First Lady Helps Gore Bolster His Stock Among Women

Today Tipper Gore does Oprah.

On Tuesday, Hillary Rodham Clinton stepped before television cameras to effusively proclaim Al Gore as her husband’s worthiest successor.

The one-two punch is no coincidence.

Polls suggest that the vice president is not connecting very well with women--a key voting bloc in next year’s election.

So it’s no wonder that even as Gore distances himself from one Clinton (Bill), he is embracing another (Hillary) in a sustained bear hug at center stage during a pep rally staged here to trumpet women’s support for him.

Gore plans to formally declare his candidacy June 16, he told the Memphis Commercial Appeal in a Tuesday interview to be published today.

Analysts believe that Gore’s tepid backing among women--compared to Bill Clinton or GOP front-runners George W. Bush and Elizabeth Hanford Dole--is largely because of “Clinton fatigue” in general and Gore’s inability to project Clinton’s “I-feel-your-pain” empathy that resonates with many women.

Gore strategists say his gender gap will dissipate once he successfully introduces himself as a champion of issues important to women.

“They don’t know his record yet,” said Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. “But he’s terrific on these issues, as he demonstrated today.”

Moments earlier, Gore had pledged his unwavering support for abortion rights; pay equity; broader educational opportunities, starting with preschool; stricter gun controls; and cleaner environments--all issues that he said “touch all of our families and all of our lives.”

Gore further noted that 12 years ago, as a senator from Tennessee, he had co-sponsored a bill that became the Family and Medical Leave Act, the first law that Clinton signed as president.

The vice president vowed to “lead the fight against domestic violence” and added, “Women’s health will always be at the top of my agenda.”

Gore concluded: “I want to create a 21st century in which my three daughters have every opportunity that my son will have.”

The embrace between Gore and Mrs. Clinton was striking because it comes amid vigorous debate among Democrats over whether a Hillary Clinton bid for a Senate seat will hurt or help Gore’s chances in 2000.

In contrast, during a joint appearance a week ago in south Texas, Gore only mentioned the president once--in an aside.

Recent polls have shown that Gore does not command the support among women that Clinton, Bush or Dole do.

In last week’s Gallup Poll, for instance, the Texas governor led Gore 54% to 40% overall--and led among men by a margin of 57% to 37% and among women 52% to 42%.

That means Gore is attracting six percentage points fewer men than Clinton did in 1996 (37% to 43%) and 12 points fewer women (42% to 54%).

“Al Gore is having a problem with voters generally. But there’s no question that he needs to shore up women’s support,” said Susan Carroll, senior research associate at Rutgers University’s Center for the American Woman and Politics. “They have become a really important core constituency in the Democratic Party.”

Tipper Gore made the same point at Tuesday’s Women For Gore rally. “One of the main goals of the campaign,” she said, “is to get women to vote for Al.”

“Clinton was able to make women--especially middle-income and independent women of modest means--feel that he identified with their problems and knew how to do something about it,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center.

“Gore has not yet demonstrated those empathetic, sympathetic qualities in ways that say: ‘I understand your problems and can do something about them,’ ” Kohut said.

For that reason alone, Gore loyalists were ecstatic that Mrs. Clinton enthusiastically endorsed him on Tuesday.

Calling the vice president “someone whom I admire and respect so much,” the first lady told an audience of several hundred women, who filled half a hotel ballroom here:

“He is my choice--and I hope your choice--for the next president of the United States!”

Gore strategists also were delighted by his speech, which the vice president delivered with passion and conviction--qualities that he displays only occasionally.

“The more that American women understand what Al Gore has been fighting for . . . and the more they see the comparisons [to his rivals], the easier their choice is going to be,” said Marla Romash, vice chairwoman of his campaign.

Another longtime strategist put it this way: “If there’s a problem, it’s with independent women, who don’t know his issues yet. . . . The issues he’s running on are the issues that are going to win for him.”

Gore also spoke at length at the rally about his mother, Pauline, who was among the first female students at the Vanderbilt University Law School and later an attorney in the gas and oil industry in Texarkana, Texas.

In previous campaigns, the vice president has talked about other relatives--in 1992 about his son’s near-fatal accident and in 1996 about the harrowing death of his sister from lung cancer.

In doing so, he drew some criticism and ridicule, mostly from Republicans for seeking to exploit his relatives.

But on Tuesday, there seemed nothing but admiration for Gore’s mother, who lives on the family farm in Carthage, Tenn.

As Mrs. Clinton remarked, to the crowd’s roaring approval: “We also have a lot in common, the vice president and I--we’re both the products of strong mothers.”

With Mrs. Clinton sharing the limelight Tuesday with the vice president, many continued to debate whether a Senate bid by the first lady would overshadow Gore’s 2000 campaign while siphoning money and energy from it.

Some Democrats fear that, if Mrs. Clinton runs for the seat being vacated by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), she would not have much time to campaign for the national ticket. But others say her presence on the ballot, albeit in only one state, would generate nationwide excitement--and turnout--among Democrats.

During Tuesday’s pep rally, the only reference to Mrs. Clinton’s political aspirations was an oblique one, when Tipper Gore said: “I wish I had a chance this morning to endorse someone for some other race.”

As the placard-waving crowd shouted its approval, the first lady smiled coyly but said nothing.

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Times political writer Ron Brownstein contributed to this story.

Hear Brownstein discuss the candidacies of Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush on The Times’ Web site: https://www.latimes.com/politics