Gore Has High-Tech High--and Low

No question Al Gore cares deeply about reducing class size. And expanding access to affordable health care. And curbing urban sprawl. These are among the emerging hallmarks of his campaign for the White House.

But to see the vice president, soon to be a 51-year-old grandfather, reveling in a state-of-the-art high-tech museum here, or in a high school computer class earlier in the day in Merced, is to see Gore surprisingly animated and looking for all the world like a teenager in utter, unadulterated bliss.

On Tuesday, even as debate continued over Gore’s recent self-portrayal as the father of the Internet, the vice president showed up in the Silicon Valley and, faster than a Pentium II chip, popped into the multimillion-dollar Technology Museum of Innovation here to tout his cyber-proficiency.

Surrounding by schoolchildren, Gore made his way from one high-tech display to another--and even rocked nimbly in an earthquake simulator that staged a temblor with a magnitude of 7.0.

“That’s cool. That’s pretty neat!” he said repeatedly.

But even as he romped in the valley’s premier showcase of space age and high-tech innovation, Gore suffered another embarrassing, self-inflicted faux pas.

Back in Washington, as the Gore 2000 campaign unveiled the vice president’s long-awaited Internet site, a glitch emerged.

The site initially contained questions asking children for their names, e-mail addresses and ZIP Codes--a practice that Congress last year decided to prohibit.

Gore’s aides deleted the questions in the “Just for Kids” section of the Web site just before it went online, after the Associated Press raised questions about them during a press preview.

A privacy law signed by President Clinton last year--which takes effect in 2001--generally bans such questions to children on commercial Web sites unless firms first obtain a parent’s permission.

As originally designed, Gore’s Internet site offered children the opportunity to receive campaign materials electronically if they submitted their first and last names, e-mail addresses and ZIP Codes. Children also could send Gore questions via e-mail.

While contending that the questions did not violate the new privacy law, Gore’s campaign officials nevertheless decided to remove all but the question asking children their first names.

His campaign also added this warning for kids:”PLEASE ask your parents if it is OK to give us the following information before you submit questions.”

Craig Smith, Gore’s campaign manager, told AP that he ordered the changes after talking with lawyers.

The vice president has been a strong supporter of consumer privacy on the Internet.

“It is important that the vice president’s office set a good example, so I commend them for making the changes,” said Kathryn Montgomery, president of the Washington-based Center for Media Education.

As the flap was unfolding in Washington, Gore was in Merced, where he spent several hours at the Tri-College Center, meeting with high schoolers who were using computers to simulate the development of the new campus for the University of California at Merced that is to open in 2005.

At one point, Gore became so engaged that he shucked his jacket, knelt between two nervous students and took control of the mouse, wielding it with easy familiarity as he plunked an imaginary firehouse down in one corner of the virtual campus.

“Wow!” Gore exclaimed, marveling at the computer program, which is called “Sim City,” a game popular among teenagers.

UC Merced will be the system’s 10th campus and is billed by boosters as the nation’s first new research university in the 21st century, designed to use digital technology to create an educational network for the entire San Joaquin Valley.

In Merced, Gore also participated in a round-table discussion with about a dozen local education leaders, who said that the new university will send more students to college from the region, which has one of the lowest matriculation rates in the state.

“I’ve never seen such an exciting process . . . in planning for the future,” Gore said of his visit. “Really good stuff.”

During the 50-minute discussion, Gore also spoke about “the next-generation Internet,” which he said he proposed two years ago and would be 1,000 times faster than the current “world wide wait,” a reference to the World Wide Web.

It was Gore’s boast last month that he “took the initiative in creating the Internet” that drew partisan ridicule, although many industry pioneers have since acknowledged that Gore, during his 16 years in Congress before becoming vice president in 1993, indeed had helped foster an entrepreneurial environment that led to the creation of the Internet and other high-tech innovations.

Gore, for instance, had sponsored legislation that promoted high-performance computers and electronic networking projects and he helped make the phrase “information superhighway” popular.

His overstatement of his role drew notice in part because courting the nation’s high-tech mavens and cultivating his image as a cyber technocrat has been a central feature of his presidential bid.

Gore’s campaign Web site address is https://www.Algore2000.com

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* TIPPER GORE IN L.A.: Vice President Gore’s wife Tipper came to Locke High in L.A. to promote school jazz programs. B4