now, almost 12 years ago--was a brand-new senator from Connecticut named Joe Lieberman, who, as a freshman senator, showed a remarkable diplomatic touch. So we thought he would rise to great heights, maybe even being an ambassador some day.

And also acknowledge several of our people, John Fortier, Christian Cook, and Melissa Knauer [ph], for their help in putting together this session, along with Les, of course, and Ken, and all the people at NDI. Now let me turn things over to Tom Mann.

MR. MANN: Thank you, Norman.

I simply want to say how pleased I am, and how pleased Brookings is to be a partner with AEI and the Pew Charitable Trust, and for this particular event, NDI, and in leading a discussion of how the candidates would govern. When we launched this effort last January, we had no idea how these sessions, how this subject would resonate, as it has, and the media coverage of the campaign, in many of the discussions among the candidates, and, now, I think, additionally, some hopeful signs that fall candidate debates themselves will focus very much on governing questions.

The permanent campaign in American politics did not being with Bill Clinton and it will not end when Clinton leaves office next January. We all need to do some serious thinking about how we can harness the forces of campaigning to serve the ends of governing. That means some serious discussion about the interaction of policy, politics, and process.

Now, fortunately, E.J. Dionne and David Brooks, as moderators, have demonstrated that it's possible to do serious thinking, and, at the same time, demonstrate good humor, and allow all of us to have a good deal of fun, which is precisely what I anticipate this morning.

I'm delighted to help welcome you all here. I thank you for coming. I thank our panelists for devoting this time to such an important question, and I turn it back to Norm for introductions.

MR. ORNSTEIN: Thank you, Tom.

I did want to mention that we are actually being Webcast, live, we are very much up on technology in our project, by Pew, and our Web site, which is AEI.org, slash, governing, has both transcripts and video of all the previous sessions that we've done here, along with a lot of other information about the candidates, for those of you who are interested.

Now let me introduce our panel, starting all the way over at the left end, from my perspective. We have Bill Turque. Bill Turque is a Washington correspondent for "Newsweek" magazine, and is the author of "Inventing Al Gore," a biography, which was published in March by Houghton-Mifflin.

Bill has had experience covering the Clinton White House for "Newsweek" in 1995 and 1996, and, before that, he was a writer in the magazine's national affairs section.

Roy Neel has had a long association with Al Gore, going back to when he first got elected to Congress. He served as legislative director and chief of staff to Gore in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. Chief of staff for the vice presidential campaign in 1992, and moved to the White House to serve as chief of staff for Vice President Gore, and for the last six years has been president and chief executive officer of the United States Telecom Association.

Pete Wilson, a familiar figure to virtually everybody in this room, and elsewhere, has an extensive experience in governing, and is now the managing director of the Pacific Capital Group, and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, one of our co-sponsors in our project.

Pete Wilson served as governor of California from 1991 to 1999, with a particular focus on educational reform, and before that, served as a member of the United States Senate from 1983 through 1990, where he served particularly on the Armed Services Committee, and before that was a mayor of San Diego for 12 years, and, before that, served in the California assembly. Now that's extensive experience in governing.

Jim Sasser served as the United States Ambassador to the People's Republic of China from 1996 to 1999; before that, served, from 1977 through 1994 as the United States Senator from Tennessee, where he was chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and also Subcommittee on Military Construction of the Appropriations Committee, and on International Finance and Monetary Policy of the Senate Banking Committee and has also been a fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Ed Markey was elected to the House of Representatives in 1976, a rather distinguished class that we may talk about a little bit, and is now the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection. He has experience both in being a prime author of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, has been actively involved in environmental issues, in issues of nuclear weapons, on securities reform, on the V-chip and a whole host of other things that cover virtually the entire gamut of policy in the country.

He's a member of the Budget Committee and a Democratic spokesman of significance on Social Security and Medicare, and has just formed a bipartisan congressional task force on Alzheimer's disease. He also is probably the best free-throw shooter in the House of Representatives. Athletic talent along with great legislative abilities. We respect him for all.

David Maraniss is a correspondent for the "Washington Post," a staff writer, and he is the author, co-author, I should say, of a series of articles that have been appearing in the Post over the last several weeks, that are, from our perspective, a model in how one should be able to look at the background and experiences of a candidate, and tie them to how one might govern. Those articles also form a core of a new book, just out, called "The Prince Of Tennessee: The Rise of Al Gore," written with another "Washington Post" corespondent, Helen Nakashima. He is also, of course, well-known for the book, "First In His Class: A Biography Of Bill Clinton," probably the definitive biography of Bill Clinton, which was published by Touchstone Books in 1996. This book is published by Simon & Schuster, incidentally. We don't have copies here, but it's available at Amazon.com, and elsewhere on the Web site, as is Bill's book, I should note, and David Maraniss won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, for his coverage of Bill Clinton in the 1992 election.

Now our moderators. Over there, on my left, will be E.J. Dionne, a columnist for the "Washington Post" and a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution. He has been a reporter and editorial writer for the Post, a correspondent for the New York Times in Paris, Rome, and Beirut, and is the author of a number of books, including the widely acclaimed, "Why Americans Hate Politics," published by Simon & Schuster in 1991.

And David Brooks, who will be at this podium when I remove this name tag, is a senior editor of "The Weekly Standard," contributing editor at "Newsweek," and a commentator on National Public Radio. Before coming to the Standard, as it began, he worked at "The Wall Street Journal" as an op-ed page editor, a European correspondent, covering Russia, the Middle East, South Africa, and Europe, and editor of the book review section, and a movie critic, and is the author of the best-selling new book, "Bobos In Paradise:--standing for bourgeois bohemians--The New Upper Class And How They Got There," also published by Simon & Schuster.

Simon & Schuster is to be commended for having the sagacity to have these two authors, but not to be commended for failing to have many copies of the books here today. So they're good at one element of publishing but evidently not at another.

And with that, let me turn things over to our moderators, and I should note that we will have some discussion that they will direct, and then we will have opportunities for dialogue with the floor.

[Applause.]

MR. DIONNE: Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm just really glad we have such a distinguished panel, and we also have what you might say are the Beatles and the Rolling Stones of Gore biographers jamming together here. And I want to invite them to join us in the questioning, and also we very much want the panel to go back and forth with each other, if you have disagreements, or want to add to points made by other panelists. We want you all to feel free to jump in.

Since the theme of the convention, up to now, has been don't stop thinking about yesterday, we thought it would be better, today, to start thinking about tomorrow, so I won't delay things any longer. I'll turn it to my friend, David, to start the session.

MR. BROOKINGS: Thank you, E.J.

I mentioned, earlier in the week, that E.J. is the only person I know in America, or maybe in the world, whose face lights up at the expression, "panel discussion." But I've noticed, now, they even have them at the conventions. But just to jump right in--

MR. DIONNE: David is a closest panel discussion lover.

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKINGS: We thought we'd begin by talking about, first--we have a series of categories--but, first, about Al Gore's governing temperament, and we come to that question first, because it's reasonably clear the American people are pretty happy with the direction the country is going in, pretty happy with the Democratic policies, but, somehow, that hasn't translated into at least widespread support, at least so far, majority support for Al Gore.

So we'd like to ask, not personality of campaigning, but, actually, the temperament and the character he brings to the governing process, and I thought we'd start with Senator Sasser who worked in the Senate with him, and you have been quoted saying that Al Gore was not a "back slapper," not a characteristic happy-to-lucky, "hail fellow, well met" politician.

Could you describe his temperament in the Senate, the way he made decisions, and the way he built bonds with other senators, and if he did.

MR. SASSER: You know, this reminds me, when I was in politics I made that mistake, one time, of asking people, can you hear me in the back of the room? and one person raised their hand and said, "I can't," and a person down front said, "I can; let's change places."

[Laughter.]

MR. SASSER: I've been quoted a lot about Al Gore, some of it accurate, some of it not as accurate as I would have wished. But I think Al Gore is a coalition-builder. That's what I noted in the United States Senate, and I also noted it when he was working in the House of Representatives.

I've known Al Gore, really, since, frankly--and this tells my age--I've known him since he was 15 or 16 years old. I first met him working on the farm of his father in Carthage, Tennessee, because I knew the family well--his father, his mother, and his sister. He is an issue-oriented political figure. Al Gore, I think, is driven by issues. He's driven by trying to solve problems. He is willing to reach across party lines to solve those problems. I think I saw that, particularly, in the Senate, on a number of occasions. That's not to say that he's not a mainstream Democrat.

But he, I think, really focuses on policy. That's what I think keeps him in politics. Now, as to the personality, I think he has almost a public and a private personality. I think he has a public personality that's very, sort of "cool" and efficient, and he has a private personality that's very warm and very humorous. Sometimes I wish the private personality would emerge in the public personality more. We may see that as the campaign progresses.

MR. BROOKINGS: I'd like to follow with Senator, Governor Wilson, or Governor, Senator Wilson, whichever you prefer. That Al Gore seems to have a particular problem which Senator Sasser alluded to about this public-private split, but also that a lot of times he's seen as a moderate by liberals but as a partisan by Republicans.

There were moments in his career when he seemed to be able to build coalitions, as Senator Sasser said, but I've talked to a lot of Republicans, as you have, who see him also as a very partisan figure.

Could you talk about these splits, if you will.

MR. WILSON: I think that there is in fact a difference between governing and legislating, and I think that most people know Al Gore in his role as a legislator, at the time that he served in the House, the time that he served in the Senate, but even more lately, when, as Vice President, he participated with President Clinton in budget negotiations with the Republicans.

It's a very interesting thing. People would come out of those meetings, say that it's Bill Clinton who has been the more open, the more forthcoming, the more willing to negotiate, and that it's been Al Gore who has been partisan, who has been the harder-line negotiator. I think it's true that Republicans, by and large, view him as extremely partisan. They think that he is far more ideological than president Clinton, and it's more than simply a question of style.

Bill Clinton is charming. He's a schmoozer. He can charm people, one on one, or a crowd of 20,000. He is able to project, as Ronald Reagan could, a sort of "gut level" belief in what he's talking about, and I think that there is a difference between that quality and the sort of hard-edged determination to achieve a goal that a lot of people associate with Al Gore.

It's an interesting thing, because I think there is an interesting contradiction in the Vice president. He is at one and the same time suffering, I think visibly--there's been a lot of reportage to the effect that the constant effort to reinvent himself, to adapt an image, is causing confusion. People, not least "The Economist," in the current issue, "Will The Real Al Gore Please Stand Up," say that a man who has been Vice President for seven years seems unknown to the public. It isn't that they don't know who he is, they're not quite sure what he is, and, yet, the contradiction is that with all these different, very public, conscious efforts to change his image, there is a core Al Gore who is in fact, I think, very ideological. The policy wonk, the man that Senator Sasser described as being driven by issues--I think that's a fair statement, and, in many cases, I think it's led him into debates where there are honest differences, but where he is seen terribly ideological.

His position on missile defense. If you were to say, What can we expect from a Gore administration? then I think we'd have to go down, issue by issue, as, conventionally, people do. On the issue of missile defense he would be, I think, really an implacable foe of an adequate defense system, and I think back to the '96 differences between him and Sam Nunn on the National Missile Defense Act, which was passed by the 106th Congress.

He is a man with a great reverence for government. I think he is a true believer, that government is the right solution, it should be activist, it should be interventionist in virtually every problem, and I think you see that manifested in his attitudes towards not fixing Social Security but simply putting more money into it, and his attitude that the '93 tax increases were what set the fiscal house of the Federal Government in order, when, in fact, after that tax increase interest rates rose by 50 basis points before the Republicans took office in '95.

I think that there are areas in which he is engaged, and then others, interestingly, in which he has not been engaged, not in the House, not in the Senate, and really not as Vice President. Education is a critical issue, which has not had the same attention from him that he has given to the environment, to arms control.

I think that the public doesn't really know who he is. By contrast, I think that those in Congress think they know very well who he is, and that they think that he would be more difficult to deal with as President, that there would be certain things that simply are not even open to discussion. If we've had a gridlock that has actually been not altogether bad, in the last several years, I think that what they foresee would be a gridlock with a Republican Congress, even if the House were to go back Democratic, the Senate remaining Republican. That would in fact be a much more contentious kind of gridlock than they have seen, even with Bill Clinton.

MR. BROOKINGS: Briefly, could I follow up. Do you see a change in Gore since he became Vice President? In other words, did your actual experience with him in the Senate produce this view, or has he, in your telling, become more partisan, over time; or was he playing a role for Clinton in these negotiations?

MR. WILSON: Well, I think you raise an interesting point. I would say that I agree that it is the role of the Vice President to be a faithful lieutenant to the President. But I think the answer to your question is in both roles, as a legislator and as the Vice President, he's been pretty consistent. He has presented very much the same attitude to those dealing with him. It is partisan. It is ideological. I would have to disagree with my friend, Jim Sasser. I think he'd have considerable difficult achieving coalitions, and that is what I mean when I say I think there'd be more of the same kind of deadlock.

Washington is a terribly partisan place. I mean, they almost have separate men's rooms. It's too bad, because I think the public gets tired of it. Frankly, the practitioners get tired of it.

Some of the more pleasant moments are when you can go to the Democrats' table in the Senate dining room, where I was invited, once or twice.

MR. BROOKINGS: That was before today.

MR. WILSON: [inaudible].

[Laughter.]

MR. WILSON: But I think that there really has been a consistency. I don't think there's been much change. It may have seemed aggravated, but I don't really think so.

MR. BROOKINGS: Let me follow with Roy Neel--

MR. SASSER: Let me just make one point here. Now, I made the point that Al Gore was a coalition-builder in the Congress. I firmly believe that, and I would point to one example on which I disagreed with Al Gore. The controversy on what to do with the so-called MX missile, during the--I think this was the latter days of the second Reagan administration, and it was Al Gore and Norm Dicks, in the House of Representatives, that made the agreement, as I recall it, with then, Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense, on how the Congress was to cooperate with the administration in the deployment of a limited number of MX, or so-called Peacekeeper missiles. Now I disagreed with that, and I voted against it, but he was building that coalition across party lines to deal with this issue in the House of Representatives.

So I think we can cite issues where he's been a coalition-builder.

MR. BROOKINGS: Just to Roy Neel. In the White House, if you could respond to Governor Wilson's point, that he was the more partisan of the two, between Clinton and Gore, when it came time to compromise or to make deals. Was that valid, where you saw as well?

MR. NEEL: Well, I think it's true that Al Gore has taken on a more partisan role in a lot of the discussions, in rebutting a lot of the highly partisan attacks that have come from outside the administration. I mean, the most partisan time in Washington, in recent memory, was after Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House of Representatives, and so you have no choice in these tough fights, to "fight fire with fire," and, you know, Al Gore was in a position where he had to do that.

The President had to take a certain position in many of those discussions. But I think Senator Wilson said something that is correct, and has to be emphasized, is that legislating is not governing and you can only draw so much of a lesson from how someone works in the Congress, and how they will do their work in the White House.

I mean, if you go back and look at Vice President Quayle, Vice President Quayle was occasionally very effective as a senator, and as a coalition-builder. Vice President Quayle was invisible in the White House. You gotta remember--you cannot compare a sitting Vice President with a President, either the current one or a past one.

The Vice President has a distinct role but he is only the Vice President, and much of the comparisons seem to be comparing Al Gore to sitting Presidents or past Presidents, and probably the reason is that he's commanded more respect as Vice President than any Vice President in U.S. history.

So his standard of performance tends to be gauged at a much higher level than, certainly, other Vice Presidents, and I think you have to separate his work as a legislator, where there's a very different kind of partisan relationship, and once you become President, especially, which then you are truly the chief executive officer of the Federal Government and there are extensive personnel issues, policy development, where a President plays a very different role than even a Vice President.

So these sort of predictors have limitations.

MR. BROOKINGS: But aren't some people "people persons"? Lyndon Johnson and some people are "idea persons," and maybe Al Gore fits into that latter category. There was a much-talked-about article in The New Yorker, recently, by Nick Lemon [ph], about Al Gore, and it describes his thought-making process, and he was forever throwing charts with grand theories of history, sort of "a budding Arnold Toynbee," and is Gore more of an "idea person" and therefore seems less willing to compromise and embrace?

MR. NEEL: I don't think the two things are related, David. I think we would be in bad shape, if being an "idea person" was, all of a sudden, a negative. I mean, if the country elects Al Gore in November, we will clearly have someone that is thinking about a lot of different things than perhaps past Presidents have, and we put way too much emphasis on these personality issues, and whether someone's a "people person" or an "idea person," or, you know, a glad-hander, or whatever.

You know, I think the country will be very comforted to have a President who's thinking, in depth, about critical issues, and he's always done that, and I think he will as President, as well, and I think that that's a far more important characteristic for a President than, you know, whether people want to go watch a basketball game with him.

MR. BROOKINGS: I want to ask the basketball player here, Congressman Markey, to join the discussion on that perfect note. It would be great if you could respond to some of this discussion, and perhaps on the MX missile, in particular.

But there's another aspect to Al Gore which stands in particular contradiction to this, and partial conformation. It's said, a lot, that he got fascinated by highly technical technological issues by his friends, because he's a futurist, and by his critics, because this was a way of avoiding certain kinds of controversial, ideological issues, and you're in the middle of a lot of these technological issues.

Could you address what's been said so far, and also that question.

MR. MARKEY: First, let me say--and I think everyone should under this, and it's an old saying but it's true--"If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." That's not what the city is about. Best friends are voting against each other, 100 percent of the time, as a rule, across party lines. That's not really what the city's about. Once the Republicans took over Congress in 1995, you know, the Republican paradox reached its pluperfect form, which is that they don't believe in government but they have to run for office in order to make sure that the government doesn't work. All right. So you get into a little bit of a problem if you want to work across party lines in that kind of an environment.

MR. : Actually, we thought that the Democrats have proved that already.

MR. MARKEY: With New Gingrich running the United States House of Representatives, basically declaring war upon the last 40 years of laws that we passed in the United States, from the EPA to Medicare, Social Security, Department of Education, Department of Energy--we're just gonna try to, if not abolish them all, to severely cut them all back.

That's a pretty stark break with the preceding era of history, which we had in our country, from a political perspective.

Now, when it comes to his focus upon technology, he and I were elected 24 years ago to the United States House of Representatives. We each selected the Telecommunications Subcommittee. Believe me, there wasn't a lot of conflict. We weren't battling a lotta people to get on the Telecommunications Subcommittee. There were only about eight or nine of us that wanted it.

So when he decided, with me, and a few others, that it would be a good idea to break up AT&T, it wasn't as though we were battling a big established political coalition in the Congress, except to the extent to which everybody loved natural monopolies. That is, the whole notion, if we talk to other members of Congress, of how you would have other telecommunications companies, would be, "Well, are they gonna build two-foot telephone poles across America?" "How do you have other telecommunications companies?" Huh?

So Al Gore helped to frame these issues in a way in which people would understand that you could have competition within the telecommunications industry.

In fact I would argue that when historians come back to look at the 1980's, that they'll say, with the exception of the breaking down of the Berlin Wall and communism, that the most important public policy in the United States was that we broke up AT&T. That the follow-up on that was the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which broke down all of the remaining monopolies within the telecommunications industry.

Now, why did Al Gore want to do that? He wanted to do it in order to create competition, increase, dramatically, the employment of broad band across our country, to give us a tremendous lead in the Internet, across the globe, which we have.

But, at the same time--and here's where it got partisan--to also ensure that there was a democratization of access to these technologies. So where the real conflict came in was when he said, "Well, we need an E rate, that is, we need a way in which we spend $2 billion a year, $20 billion over a 10-year period, to ensure that the poorest children in the United States have access to this skill set."

That is, that if a Democrat supports globalization, which he does--if he supports rapid technology change, which he does--he understands that you have to partner it as a deal with the blue-collar and poor people in the country to give them the skill set to catch up with all those changes. That's the Democratic perspective.

So he actually agrees with many Republicans on these technology issues, and on globalization. Where the disagreement comes in, where, if you kick him in the heart you're gonna break your toe, is when you say to them, well--to many of these Republicans--well, we've got to help these children as well.

Fifty percent of all of the children in the United States are gonna be minorities by the year 2030, minorities no more, and if you want them to have good jobs, so that in fact they're able to fund Medicare and Social Security, you're gonna have to educate them today.

So that's what Al Gore says--it's a partnership, it's a deal, and most Americans agree, by the way, with both parts of that equation. They get afraid of globalization, they get afraid of rapid technological change, if you're not in fact making a commitment to investment in those blue-collar and poorer families. And that's the fundamental difference, I'll be honest with you, between the Democrats and Republicans on these issues, in general.

On the issues on which he can agree with them, he does. Where he doesn't, he makes the case, and that's largely what this entire election is about. What happens with the surplus that comes from a balanced budget, and rapid technological change, and globalism, encouraged by a Democratic administration?

The Democrats say, yes, some of it should go back in tax cuts, but part of it should go back, investing in these poorer and blue-collar families, to make sure that they can also be beneficiaries of it. That's the Al Gore formula.

The first part you can work on a bipartisan fashion; the other part, you wind up with this traditional split between the Democrats and Republicans as to whether or not everyone is going to be a beneficiary.

MR. DIONNE: Maybe we should go to the biographers on this partisanship gridlock issue. Throughout this series, we've talked about the likelihood that after the next election, the Congress will be narrowly divided, both houses, and that whoever is President will have to work with people from the other party.

How good do you guys see Al Gore having done that in the past, and how do you project him doing it in the future? Starting with Bill.

MR. TURQUE: Well, first of all, if David and I are the Beatles and Rolling Stones, I just want to take this opportunity to claim the Beatles.

I guess my sense of the discussion is, with all due respect to Ambassador Sasser, I never saw much of a coalition-builder in Al Gore during his congressional career. What I saw was a catalyst, an investigator, a prosecutor, someone who is most comfortable highlighting the long-term consequences of issues like global warming, the information revolution. But that when it came time to putting together coalitions, when it came time to counting votes, someone else was usually better at doing that.

I also think that part of the problem is Gore has two strikes against him already, if he's elected, because he's following one of the great hand-holders and schmoozers of all time--Bill Clinton. People go into rooms with Bill Clinton prepared to hate him, and many of them come out, you know, feeling much more benign.

It's difficult for me to envision the same circumstance with Al Gore. I think people are prepared to dislike him, in many ways, particularly in partisan battles like the ones he's gonna have as President, will be prepared not to like him, will probably stay that way.

He's not a hand-holder. He's someone who has very strong opinions. Someone who's worked with him told me he's more likely to try to shame someone into his position than try to persuade them, and as one of his original mentors, Richard Neustadt [ph], the great presidential scholar at Harvard said, "The power of the presidency is the power to persuade." I think it's a fair question, whether Al Gore is gonna bring that kind of power of persuasion with him to the Oval Office, if he makes it.

MR. BROOKINGS: David, if you could comment on that, and I was struck, in your book, when you were talking about him as a student--bear in mind--this was as a student. You said he "vacillated between idealism and cynicism, responsibility and freedom, diligence and laziness, conformity and rebellion, ambition and withdrawal."

A lot of people--we were talking about this before--Marjorie Williams in the Washington Post--have talked about some of his political problems growing out of his deep ambivalence about politics, that he holds himself, and whether he should be in or out.

In light of that, could you talk about this, you know, where we've been in this discussion, so far.

MR. MARANISS: We've been everywhere in this discussion, so far. I'd like to start with, actually, Ed Markey and Al Gore. That's where I first started covering Congress, was I did a year-long series on the Energy and Commerce Committee when they were both there, and I remember that Al Gore was obsessed with the notion of universal telephone service. I mean, that's where the technology was then, and there were a lot of people in his district, in Tennessee, that didn't even have telephone service.

So there was, along with that technological obsession, a populist tint to it. There also was something else, which was I would spend hours interviewing Al Gore about the breakup of AT&T and how telephones work, and how satellites work, and then I would go interview Ed Markey for ten minutes about the politics of it, and Markey would be quoted in my story, and I'd go back to Al Gore and he'd say, "Why the hell did you quote Markey and not me?"

It was because Al Gore was actually good at explaining everything that I needed to understand the issue. As to the ideological hardness and differences with Bill Clinton, my favorite story was during the budget battles, when Clinton finally showed some resolve in a meeting with Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich, and the gang, and said, "I don't care if my popularity goes down to 10 percent, I'm not gonna waver on this issue." And after the Republicans left the room, Al Gore walked over to him and said, "Mr. President, that was really a great way to put it. You should--you know--you gotta go out there and tell people that. You have to say that you don't care if nobody votes for you, you're not gonna change on this issue."

And Clinton put his arm around Al and said, "Well, you know, 5 percent and I'd bail."

[Laughter.]

MR. MARANISS: But Bill Clinton was, I mean, as we all know, born to run, and born to politics, and Al Gore was sort of tutored to serve, and so that that dichotomy in him has been there forever. It certainly was there during the Beatles, Rolling Stones period of the 1960's, but so many people of that generation went through levels of disillusionment, and then came out of it, or didn't.

With Al Gore, it was more profound because of the expectations that both his family and so many of his friends had, that he would eventually would be a public servant and be someone big in national life, and he had to deal with that, at the same time, but he really wanted to go somewhere else, probably be a writer.

I think that has played out in his public life, to some degree, that sort of tension between what he wants to be and what he's expected to be.

MR. BROOKINGS: Could I just follow up question, and this is--I want to get it in now because I don't know where we're going to end up going, but you write very interestingly in the book about Carthage versus Washington, and I'm wondering, you know, without engaging in psycho- biography, which you don't, to your credit, can you talk about that distinction , because he had two lives, and there are times, at least I get from your book, that he liked the Carthage life better, in certain respects.

MR. MARANISS: Well, I think Bill and I both agree on that, as we do on most things. There's no doubt that, you know, it was an easier life in Carthage. There weren't the expectations. You know, he did have to work on the farm. He actually did plow a hillside with a mule team, once, but he did a lot of other work there, every day on the farm, as Senator Sasser saw him do. That's legitimate.

But that was a life that he felt more at ease, and more possibilities, whereas in official Washington he was being tutored. You know? I mean, his mother was bringing over senators and other diplomats, and people to the house, with the express purpose of teaching Al this--you know--the political process.

I don't think he ever really totally turned away from it, but it wasn't something that he necessarily wanted to do.

MR. : Why don't we jump ahead to more policy issues, and, in particular, because of the audience, to foreign policy and America's role in the world. Why don't we start with defense spending. Al Gore's not been a dove on this matter, it seems, in any regard, and maybe we can go to Governor Wilson who served on the Armed Services Committee.

Could you comment on the Al Gore you saw, first, as a defense budget, as a military analyst, and as a person who might or might not intervene in foreign conflicts.

MR. WILSON: Well, I think that if you look at his history on the Armed Services Committee, and, for that matter, in the House, he was deeply committed, in fact, almost theological, in his dedication to the ABM Treaty, and implacable in his opposition to missile defense, and I've cited, earlier, the strong differences in '96, when, finally, the 106th Congress, I think it was, passed the National Missile Defense Act to create a nationwide system. He bitterly opposed that and he has been quite consistent in that, and he has also, I think, been a minority, clearly was in that instance.

I think that you would have to expect that a Gore administration would produce nothing like a national missile defense system. It would be, instead, something that was more symbolic, explicitly aimed at dealing with "rogue" nations.

I think that's, frankly, an unrealistic point of view. The consistent Democratic approach, the attach upon an adequate system, and a system which I think hastened the end of the Cold War, has been that it would be unaffordable. That's a debate that we could get into here, but I'm not sure that that's the purpose.

I think, though, that what you also have to bear in mind is that most of this week, the Democratic convention is going to be bent upon trying to persuade the American people that this administration, the Clinton-Gore administration, is responsible for the good economy.

I don't think that they will be any more successful in persuading the American people that Al Gore has invented the good economy than he was successful in persuading them that he invented the Internet, because they know that the economy is the result of the remarkable inventiveness, the great entrepreneurial, innovative zeal of countless Americans who have invented new jobs by inventing new products and new services.

What you do not hear from the convention, and you won't hear from the candidate, is what is owed to the tax cuts of an earlier time, to deregulation of an earlier time, to the end of the Cold War. This comes back to your point about spending and defense.

Most of the cuts that have been made have been made as a result of the end of the Cold War-- they've actually gone too far--but very little credit has been given to the Reagan-Bush administration, or even recognition that because the Cold War has ended, there is a reduced need for at least a certain kind of national security spending.

But, frankly, I think that we are in danger of being perceived by allies as once again reverting, as we have so often, to a position of complacency and a willingness not to spend enough to actually honor obligations that we have.

One that we don't have is the ABM Treaty. It was with the Soviet Union, an entity that ceased to exist a decade ago. More to the point, it is certainly not a reason to not go forward with the kind of research and development and the actual implementation of existing technology that is available.

I think one of the great dereliction of this administration will be that they have wasted seven years.

MR. : Aside from missile defense, which I support, too, but I mean, it doesn't seem quite fair, from any perspective, to accuse Al Gore of shirking national defense, especially by the standards of his party. I mean, he has--well, we might as well go to the crucial foreign policy issue where he defined himself--the vote in favor of the Gulf War. I mean, in your experience with him in the Senate, and since, how would you characterize him vis-a-vis the center of his party, and, you know, in terms of willingness to intervene abroad, to support military actions, and to support the military, fiscally?

MR. WILSON: Well, I think he supported the Clinton administration initiatives, clearly, and I don't know that he is adverse to using force; but I think that you would have to look at the inconsistencies in the Clinton administration policy. They have frequently committed force in instances where I think our best interest dictated that we not be involved, and ignored others where, in fact, they had "talked tough.' I think specifically of the Vice President's very tough talk during the campaign in '92 about China, about how it was unconscionable for the Bush administration to be willing to make the sort of trade concessions, the grant of most-favored nation status to China, when they were in egregious violation of human rights.

They have had to "eat crow" on that, they haven't publicly done so, but there's been very little change, except there's been a great change in the policy.

Now I think if you're going to measure what kind of President Al Gore would be in terms of national security, you have to make a basic assessment of his willingness to spend, preventively, preemptively. Peace through strength was not simply a slogan. It worked.

MR. : Could I go to--

MR. WILSON: If you back away from it, not enuncively [ph], but by your actual actions--if you undercut your credibility as a military power able to meet the obligations that you have assumed by treaty, then you're gonna invite the next Saddam Hussein to engage in a miscalculation at the cost of American lives.

MR. : Let me go to--

MR. WILSON: It's a lot cheaper to be strong.

MR. : Could I go to Senator Sasser and Ed Markey on two points. If Al Gore was, if you will, a little to the left of Republicans on defense spending, he was probably to the right, as you noted in your MX answer, of the Democrats.

Could you talk about that, and also enlighten us, from what you know, about how Al Gore came to that decision on the Gulf War, because there was an awful lot of agony, and also anyone else on the panel, including the biographers.

MR. SASSER: Well, first, Al Gore and I served in the Senate together for, oh, I guess eight years, and Al Gore was much more outspoken, and much more in favor of allocating budget priorities in the direction of national defense, frankly, than I was, and I was struck by his strong support, on occasion, of funding for the intelligence agencies, particularly at a time when the Cold War was over, and some of us thought that that was not necessary.

I think his entire record indicates that he is not vulnerable for attack from the right on the question of securing an adequate national defense. Now, what was the second part of your question?

MR. : Just how he went through the decision on the Gulf War; how he got there.

MR. SASSER: On the Gulf War, we tend to say that--he and I split on the vote on the Gulf War, but the vote was not whether or not we were to move forward with the Gulf War. The question was--you'll recall, when the vote came, we were already undertaking an extensive air offensive against the Iraqi troops in Kuwait, and also in Iraq.

We were undergoing a massive military buildup in Saudi Arabia, in preparation for a ground war. The question on which the vote hinged was whether or not we would go forward, immediately, with the ground offensive, or whether we would delay it and let the air offensive continue, hoping that would solve the problem.

Many of us said--it was a Democratic majority's position that we should delay, and allow the air offensive to go forward, in hopes that this would persuade Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait.

As it developed, that was a forlorn hope. Al Gore voted in favor of moving forward, immediately, with a ground offensive. As it turned out, Al Gore was correct, and the Democratic majority, which, at that time, wanted to slow down and let the air offensive try to do the work, was incorrect.

MR. : Could I question the history. Norm, help me out on this. My recollection is that the air war had not started when that vote took place, and that the air war actually took place--it didn't take place until the Congress authorized it.

MR. : There were sanctions.

MR. : There were sanctions versus--

MR. SASSER: Maybe I'm incorrect, then. But my point is the same. He voted, at that time, in favor of pursuing an aggressive military solution and some of us were in favor of delaying it, trying to use sanctions.

MR. : Did you talk to him, at all, in that period, how he was thinking about it?

MR. SASSER: Yes, we talked about it at some length, and we knew it was going to be a painful split, and it was going to be a split that was gonna cause one of us some problems back in the State of Tennessee.

But he was convinced that we needed to move forward, militarily, that that was the only way to deal with this solution.

MR. : Did he agonize, or was it a slow--maybe David--

MR. SASSER: I think it was a slow, agonizing process for him.

MR. : David?

MR. SASSER: But he analyzed it from every angle, and i don't think he made up his mind, really, until the very end, till the very last moment.

MR. : David and Bill?

MR. : Okay. Governor, if we could ask--Governor, could you turn off your--

MR. MARANISS: You almost answered the question at the very end there. You were saying that you understood that there would be a split between you, but yet, he claims, and Bill and I both believe that he really didn't make up his mind until the very last minute--that, in fact, he'd written a speech with in a hole in it, where he could really make the decision on which way he was going to go. Is that true?

MS. SASSER: Well, David, I knew which way he was inclining, and I thought I knew how Al was gonna vote. I knew how I was gonna vote, for sure, and I think it was a painful process, he was going through, with us splitting on that vote. But I had a pretty good idea, early on, which way I thought he was gonna go.

MR. MARANISS: In any case, as Bill first pointed out, the Republicans claimed that he was shopping his vote to both sides, which is really inaccurate.

MR. SASSER: I have no knowledge of that.

MR. MARANISS: No; he wasn't.

MR. : Everybody wants to get in on this.

[Simultaneous conversation.]

MR. SASSER: That's not accurate.

MR. : Just jump in--everybody.

MR. TURQUE: Yeah. This is one of the great urban myths about Al Gore's Senate career, is that he somehow, you know, just went to the Republicans and asked how much television time he was gonna get, and this was the chief determinant of how he was gonna come out on this vote, which is nonsense. It's basically retold by Alan Simpson and Bob Dole, and when I tried to interview them for the book about this, neither of them would grant me an interview on something they just like to use at election time, I think.

But, you know, what he did in the Senate is something that goes on every day in the Senate. He went to both sides of the leadership, Majority, Minority, and asked what, you know, what kind of chance he would have to explain his position.

Warren Rudman, who doesn't exactly lead the parade for Al Gore, you know, said this charge is ridiculous, and that, you know, he did this in a totally straight-up way, and I really do think this was probably his biggest vote of pure conscience in his legislative career.

MR. : Roy Neel; Ed Markey?

MR. NEEL: Well, let me just say, I was in the room when these decisions were made, and I can tell you that this was a--it was a thoughtful process. He had worked very hard on this. He talked to people, both Democrats, Republicans, and people who had been heavily involved in defense matters, for months before this, and it was a very difficult decision, but one that was based on the facts, and on what he was able to learn, and, frankly, I think the Alan Simpson/Bob Dole comments were the most outrageous, partisan "cheap shots" that we saw in the '96 campaign.

They never apologized for them, and it just showed the kind of partisanship that has been levied against him in that process. This was a very thoughtful decision. It really is a good example of how Al Gore develops and executes policy decisions with a kind of gathering of advice, and focus, and deliberation, and I think that's a good indicator of the Al Gore that you would see in the White House, and working on extremely difficult, and even partisan issues that affect the country, and the whole world.

MR. BROOKINGS: Can I just ask you precisely how that decision was made, because it's sometimes said that George W. Bush has a whole team of foreign policy advisers, but Al Gore makes his decision making much closer to his chest, or his vest, with one adviser, a gentleman named Leon Furth. Could you describe who was called, what books, or bits of information were cited as he deliberated?

MR. NEEL: Well, it's been a long time, David, and, you know, I couldn't cite chapter and verse. His foreign policy adviser and national security adviser, Leon Furth, who many of you know, and, certainly, Senator Sasser's familiar with, has managed that process for him. One thing Al Gore does it gather and process information in a very efficient way. He doesn't waste a lot of time on, you know, wide-ranging, brainstorming sessions that go late into the night. He knows who he wants to talk to and how to deal with the information, once it gets to him.

I think it's sort of irrelevant to cite chapter and verse about who he called and what books he read about it. He really didn't need to, David. He had been studying these issues for ten years. He had served on the Armed Services Committee in the Senate with Senator Wilson, and was on the House Intelligence Committee, where he began his work on these issues.

I think it's fair to say that next to the chairman of those committees, he was probably one of the best-prepared members of Congress on all of those national security issues.

MR. DIONNE: But it was a very close choice for him, was it not, Mr. Neel? I mean, at least I remember, at the time, you know, he was very close to the vest, and it seemed he was-- "vacillating" is one word, "just trying to decide" is another word. Could you--

MR. NEEL: No, E.J., I don't think there was any vacillation. I think Senator Sasser is right. I think he was leaning in that direction from the beginning. But he wanted to make absolutely sure that he was gonna cast the right vote, and, you know, it was just a matter of deliberation. So I don't think it was vacillation, at all. I don't remember him going back and forth, but he wanted to be damn sure because it was gonna be a vote that affected the country, and thousands and thousands of American lives, not to mention Saudis, and our international interests, and probably the most important critical vote that he would have to cast in the Senate. So he was going to be extremely deliberate.

MR. : Mr. Markey.

MR. MARKEY: I actually think that this whole area is a perfect example of how Al Gore was a New Democrat before there was a slogan to describe who this new group of Democrats would become. Back in 1982, I introduced a nuclear freeze resolution in the House of Representatives, along with Silvio Conte; Ted Kennedy introduced it in the Senate, along with Mark Hatfield, making it bipartisan.

But still creating a tremendous battle with the Republican administration, and it raged as the central foreign policy debate of 1982 and 1983.

In 1983, Al Gore and Les Aspin, and Norman Dicks, worked with Brent Scowcroft and the Republican administration, to find a third way. Now, I disagreed with their perspective; however, it did show the very strong instinct which he has to find a way of solving problems across party lines, using technology. His argument was that the biggest problem with the arms race was that it destabilized the relationship between both countries, and if we could move to a model of a single missile, and single warhead, something that was called Midgetman, it would in fact create greater stability between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The deal that he cut was one that included the MX, but also with the promise that there would be a movement towards the Minuteman. Now, whether or not the Reagan administration was, ultimately, ever going to fulfill that promise was very problematic, but it did show that he was willing to work together on the issue.

Similarly, when he was one of only ten Democratic senators to vote for the Persian Gulf War, I can promise you, you're not doing that based upon whether or not one side or the other is going to give you ten extra minutes to explain the position.

That's a fundamental decision, to break with your party's nearly uniform perspective, and regardless of how you might feel about those positions at that point in time, looking back, retrospectively, there's no question that Al Gore was willing to reach across the aisle on those foreign policy issues, on the major issues of the day, to try to find a way of creating a bipartisan coalition on those important issues.

MR. BROOKINGS: Maybe we should turn to--

MR. DIONNE: Bill Turque wanted to jump in, and Senator Wilson, before we get off this.

MR. SASSER: Just let me add one point, E.J. The focus of this forum today is how Al Gore would govern, and I think Roy Neel's hit on something here. One of the criticisms of this administration, and of the incumbent President is the slowness of decision making, sort of the muddled approach to making decisions. On the one hand, they want to do this; on the other hand, they want to do that. Many times, the decisions are very slow in coming.

Positions in Government go unfilled, appointing posts, month after month after month, simply because the White House and this President is not making a decision. You're not going to see that under Al Gore.

I think you're going to see a streamlined decision process, a crispness of administration that I think you're not seeing under this White House, and after listening to all sides of the issue, he makes a decision.

I think Roy Neel pointed that out in this Gulf War thing, which was a very, very tough decision.

MR. BROOKINGS: Senator Wilson; then Bill.

MR. WILSON: Well, I think that Ed Markey has described what I thought was the question--or given an answer to what I thought was your question. How did the MX, Midgetman deal take place? It took place because Al believed, fervently, in the Midgetman. I will not impugn motives, at all. I will simply say that I think it was ill-considered. It turned out to be not a good deal, as Ed has said, and I think he's being charitable.

He, and a number of others were very unhappy at the time. But it was a negotiation, and it took place because then, as a legislator, Al Gore desperately wanted to see Midgetman become a reality. It was doomed. I think it was destined never to become a reality because as they sought to attach the energy that it would require, and therefore, to harden it, the costs became unaffordable. The Air Force estimates of the costs guaranteed that it would not be built, not be deployed.

So I mean, it was a nonstarter, but the reason that he wound up supporting a 100 MX missiles, which he did not believe in, was because, in fact, he wanted to get the administration to agree that they would support both Midgetman and some arms control approaches that were so ill-defined, that I'm afraid that it encouraged, thereafter, one of the saddest chapters, when in the '89 defense authorization bill for fiscal '89, the House loaded up the defense authorization bill with a number of arms control concessions, unilateral concessions that had been rejected by our negotiators in Geneva, but then had the votes, both in conference and then on the floor of both Houses, to actually get the conference adopted.

The bill went to Ronald Reagan's desk and he vetoed it. It was unthinkable, that Ronald Reagan would veto a defense authorization bill, but he did on the advice of several of us, and our expectation that it would come back clean in about a week, and that's exactly what happened.

MR. BROOKINGS: Bill, before we leave this subject, please.

MR. TURQUE: Just one more thing about the Persian Gulf vote, and I think it's pertinent to what's going on today, is that, unfortunately, I think one of the images that's come out of Gore's candidacy in 2000 is that he's somehow this holographic projection of focus group research and consultants' advice.

In fact what was going on at the time he made a decision on that vote, his political advisers were nothing less than apoplectic, in the words of one of his former aides, at the prospect that he would support the Bush administration here. They thought it would do grave damage to any future presidential prospects he had.

But Leon Furth--as I understand, Leon Furth, his national security adviser, was really the lone voice in this circle, telling him this was a good idea, and so, I mean, he stepped up and made a very tough vote, even though he was facing very strong pressure, both from his own political aides, and from leadership, not to do so.

MR. DIONNE: Before we get to questions from the floor, we should probably get to two more contemporary foreign policy issues, one, the pattern of interventions, particularly in the former Yugoslavia, and then later, to China, since we are lucky enough to have Ambassador Sasser here.

But, first, on the question of interventions and the use of U.S. force abroad. Gore is usually thought to be much more interventionist than the Democratic mainstream, and maybe more interventionist than most people in this administration.

Maybe we could start with David, by asking if this is somehow a legacy of his Vietnam experience, of something he learned in Vietnam, or are his patterns developed since?

MR. MARANISS: Well, he of course was against the war in Vietnam, but nonetheless went to serve there, largely to help his father in his reelection race in 1970. No, I think it really developed in the years after that. He did, in his experiences in Vietnam, see some things that gave him a more rounded perspective on the American role there, and he wasn't as harshly against it when he came back, as when he'd left, or at least had a more subtle understanding of it.

But I think that his perspective on intervention has developed in his years since, in Congress, and I know that in the Clinton administration, from 1992, on, he was one of the strongest voices within the administration, particularly on all of the events in Yugoslavia, and that Richard Holbrooke said that when he first walked through all of the offices of the administration in early 1993, talking about that issue, it was Al Gore who seemed to have the strongest, clearest understanding of what they had to do, and was pushing it, from the beginning.

MR. DIONNE: Does anyone else want to add to that? Roy, or--

MR. SASSER: You know, I'd just say this, E.J. I would argue with David about whether or not Al Gore went to Vietnam to help his father. I heard Al Gore's mother volunteer, on more than one occasion, that she offered to go to Canada with Al, and he would not go to Vietnam, if he chose not to go to Vietnam, and I think he chose to go to Vietnam because, if he hadn't gone, he felt that another individual would be drafted by that little Smith County, little county they lived in, drafted by that draft board and sent in his place, and I'm convinced that's the reason he went. I don't think he went for political reasons.

MR. MARANISS: But those aren't mutually exclusive, they're a combination of reasons, that he acknowledges. He says that that's one of the reasons he went.

MR. DIONNE: I want to get to one other issue with Roy Neel here, which goes to sort of how Gore prepares himself for challenges, and how he tries to deal with being a politician.

It's Jim Fallow's piece in the "Atlantic" on how Gore prepared for that Perot debate, and, you know, you can come away from that piece, depending on your point of view about Gore, you know, respecting him more for the way he prepares, or you can come away with another perspective.

Can you talk about that period, the decision that Gore made to take up that Perot challenge, which was apparently not popular, initially, inside the administration, and why he did it, and then how he went about preparing.

MR. NEEL: For the sake of the audience, we're talking about the political fight to adopt the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was--the foremost public opponent was Ross Perot, who had run for President, and who had taken this on as a kind of--an unusual populist issue for him, I think, and he really had galvanized the anti-NAFTA forces around the country, maybe not in the Congress, or the Senate or wherever, but, certainly, the rank and file around the country, some in labor, and elsewhere.

It became clear, that fall, that something had to happen to change public opinion about the consideration of the NAFTA agreement, or it was gonna "go down the tubes," and it was very important to the country that this be approved.

There's another example, by the way, I think, of Al Gore's independence, at times, from his own party, many of whom were opposing the NAFTA agreement--organized labor, and others, and just as has been mentioned by Senator Sasser and Congressman Markey, that he has frequently differed with some of the leadership in his own party, and some constituent groups, where he felt that the country should go in a different direction.

So we had Ross Perot, who was beating the drums against the free trade agreement. It was obviously out of line to have the President challenge Ross Perot, directly, and there were those in the White House who felt that that should fall to an administration official, or perhaps to a member of Congress, as more of a kind of an equal stature issue, to debate Ross Perot.

Well, Al Gore never had any fear about debating Ross Perot, because he felt like, and most of us felt like, that Ross Perot's opposition was based on an emotional appeal. We suspected that Ross Perot really didn't know what he was talking about, when you got under the surface of the debate on the free trade agreement, and Al Gore is nothing else, if not confident, when he goes into a session where he knows his stuff, where he has studied it, and where he believes in it, and he believed in the North American Free Trade Agreement, after great study and after consultations with administration officials, and economic advisers, and so on.

There was an internal debate, within the White House, not only about whether Al Gore should debate Ross Perot, but, much earlier, as to whether this should be an initiative of the White House.

The North American Free Trade Agreement was not a popular issue, early in the Clinton administration, among the political advisers, who felt like it would be divisive within the Democratic Party and would require a great deal of political capital. At the same time, we were trying to finish an economic plan which we successfully passed by one vote, which did bring the extraordinary economic growth of this country, a balanced budget for the first time, after hundreds of billions of dollars of deficits during the Reagan-Bush era, much of it spent on the Cold War, granted, but huge deficits.

I'm getting a little out of track here, E.J., but I couldn't miss that point.

MR. DIONNE: Now you and Governor Wilson have each made these opposing points. We're going to stay with Al Gore.

MR. NEEL: On the Ross Perot--on the debate, when the format was the "Larry King Show," and it was gonna be Ross Perot and Larry King, and an administration spokes man, it seemed tailor-made. Al Gore knew his stuff. He was well-prepared. We suspected that Ross Perot would get rattled, quickly, when challenged on anything, and it was a perfect session.

You know, Al Gore is a good, strong debater. This was not a true debate format, but it was ready-made, because Larry King was not gonna interject his own views. This is a popular television show, for those of you who don't follow this, and when they went into the show, there were those on the Clinton staff of the White House who felt like this was a terrible mistake, that Ross Perot was just going to, by virtue of his personality or whatever it was, was going to make the Vice President look diminished, he was going to embarrass the White House, and so on.

Of course the outcome is history, and Al Gore eviscerated Ross Perot, and showed the Perot opposition to be thin, ill-founded, in some cases downright dumb, and not well-informed.

Afterwards, there wasn't a single White House official who didn't think it was a great idea--

MR. DIONNE: Why don't we go to David and then Congressman Markey.

MR. MARANISS: It's almost like "Jeopardy" where you have to push the button fast.

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: It's $200 to you, David.

MR. MARANISS: I just want to say one thing about what--Roy, again, has made a great point about how Al Gore would govern. I think that any study of his history is that when he gets an issue where he can reduce it to science and fact, he is extraordinarily confident, and it might be that in those cases he will be a little more ideologically hard. He won't budge as much, because he's reduced it to something that he knows is true, and that's why he was so incredibly successful in that realm, in the debate with Ross Perot, and why he was the way he was in the fights with the Republicans in Congress over the budget--because he had reduced it to fact.

He was convinced that his side was factually correct, and therefore, he wouldn't budge, and I think you will find that to be the way Al Gore will govern as President, and that perhaps the more problematic areas will be in matters of intuition and instinct and emotion.

MR. MARKEY: Back in--if I may--back in 1993, when the debate on NAFTA was in full bloom, it was a very tough issue. This is a classic Republican issue--free trade, globalization. Al Gore took it upon himself to essentially take on not only Ross Perot but to take on organized labor. When I was talking to Al at that time, and he was trying to persuade me, which he did, to become one of the five Democrats above the Mason Dixon line to vote for NAFTA, believe me, I was just a microcosm of the difficulty of taking that position, compared to the position that Al Gore was in in the White House. I had a candlelight vigil of organized labor around my office in Boston, every night, praying for my labor soul in the week before that vote.

[Laughter.]

MR. MARKEY: So for Al Gore to take that position, to contrast it with the traditional perspective of the Democratic Party, was no easy thing to do, and, in fact, looking back retrospectively, of course it looks like a great position. Historically, he's vindicated.

But at the time, in the crucible of the debate, in this bubbling, boiling cauldron of controversy which Ross Perot created, he not only doused the fire but I think he has established himself, because of that one debate, as a leader who really does understand the essential nature of the global economy.

The key part of what Al Gore represents, again, is, however, that it's a deal and that the Democratic Party believes that you have to invest in the blue collar and ordinary people in our country to make sure that they get protected as well, and that's the essential difference between the perspective that George Bush was bringing to the ratification of NAFTA, and Al Gore was, just one year later.

MR. DIONNE: The tabloid headline on that is, "Markey says Gore triumphs over the power of prayer."

We go to Bill Turque, and then Senator Wilson.

MR. TURQUE: Yeah, just on the NAFTA debate, I do think that was sort of a watershed for him in his career as Vice President, because I think there were a lot of doubts, particularly among the aides that were close to Clinton, that came into the White House, that he was not entirely to be trusted in carrying the banner of the administration because of his own simmering presidential ambitions.

But one thing I think this points out--one of the reasons he was so successful in that debate, David has written about this very vividly--is the way he prepares, and what a "maniac preparer" he is for things like this, and this goes to his background as an investigative reporter. I mean, he literally attacked this as if he was investigating it, was a journalist, and he asked his aides to put together everything that was on the public record about Ross Perot, and, in it, he was able to find some things that did get under his skin.

He knew Perot was gonna come after him on, you know, the influence of lobbyists, and such, and he was able to raise the question of, you know, why Perot employed lobbyists on his own behalf in Congress. So through that preparation--I mean, that's really a strength of his, and I think it'll be a big part of his executive, his governing style.

MR. DIONNE: Senator.

MR. WILSON: I'm willing to stipulate that Al Gore is a skilled debater. What I think is more interesting are two points that Ed Markey has raised. He spoke, a while ago, almost passionately, of the Vice President's commitment to telecommunications, having been prompted by his concern for access to that technology for the poor, and for the young, and that is a commendable impulse, to be certain.

Given that impulse, and given what Congressman Markey just told us with respect to the willingness of the Vice President to take on labor in order to achieve what he deems to be a necessary goal, I would hope that he is correct, but I have high doubts, frankly, that the Vice President would, if he were President, take on the teachers unions in this nation in the interest of bringing to poor children trapped in bad schools, the rescue that they so urgently need.

If we are concerned about a good economy, and if we're concerned about economic justice, and real opportunity, then we have got to do something about the failure of the public schools, and monopoly, which, without competition, under the aegis of the teachers unions has defied every effort at accountability. The teachers unions--and I'm talking here about the NEA and all of the state chapters--have opposed merit pay, they have opposed testing, opposed more rigorous standards, and, in all of these things, including the effort to bring a rescue, through vouchers, to poor kids who are in fact trapped because their parents, low-income parents, lack the economic means to send their children to the Sidwell School, or to any other school, even a school that is affordable, like parochial school.

Why is it that he will not make that effort? I think the answer is pretty clear. Because there is a dependency upon the NEA for political support.

MR. DIONNE: We would like to get to questions. People who want to ask questions, there are two mikes ou t here.

MR. BROOKINGS: Three.

MR. DIONNE: Or three. You're technologically more adept, David.

MR. BROOKINGS: I can count higher.

MR. DIONNE: While people are lining up, could I ask a quick question of anybody, perhaps Roy, how his success in that debate linked up to his decision to take the strategy he did against Bill Bradley.

You can say, I think, two things about that strategy. One is obviously it's successful because we're standing here. The other is that it was a strategy that did not leave him with a lot of, a sort of positive image about himself. It simply did the job of vanquishing Bill Bradley.

Could you talk about how he sort of came to that Bradley challenge. It's also worth remembering that he was really falling in the polls, or so it looked in September, and he ended up making a come-back. Would you talk about that period.

MR. NEEL: Well, Al Gore is a fighter. There's nothing, you know, laid back about him. He either is a politician, or is a policy maker, and he was being challe nged, and he felt, strongly, that he had to push back on Senator Bradley, and it worked, and it also defined the difference between them, and I think that's what we will see this fall.

There's nothing wrong with being very aggressive in defending your positions and challenging those of your political adversary.

Certainly, when it gets personal, it goes "over the line," but I don't believe--certainly Senator Bradley did not believe that that ever went over the line. I think anyone that runs for office--and these gentlemen can speak to this more compellingly than I can--expects to be "hit hard" when you take a position, and you have to differentiate yourself from your opponent. So I think he's entirely comfortable in his position on those issues where he felt Senator Bradley was wrong, and it was just a good, healthy debate, and any of you who saw Senator Bradley's speech last night, I think could be readily convinced that the party is left even stronger, and more whole, as a result of that debate.

It certainly has made Al Gore a better candidate for the fall, and what they're getting prepared for.

MR. BROOKINGS: Thank you.

MR. DIONNE: Why don't we take one question from the floor. Then we'll get to China.

MS. MONTOYA: My name is Velma Montoya, and I wish to raise an issue raised by Governor Wilson, on how Al Gore would govern. By the way, Governor Wilson is a superb administrator, and people don't know that in 1993 and 1994, he appointed five ethnic minority members of the University of California Board of Regents, and I am one of them.

A President has about 8,000 appointees, and my concern is that I know friends in Washington--there's a friend of mine in the top policy shop at the Department of Energy. He has met Vice President Gore, as have I, and we find him a very thoughtful person. But my friend tells me that the appointees of Vice President Gore to the Clinton-Gore administration have been agenda-driven, and are not willing to listen to scientific evidence.

An example if Carol Browner, who heads the Environmental Protection Agency, and has addressed the revisions to the Clean Air Act from the perspective, her perspective, that of a lawyer, and not that of a scientist, which she is not. So, inevitably, the Clean Air Act is going to go to litigation, rather than to environmental remediation, which we would like.

I'd like to address this to Senator Sasser, because he did touch on this issue.

MR. SASSER: Well, as one of Vice President Gore's de facto appointees, he was largely responsible, I think, for securing a post as ambassador to China for me, I'm probably not the proper one to comment on that. But it's been my experience, excluding my own case here--it's been my experience that--and I think Roy Neel would be a better person to comment on this than I would be, because I think he's participated with the Vice President, on certain occasions, in approving some of these appointments.

But it's been my experience that he screens these people very carefully, and tries, very diligently, to get people in posts, to recommend people to posts who are qualified for those posts, who share his views on Government, and that's more important to him, I think, than simply making an appointment that might be politically advantageous.

MR. BROOKINGS: Let's cycle through, we've only got about 20 minutes left, so--

MR. DIONNE: Let me just ask a quick follow-up to that of Roy Neel, which is the lady's question indicates that Gore gets a lotta criticism from people who are on one side of the environmental issue, yet he hasn't seemed to get a lot of credit for his work in the Clinton-Gore administration from the environmental side.

Can somebody explain what is going on here. Why is that with Gore? Maybe Roy Neel.

MR. NEEL: Well, the environmental community is not monolithic, first of all, and there are those who are much more militant. I do think that Al Gore has gotten the strong endorsement of the mainstream environmental groups, and I would take exception to the question that appointees should not be agenda-driven.

Appointees must be agenda-driven. We don't have, and shouldn't have, a permanent bureaucracy. When we elect a President, the President must make appointments that help advance the agenda on which the President was elected, and, certainly, in the case of Carol Browner, she's been an extraordinarily effective head of EPA. I know I hired her when she was in the Senate. She's extremely thoughtful and fair-minded, and she is also a regulator. Regulators have special responsibilities. But I think Senator Sasser's right. I mean, appointees are not only screened, and while there may not be litmus tests per se, there clearly are issues on which it is absolutely critical that appointees support the position, aggressively, of the President.

MR. DIONNE: We'll go to Congressman Markey, and then impose a rule, that one answer per question, so we can get more question.

MR. MARKEY: You know, saying that Al Gore is not willing to listen to scientific evidence is like saying that we wouldn't be willing to inhale oxygen. I mean, this is not a fair criticism of Al Gore. Okay. Scientific evidence is what he lives for. You know, a "congressional expert" is an oxymoron. We're not really experts compared to real experts. We're only experts compared to other congressmen. Al Gore, however, is an exception. He decided to become an expert on the environment. He wrote a book with his own pen, and his own computer. Now which congressman does that, without having someone ghost-write it for him? So he's an expert.

Well, let's go back in time. Let's go back to 1981. Ronald Reagan's taking over. They're interviewing two candidates to take over the EPA. Here's the question which they get asked.

Will you be willing to bring the EPA to its knees? The losing candidate says no. The winning candidate, Ann Gorsuch [ph], says yes. She gets the job. This is in the autobiography of the guy who lost the job. This is the question they got asked by OMB.

By 1983, in the Commerce Committee, with Al Gore serving there, we're basically trying to put Rita Lavell [ph], who was running the Superfund Program, in jail, which is where she appropriately winds up. Ann Gorsuch, ultimately, is driven out of office. Al Gore, using his clout, has Carol Browner, once he and President Clinton are elected, named as the new head of the EPA.

Miraculously, Superfund sites start getting cleaned up, at double, at triple, at quadruple the rate of the Reagan and Bush era.

When Newt Gingrich and the Republican Shiites take over the House and the Senate, on their list of the top ten things to do in the first six months is abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, kind of this "back to the future" agenda, which you would have thought they would have already learned the lesson in '81, '82, '83, when there was this public uproar when they named Ann Gorsuch and James Watt as the curators of the environment in our country, and each of them were driven from office as a result of the policies which they adopted.

So Al Gore again became the point man. Bill Clinton subcontracted telecommunications and environmental issues to Al Gore. Those were his areas of responsibility, and I think when you look back over the last eight years, that there is no question that there will be an historical A which is given to this administration for the work which they have done in the environment, and notwithstanding the outliers who believe, in the environmental movement, that their job is to always criticize their closest allies, and that's their role in life, kind a like your mother--you're not doing well enough, where did that B-plus come from in calculus, you know, although you had all A's. That's essentially where Al Gore is in his relationship with the environmental community. He's done an excellent job.

MR. DIONNE: Unless we have any Shiites in the audience who want to offer a rebuttal, why don't we go to the center microphone.

MR. BRUMSKIN [ph]: I am Charles Brumskin, the former leader of the Liberian Senate, now living in exile. My question. Is there anything in the records of Mr. Gore, not considering his years as Vice President, that should make African countries believe that his administration will be a little more involved in educating the children of Africa, or at least assisting in the education of the children of Africa, helping with governance in Africa, and under governance you have a long list of sub topics, including prosecuting human rights abuse, or peacekeeping, what have you.

Also managing, if not completely eliminating the spread of AIDS in Africa. On the other hand, would it make a difference to Africa, regardless of who gets elected President of the United States? Thank you.

MR. DIONNE: Roy Neel?

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: I look for the chief of staff type on a question like that.

MR. NEEL: Well, I know that Al Gore has been deeply engaged in foreign policy work with this administration, and I know that on the issue of AIDS, in particular, it is one that's--will probably grow in importance and in priority in the next administration. It has grown in priority in this administration, and will continue to do so.

I think that the general recognition that the AIDS crisis in Africa has international implications will grow as well in the Congress, we hope.

So I think w will see more activity in that area, and as well in the human rights area. Nelson Mandela has been a very valuable and critical adviser, both to the President and the Vice President over the last eight years.

I can't speak to the specific issues in your own country, but I believe it'll be a thoughtful approach. There's no way to predict how any administration will handle its foreign policy toward a particular region in the out-years.

But, certainly, I do expect Al Gore to appoint advisers who are extremely sensitive to the problems of that region and to the global implications of those problems and their effect on the United States.

MR. DIONNE: Over there maybe.

MR. WU [ph]: Hi. My name's Raymond Wu. I'm from the People First Party in Taiwan, and I'm here, of course, as part of Taiwan delegation to the convention.

I have both a question and a short comment for the panel.

MR. DIONNE: Could we keep comments short because we want--

MR. WU: Sure; very short. Believe me.

MR. DIONNE: There are a lot of people in line.

MR. WU: Believe me. Yes.

My question to the panel is probably to Ambassador Sasser, in particular, is that this morning we talked about the transition to governing, and we have learned from the discussion this morning, that it's going to be a long, drawn-out process, before the new administration assumes control in Washington.

My question goes, is precisely because the process could be time-consuming, is--I mean, both, are both the leadership in the Republican and Democratic parties concerned, that this could be construed, internationally, as possibly a power vacuum in Washington, which could possibly be exploited, you know, especially around "trouble spots" in the world, with particular reference to the Taiwan Straits situation.

Next, my comment is very short. I think that most of us, coming from Taiwan, thoroughly enjoyed your discussion this morning about the, quote, unquote, the proper role for the Vice President, and certainly the discussion has been very enlightening and informative. Thank you very much.

MR. DIONNE: Thank you. Senator Sasser, would you also use that as an opportunity to answer the question David talked about, which is your sense of how Gore's policies on China have--maybe Senator Wilson wouldn't use this word--I'll use the word "evolved" over time.

MR. SASSER: Well, first, with regard to the change of administrations, I don't anticipate any hiatus in the foreign policy approaches of the Clinton administration, should it, in the period from November, when the election is held, until January, when a new President is sworn in. I think the policies will continue. There is a bipartisan approach, fortunately, to many foreign policy issues.

The sitting President is the executor, not only formulator but executor of foreign policy under our Constitution, and I think during the period from November to the swearing in of a new President, the foreign policy will be strong and it will be continuous.

Now on the question of Vice President Gore's views on China, I thought there was an article, an article in the Los Angeles "Times" today by Jim Mann, which I thought was extraordinarily unfair, with statements that were made by then-Senator Gore when he was campaigning for Vice President back in 1992.

That was 1992. This is the year 2000. 1992 was only three years since the tragedy that occurred in Tiananmen Square, and I think most Chinese--in fact all Chinese in the People's Republic of China, including the present leadership of China, would say that what occurred in Tiananmen on June 4, 1989, was indeed a tragedy for the Chinese people, and a tragedy for the People's Republic of China.

Now I think Vice President Gore's views on China have evolved somewhat, just as those of the Clinton administration have evolved, and I think just as those of the American people have evolved. As the shadow of Tiananmen Square has receded, I think this administration and the American people see standing there a country of 1.3 billion people, that represents 20 percent of the human race, which is rapidly industrializing and rapidly becoming one of the "great powers" in the world.

Vice President Gore has realized, and I think very wisely, that if we can build a relationship with two countries--one is Russia, and the other is the People's Republic of China, that is built on mutual respect and mutual cooperation that we will live in a much more secure world, and that we will be evolving, perhaps in the 21st Century, a new world order that will allow all nations to live in security, and develop their economies, and develop their own cultures.

Another thing that I think has driven Vice President Gore's views toward China is a realization that this is 20 percent of the human race, that it is now number two, behind the United States, in the production of greenhouse gases, that it will soon surpass the United States, and if we're going to deal with world environmental, global problems, from an environmental standpoint, then we've got to have a relationship with the People's Republic of China, and we've got to encourage them to move forward in these environmental areas.

As illustration of this, the Vice President was the first White House official to come to China, and met with the then-premier of China. This was in, I think, 1998. The spring of 1998. Maybe it was the spring of 1997.

MR. DIONNE: Could we have a short--could you come to a conclusion, just finish up your point. I just want to get to more folks. I'm sorry.

MR. SASSER: Sure. Just to say this. That he convened this symposium on environmental matters and sustainable economic growth with the premier of China. There were supposed to be exchanges every two years. I think his views on China have evolved for the reasons that I've laid out here. I won't go on any further because of the presence of time, but--

MR. DIONNE: Could I ask a very quick question before we go to the next, because politicians, like everybody else, learn from failure, and I can't resist, before we get outta here, asking about Al Gore's 1988 presidential campaign, and, in particular, the stage when it got to New York, which was perhaps one of the great disasters of his political life.

I'm curious, if Roy Neel, and one of the biographers, can tell us, briefly, your sense of what went wrong and what he learned from that experience. Who wants to take that first?

I somehow thought Roy might want to defer.

MR. MARANISS: You know, E.J., I think that in fact the major defining political failure that Al Gore has learned the most from was not the 1988 election but his father's defeat in 1970. I think that had more of a profound effect on him, particularly the impression that some people had, whether it was valid or not, that his father was out of touch with the constituents of Tennessee, and that really defined Al Gore as a congressman when he got to Congress, when he came back 250 times a year, and held town meetings all over the place, and set records on that.

Also was more cautious and centrist in his political career than his dad might have been. I think that really affected him more.

1988 was really just running before he was ready, and as long as it wasn't a complete disaster, it helped prepare him for what was coming in the future, I think.

MR. DIONNE: We've only got about three minutes, unless there's a compelling reason--why don't we go to three quick questions and then a little wrap-up. Why don't we go one, two, three, do the questions first; then we'll do the answers.

MS. LINDE [ph]: Okay. Thank you. My name is Linde, I'm the International Secretary of the Swedish Social Democrats, and you can hear from the questions, we all are wanting to know what could we expect from Al Gore on the international relations side, not only the defense perspective as you have touched upon. Is he really interested in continuing the dialogue that Clinton has started, just the latest year? I'm referring especially to the progressive governments project where Clinton has met with Social Democratic prime ministers for a couple of times now. He will do it again in September, and it's a dialogue about the third way politics and about globalization, trade issues. It's not only security policy but it's an international dialogue between Europe and America, that is quite interesting. Could he go on with that, not only from interest, but has he--must he go back to square number one and only concentrate domestic issues, the first years, when he's new President? Do we have to go back to square one?

MR. DIONNE: Senator.

DR. KHAN: Dr. Boyin Khan [ph], member of parliament from Bangladesh. This question relates more to certain political connotations of the governing issues. Although in the U.S. system of the administration, one is not very clear--it's not very obvious, what role does the Vice President play in the overall governance process. Yet we believe Al Gore did play a very important role on a broad spectrum, on the one side, starting from environment, and then, on the other side, going into high-tech computer and Information Highway, and so on.

Yet, when it comes to certain other issues, like, for instance, the fund-raising, and so on, he also did have to take a certain brunt of the criticism on account of elections not related to him.

Now under these circumstances, is there an apprehension that the voters may have certain views when it comes to the question of electing Al Gore himself?

I am saying this because as--in spite of the excellent record, and this has been well-articulated in this morning's panel discussion, the opinion poll shows that he's still several points behind.

MR. DIONNE: Could we come to a question. Okay. Why don't we come here.

MS. MANN: Erica Mann [ph] from Germany, Social Democrat, and member of the European Parliament. Now I have one question for Ed Markey, and it's a very simple one. I mean, we have had a failure from Seattle. Now what do you think, what position will, possible, Gore government will take on the new WTO round? What will happen, if labor issues will not be included in the WTO agenda? So what is your general point of view, and how do you see we can have a open trade, global open trade, taking into account social issues and labor issues as well.

MR. DIONNE: This is a good chance for closing comments. If I could add to all three of these questions, I would love each of these panelists to tell us something they can think of that people don't widely know about Al Gore, some misconception about Gore, as we close, and about his style. If you want to include that in your answer to these three questions, I'd be grateful, anyway. Where do we start?

Want to start with Ed Markey on that one?

MR. MARKEY: First, if I could respond to the woman from Sweden, and then include the question that the woman from Germany raised.

Essentially, not only will Al Gore not retreat from international issues, but, in fact, the issues of health and environment, and technology have essentially made almost every issue international now. That's the nature of the planet, and we're going to have to work together on just about every single issue, in order to ensure that there is a global approach, that ensures that there is uniformity, or some form of synchronization of policies, so that we can deal with those issues.

The essence of the conflict, though, comes from this kind of conflict that exists between Seattle Man and Davos Man. You know, one supports, you know, globalism, but perhaps not really, you know, treating the issues of how it affects the worker, how it affects the environment, how it ensures that there's a fairer distribution of the benefits of this new economic world that we have entered.

I think that, again, Al Gore has demonstrated a much better understanding of the essential equation which has to be established, which would ensure that ordinary people, not just here, but all around the world, would be beneficiaries, and he includes that as part of the formula. I think that as we're looking forward, as we're looking at whose surplus is it in the United States--is it the surplus of those in the upper 5 percentile of the income? or is it the surplus of those who have not fully benefited from this incredible economic expansion?

I think that's the fundamental difference. But Al Gore will be an internationalist, but he'll be doing so in this context of the United States being the world leader on this new economic agenda.

On one misconception about Al Gore, it would be this. That while Bill Bradley may have been running as a great basketball player, but for him, in the history of the United States, Al Gore would be, in my experience in the House gym, the second greatest basketball player--

[Laughter.]

MR. MARKEY: --in the history of the United States, and I don't think he gets full credit for that.

MR. BROOKINGS: Okay. Any other sports? If we could have 20 seconds, maybe--

MR. DIONNE: Bill, do you want to start.

MR. TURQUE: I'll just comment on the gentleman in the middle aisle, and I think he was talking about the vice presidency, and the nature of it. I think that it's a very tough sell. I mean, you can argue that Al Gore's sort of reinvented the modern vice presidency.

He had an extraordinarily broad portfolio of responsibilities as Vice President, but it's a very tough sell, I think, to convey that to voters who, for the last eight years, got most of their information about the vice presidency from Jay Leno and David Letterman. I think that's the challenge he faces, because voters just--as much as you explain to them, I think, that, yeah, he did this, he did this--most of his work was behind closed door, and he is a man of strong opinions, but most of them were expressed in private over the last eight years, and he's gonna face a pretty steep challenge, I think, in trying to sell the idea to voters that he was a player.

MR. BROOKINGS: Roy.

MR. NEEL: Well, Al Gore is disciplined and he's tough, he's well-organized, he's combative, but he also has a deep sense of fairness, and a deep commitment, in large part, from his populist roots, growing up in rural middle Tennessee, a deep commitment toward helping what some would call the underclass, or certainly, less privileged, in making their way in the world.

One thing that we never talk about is the reason why Al Gore has been so passionate about issues of technology and the environment, global warming and so on. It's not because they are academic, or because they are fundamentally intellectual or removed from controversial issues.

It is because they affect people, and he understands that these things are the things that will affect people into the next century. That you cannot be ignoring the fact that pollution still does kill children, and it does reduce productivity, and technology does improve the lives of people living in rural areas, or the disenfranchised.

These are the bases of why Al Gore is involved in these issues. You don't have to be a "table pounder" on a high-profile social issue to be committed to issues that affect ordinary people, and I think that's what's least understood about Al Gore.

MR. DIONNE: Senator. Governor.

MR. WILSON: The gentleman from Liberia asked a twofold question, and I don't think anybody responded to his concerns about the education of African children. I share his concern, and I also have a deep concern about low-income children in the United States, and their education. African Americans, Hispanic children, children of low-income, who simply do not have access to the educational opportunity that will allow them to achieve what their native intelligence would make perhaps an unlimited potential.

I think the misconception is that Al Gore, as President, notwithstanding his express sympathy, notwithstanding h