Gore Has Liberal Dose of Rightist Image

With Lake Huron’s waters dancing behind him, Vice President Al Gore ran through the core of this year’s Democratic message: Save Medicare. Provide jobs. Increase education spending.

It was the travel-worn stump speech he had delivered to dozens of audiences all year, served up again late last week during a Michigan campaign stop. Yet if this was the party’s usual tune, many in his audience didn’t see Gore as the kind of Democrat most familiar with the melody.

“I see him as kind of on the right wing,” said Bill Ward, 64, a retired Port Huron wire factory worker who has voted Democratic for 40 years. “He’s more conservative than [President] Clinton, is my impression.

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Ward’s impression is widely shared around the nation, pointing to a persistent gap between Gore’s moderate-to-conservative image and his generally more liberal record on policy issues.

Perhaps because of his Tennessee roots, his scandal-free family life and such intangibles as his appearance, Gore has continued to register with the public as leaning more to the right than his boss.

Yet his 16-year record in both the House and Senate, as well the advice he has offered Clinton during the administration’s first term, establishes Gore as a fairly liberal Democrat, especially in domestic affairs.

“People do see him to be more moderate than he is,” said Hastings Wyman, editor of the Southern Political Report. “It’s a bit of a misperception.”

This image of Gore has proved politically useful in a general election where his ticket set out early and aggressively to capture the political center.

The perception could be useful too as Gore--now the presumed Democratic front-runner--mounts his campaign for president in 2000. But given the scrutiny that comes with a presidential race, the image’s persistence will be put to the test.

As Gore’s views are more closely examined, voters will learn that in the private councils of the White House, the vice president has urged Clinton to take the more liberal route on some of the decisions that have most rankled conservatives.

For instance, he urged an uncompromising line on opening the military to gays, even when it was clear that Congress would block such an approach.

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He urged Clinton to be forceful in the 1993 economic plan that increased taxes and some government spending in seeking to pare the federal budget deficit. Because of his environmental views, he pushed Clinton toward a “carbon tax”--soon abandoned--that would have imposed levies on various forms of energy.

“Gore was in large measure responsible for the boldness of Clinton’s economic program,” Elizabeth Drew wrote in “On the Edge,” her chronicle of the opening months of the administration.

To be sure, Gore has lined up with conservatives on other issues. He has stood with the deficit hawks on budget-cutting issues and led the effort to downsize government.

During his eight years in the Senate, Gore was highly visible for his foreign affairs role, repeatedly showing himself more willing than many of his party peers to support, or consider, the use of force. For example, he favored the use of military action against Iraq in January 1991.

Yet he clung close to his party on domestic issues. The guide “Politics in America,” in the last survey of his record it conducted before he left the Senate, found Gore more likely to follow the Democratic line than Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) or even Sen. George J. Mitchell (D-Maine) then the majority leader.

Gore’s “party unity score” was “unusually high for a moderate,” the guide wrote. And Gore’s overall pattern in Senate voting was judged “decidedly liberal, particularly for a Southerner.”

But the public has seen something a bit different.

Only about one-third of voters see Gore as more liberal than themselves, according to a survey last year by the Pew Research Center. The group also found most people saw Gore as less of a believer in a strong activist government than Clinton--or themselves, for that matter.

These views of Gore are probably influenced by the fact that his most visible roles at the White House, as in Congress, have been for more conservative causes, or ones that are ideologically neutral.

Gore has been the lead spokesman for the administration’s effort to streamline government and to require installation of V-chips in television sets to help parents control what their children watch. He has led the charge for increased investment in technology.

While he has crusaded for strong environmental protection--and even wrote a book on the subject--that issue is considered less of an ideological tag to most Americans, said Kirk Brown, a Democratic pollster in Washington.

The public view of Gore as a moderate-to-conservative politician may be shaped nearly as much by how voters see him as a person as by what they know of his record.

Most know he is a Southerner, a veteran of the Vietnam War, a strong family man and a person with a reputation for personal rectitude. And many no doubt remember that his wife, Tipper, campaigned to have record companies disclose on their labels any lyrics that parents might find offensive.

Some political analysts believe that beyond all this, there is simply something about Gore’s appearance that has created an image for him that runs counter to much of his record.

“If you’re inclined to believe that Clinton’s a ‘60s liberal, you can see it in his face, in his soft features,” said a strategist for the 1992 Clinton campaign who requested anonymity. “With Gore, it’s this strong jaw, this steely gaze--the man just looks like he ought to be a conservative.”