WASHINGTON INSIGHT

CAIRO ALL-NIGHTER: Vice President Al Gore is getting high marks for staying up much of the night to rewrite his speech to the recent U.N. population conference in Cairo. Gore, known for ash-canning texts prepared for him, discarded a draft prepared by the State Department and the National Security Council and wrote a version that hewed closely to positions he outlined earlier in a Washington speech. . . . The long night paid dividends. His speech drew high praise for, among other things, narrowing the rift between the Clinton Administration and the Vatican. “Gore really pulled our chestnuts out of the fire,” said a senior Administration official.

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COUNTING CHICKENS: The political winds have sent a chill through Democratic senators on Capitol Hill. In recent months, Sen. Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.), chairman of the Budget Committee, has been running hard among colleagues for the post of majority leader, which is to be vacated by retiring Sen. George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) next year. Suddenly, however, amid President Clinton’s sinking fortunes, Sasser has found himself among the growing ranks of Democrats facing tougher-than-expected reelection challenges. . . . Sasser, a three-term liberal-to-moderate who won 65% of the vote in 1988, is opposed by wealthy Nashville heart surgeon Bill Frist. Sources say that concern about Sasser’s prospects was expressed at a glum meeting of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee when panicky lawmakers returned from their summer recess this week. “Sasser’s race has tightened dramatically,” said a Democratic Senate staffer. “I think he’ll focus back home now.” . . . One thing is for sure: If the likes of Sasser should be swept out by a Republican tidal wave in November, the top Senate Democrat in 1995 will be leading the minority, not the majority.

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FEINSTEIN RULES: In his new book “Dianne Feinstein: Never Let Them See You Cry,” San Francisco Chronicle journalist Jerry Roberts recites the California senator’s rules for getting ahead. Some of them read straight out of a management seminar: “Be loyal,” “Be a team player” and “Put in more time than anyone else.” Others provide useful advice for candidates seeking political office: “Do not cry. No matter what” and “Use your appearance to create an image of strength.” . . . Then there are rules, laid down by Feinstein in the mid-1980s, when she was considered vice presidential material, that may elicit chortles in some quarters. The first: “Don’t wear your sex like a badge on your sleeve,” is a theme discarded in 1992, the so-called Year of the Woman that helped catapult Feinstein and fellow Californian Barbara Boxer into the Senate. And Feinstein, a notorious micro-manager who sweats every detail, might save her staff a few headaches if she delegated responsibility in keeping with another early rule: “Learn how to be a manager.”

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JOGGING MEMORIES: Republican strategists are considering a novel way to tie Democratic congressmen to President Clinton by depicting them jogging with the chief executive when his popularity was higher. Walter Jones Jr., the Republican challenger to Rep. H. Martin Lancaster (D-N.C.), is using a television ad showing a somewhat breathless Lancaster on a jog with Clinton. . . . Other Republican candidates, especially in the South, may use similar commercials against the President’s other Democratic jogging partners. Rep. Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, says: “B.C. doesn’t stand for Bill Clinton in the South, but (for) ‘ball and chain.’ ”