CAMPAIGN ’88 : Will Soviets, Like Fowl, Fall Under Gore’s Spell?

If elected, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee could bring a unique talent to the White House: He says he can hypnotize chickens.

The arcane talent was disclosed when Gore, a native of rural Carthage, Tenn., was introduced Tuesday to the Georgia state Senate in Atlanta. De Kalb County Sen. Pierre Howard, a longtime friend, said Gore once had hypnotized his aunt’s chickens and placed them in a row on her porch as a practical joke.

“I figure anyone who can do that can stand up to the Russians,” Howard said.

“You can hypnotize a chicken,” Gore insisted with a grin to the laughing legislators. “You really can. . . . You can use ‘em for doorstops, paperweights, play football with ‘em.”

Talking to reporters later, Gore explained in deadpan tones that he actually knows two ways to hypnotize a chicken. The “preferred method,” he said, involves holding the chicken’s head down and drawing circles around it in the dirt. “After numerous circuits of the chicken’s head, the chicken falls into a trance,” he said.

“You don’t tell the chicken, ‘You are getting sleepy?’ ” a reporter asked. No, Gore replied. Nor should you imitate a chicken, he added, giving a passable imitation of a chicken clucking.

He did not explain the second method.