Gore’s Time Has Come and Gone on the Reshaping of America’s Families

It’s a safe bet that between presidential runs, Adlai Stevenson and Richard Nixon never felt compelled to share with the American people their views on how fathers should relate to their children or whether elementary schools should cut down on the sweets at lunch.

But that’s exactly what Al Gore, the once and perhaps future Democratic presidential candidate, has done in the new book he’s written with his wife, Tipper -- “Joined at the Heart: The Transformation of the American Family.”

How you feel about that will probably go a long way toward explaining how you feel about Gore overall. To Gore admirers, the book will demonstrate an intelligence, curiosity and engagement that many of them see lacking in the Oval Office’s current occupant. Those who don’t like Gore, in both parties, will probably see the book as proof that he’s lost in the clouds, lost in the weeds or, in some anatomical marvel, both.

Both camps might agree that this is unlike any book ever written by anyone thinking about running for president. It’s not a memoir; it’s not a call to arms; it’s not even much of a policy blueprint on issues affecting families. Gore had plenty of recommendations on that front from his 2000 campaign, but he passes over them lightly here.

Instead, the book is a combination of big-picture sociology on the changing economic and social role of family over time, and miniaturist portraits of 13 contemporary families diverse enough to form their own rainbow coalition. Along the way, the Gores offer tips for parents either from their own experience, or their take on the work of experts in the field. Large chunks might have been written by a friendlier Dr. Phil.

Still, in an era when political allegiance is so heavily driven by cultural attitudes, the book inevitably advances an underlying view of the social changes remaking American family life. And it’s a view likely to drive social conservatives nuts.

In the book, the Gores chronicle familiar changes in family life over the last generation. The divorce rate, although stabilizing lately, is twice as high as 40 years ago. More children are born out of wedlock. More couples live together before marriage. Interracial marriages are more common, as are openly gay couples living together, and even raising children.

To all this, the Gores largely say: fine. They’re not enthusiastic about the trends in family breakdown, but they are optimistic about the ability of American families to fit the pieces together in ways that work. “We believe,” they write, “it is long past time to demand an end to the narrow-minded condemnation of good families that happen to be different.”

All this is the political text in this book. But there’s a subtext too: an assumption that understanding and responding to the daily problems of ordinary families is an essential responsibility not only of the federal government in general, but also of the president in particular.

After the Cold War ended, and George H.W. Bush lost a 1992 presidential race in which he appeared disconnected from daily life, that was a widespread assumption. Bill Clinton focused more on the routines of family life than any president before him, lavishing attention not only on such big issues as education and children’s health care, but also on such secondary concerns as helping parents monitor what their kids see on television.

In his 2000 race, George W. Bush tilted in that direction too. He campaigned in classrooms so much that he seemed to be running for school board, and he presented his tax cut partly as a way for “moms and dads” to work less and spend more time at home.

Gore went even further than Bush. His agenda followed parents through their day, from preschool and after-school programs to expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act so that fathers and mothers would have a federally established right to attend teacher-parent conferences.

Intriguingly, however, much of what the Gores portray in the new book as the keys to successful families seems largely beyond the reach of public policy. They talk about play, resilience, communication, understanding, patience and simply a commitment to spending more time together, even if that means less money.

In an interview last week, I asked Gore whether writing the book had raised or reduced his expectations about the ability of public decisions to improve private family life. “Paradoxically, it’s led me to two different conclusions,” he said. “One: The immediate cause of most of the stresses and problems that we Americans face are things we need to deal with personally and in our families. However, when you pull back from the individual family situation and look at the national pattern, the case is even more compelling for me that large national trends have a profound influence on the chances for success or failure that each individual family confronts.

“For example,” he went on, “the ability to earn a decent living

That answer is thoughtful and reasonable, as is most of the analysis in the book. It’s possible, however, perhaps even likely, that voters will find the undeniable expertise Gore displays here less relevant in 2004 than in 2000.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Americans seem less interested in a president who will understand their ordinary stresses than one who will protect them against extraordinary dangers. Voters felt terrorism was now such a compelling priority that they essentially gave Bush a pass this year -- even for the weak economy; in such a world, it’s not likely that they’ll give Gore many points even if they decide he has better ideas about balancing work and home.

This book doesn’t appear designed to score political points anyway, and Gore, if he runs, will likely have no shortage of ideas on the traditional big tickets of presidential politics -- the economy and national security. But his focus here seems to embody a moment that has already passed. It would be nice if the president could think intently every day about easing the intimate pressures facing families. In a world where jumbo jets become bombs, however, it’s not clear that most Americans now believe the country can afford that luxury.

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Ronald Brownstein’s column appears every Monday. See current and past Brownstein columns on The Times’ Web site at: www.latimes.com/brownstein.