Gore Finds He’s Caught in a Pair of Dilemmas

It was easy to understand why Al Gore was smiling broadly when Air Force II touched down here for a two-day Midwest campaign swing this week. The morning air was brisk with a hint of autumn and a throng of local Democratic leaders was on hand to welcome the vice president--exactly the sort of potentially useful allies in his anticipated run for the White House in 2000.

Yet the impression of well-being created at the start of his trip Tuesday and at other stops Wednesday may well have been misleading. Gore’s close political relationship with President Clinton vaulted him to the summit of national politics, but now it has put him in a pickle. Indeed, if Clinton is the most vulnerable politician on the national scene today, Gore probably runs a close second.

Most obviously, he has to worry about the continuing fallout from the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal. As he eyes the 2000 race, Gore must find a way to deal with the furor over Clinton’s personal conduct without seeming disloyal and without sacrificing his own reputation for morality and integrity.

But simultaneously, Gore’s good name is at risk of being tarred by the ongoing Justice Department investigation of his role in alleged 1996 fund-raising abuses--an investigation that may culminate in the naming of an independent counsel.

No Flagging While on Stump

With characteristic self-discipline, Gore allows no hint of these twin dilemmas to diminish his zeal on the stump, where he is performing three or four times a week on behalf of Democrats facing tough competition in November’s election.

At an Appleton fund-raiser for Rep. Jay W. Johnson, Gore declared, amid rousing applause, that the Nov. 3 vote will determine whether “we allow the Republicans to take the nation on a right wing U-turn.”

With Clinton under siege, Gore’s ability to get across the party’s 1998 campaign message--built around the triad of reforming health care, bolstering public education and protecting social security--is more critical to Democrats than ever.

“What he is doing is holding up the party politically,” said Elaine Kamarck, a former Gore policy advisor and now a Harvard government professor. “And he is continuing to try to get through the din [about the Lewinsky case] . . . on issues that are very important for the party.”

But Gore’s hard work on the campaign trail cannot dispel the looming threats to his political future.

“A vice president is joined at the hip to his president,” said Al Eisele, press secretary to former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, whose own White House prospects were diminished by the low grades voters gave President Carter’s performance in the White House. “If Clinton is perceived as a failed president, there is no way Gore can escape some of the tarnish.”

Trapped in the Wreckage

David Keene, a political advisor to Vice President Spiro T. Agnew in the midst of the Watergate scandal, contended: “If the car goes over the cliff, it doesn’t matter that Gore is not driving.”

Other vice presidents have been in similar binds before--most particularly Ford, who tried to walk a tightrope between loyalty and independence as President Nixon’s understudy during Watergate and who could never fully resolve that dilemma. After succeeding to the presidency, Ford dealt a severe blow to his own political future by pardoning Nixon for any Watergate crimes.

“It’s like it always is for all vice presidents,” said Kamarck about Gore’s predicament. “He’s in a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ position.”

George Edwards, director of the institute for the study of the presidency at Texas A&M; University, said Gore “has to be a real contortionist. His goal is to be loyal, while creating an independent identity.”

The twists and turns Gore must take were on display during this week’s campaign swing. Whenever he could, Gore lauded Clinton’s substantive achievements.

Yet Gore clearly is trying to keep some distance, if not from Clinton himself, at least from the scandal surrounding him. Asked his reaction to the broadcast of Clinton’s videotaped grand jury testimony, Gore said somewhat equivocally: “My general impression was that it was much ado about not much new.”

As part of his effort to focus attention elsewhere, Gore is scheduled to join congressional Democrats today on the Capitol steps at what is billed as a campaign-style rally to portray themselves as defenders of the Social Security system in the face of GOP plans for an $80-million tax cut.