Gore Plans Bolder Race in 2004 -- if He Runs

Former Vice President Al Gore, as he nears a decision on whether to seek the presidency again, has begun formulating plans for a possible campaign that would be much more informal in style and more ambitious in its ideas than his unsuccessful race in 2000.

In an interview with The Times on Wednesday, Gore said that if he runs he would “do it in a very different way” by devoting most of his time to small meetings and “relaxed conversations” with individuals and families. And he said he would offer bolder ideas, like his recent endorsement of a single-payer system that would fundamentally restructure health care in America.

“I think I made a lot of mistakes in 2000, and among them was at times holding back because of respect for the need to have a politically viable set of positions that could attract a majority,” Gore said.

Gore spoke during a weeklong media blitz that has included appearances on the major television networks. The appearances have been tied to the release of a new book on American families coauthored with his wife, Tipper, but have also served to reintroduce him to the public as he approaches a decision on the 2004 campaign that he says he will announce by early next year.

In the interview, Gore was confident and relaxed, whether in critiquing President Bush’s record or his own performance in the 2000 race.

After maintaining a low profile for more than a year following his razor-thin defeat, Gore has escalated his criticism of Bush recently, a trend that continued emphatically in the interview.

“I think by every objective measure the country is worse off: economically, in terms of the threat to our national security that we face on a daily basis, in terms of the environment, health care, education, pensions, Social Security -- really across the board,” Gore said.

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan dismissed the comments as “posturing” and said that Bush was making progress against problems at home and abroad.

Gore has faced open skepticism about a possible 2004 candidacy from many Democratic Party insiders, who believe he squandered a winning hand in 2000 and retreated from the fray too long in the aftermath. A recent Times poll that found almost half the members of the Democratic National Committee surveyed would prefer that Gore not run again.

But polls consistently show Gore drawing much more support than any potential 2004 rival among rank-and-file Democrats: In a Time/CNN survey last week, 53% of Democrats said they would back Gore in 2004, more than five times as many as named any other possible candidate.

Partly, Gore’s lead reflects the fact that he’s much better known than potential rivals, such as Sens. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina. But Gore also still draws passionate support from many grass-roots Democrats.

Tuesday night, for instance, several hundred admirers waited as long as four hours outside Brentano’s bookstore in Century City, where Gore and his wife were signing copies of their new book, “Joined at the Heart,” which examines American family life.

Gore has said he won’t decide whether to run until late this year and won’t announce his decision until early January. But in the interview, he indicated that if he runs, he’s resigned to attracting less institutional support than in 2000, when virtually all elected officials, most of the top fund-raisers and organized labor backed him for the Democratic nomination against former Sen. Bill Bradley.

Running again without as many tangible political assets, Gore said, would be “both a problem and liberating.”

Indeed, it appears that if Gore runs, he is planning a campaign that would look more like an insurgency than the well-funded behemoth typical of the candidate leading in the polls.

“I don’t think the party owes me anything because of the 2000 election,” Gore said.

While writing his new book, Gore and his wife visited with families around the country for in-depth conversations, and he said that if he runs again he would try to re-create those encounters as much as possible.

Secondly, he added, “I will spend whatever time is necessary to find the words straight from my own heart about the challenges the country is facing.”

Gore said he would cancel the further reductions in tax rates for affluent families scheduled for 2004 and 2006 and redirect the money toward tax cuts for the middle class as well as new spending on education, infrastructure and scientific research.

In response, Buchan said: “Private economists agree that the tax cut was well-timed and was a factor in the recession being one of the shortest and shallowest ever.”

Gore was searing in his criticism of Bush’s foreign policy, arguing that the administration’s focus on confronting Iraq President Saddam Hussein has endangered American security by distracting attention from the pursuit of Al Qaeda.

“I don’t think there is any question that we lost focus on the war against terrorism and that the risk to our country has been increased as a direct result of the decision made ... to start a new war and campaign all over the country on the basis of that new war,” he said.

Buchan also dismissed that charge: “On Iraq, the president is uniting the country and the world, and we are making great progress in the war on terrorism both at home and abroad.”

Perhaps the clearest indication that a Gore 2004 campaign would look and sound very different from the 2000 incarnation came in his discussion of health care. In 2000, Gore charged that rival Bradley’s health-care plan would disrupt the system through excessive change. Gore argued for covering more of the uninsured by expanding programs and tax credits.

Now, he said, such incremental changes are inadequate. “The system as a whole has reached a point of no return,” Gore said. “It is collapsing. It is beyond saving in its current design.”

By early next year, he said, he will offer a detailed plan for a single-payer health-care system. Under such plans, a single entity -- presumably the federal government -- would fund all health care in America.

Gore did not indicate how he would pay for such a plan. But he said three principles would guide it: The actual health care should be privately run, it should offer Americans choices and it should reduce spending on bureaucracy and paperwork.

Gore’s embrace of the single-payer idea points to a final telling shift from 2000. In that race, he often accused Bradley of proposing ideas that were unrealistic while power was so narrowly divided between Republicans and Democrats in Washington.

Now, Gore said, he might take a page from Bradley and challenge the accepted parameters of the possible. Among the conclusions he reached after 2000 is that he is less effective at crafting compromises than trying to “present a bold vision” of where the country should go.

And that could make for a candidacy in which Gore presents himself as a leader liberated by defeat to advance big ideas that look risky to his rivals.