Ready for Gore’s 1,000 Years?

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large--I contain multitudes.”

That was Walt Whitman, from “Leaves of Grass.” It’s little wonder that Bill Clinton admires the 19th-century poet; he gifted female friends--including Monica Lewinsky and his wife--with Whitman’s famous book of verse.

Al Gore may not have gotten a book from Clinton, but he has gotten a gift: the front-runner status for the Democratic presidential nomination next year. Yet Gore may lack the poetic or political skills to sing a persuasive song of himself to the voters in the coming campaign. Whitman and Clinton have both proved that audiences will accept no small degree of self-contradiction, but people do insist on a measure of artistry and proportionality.

On Monday, Gore traveled to New Hampshire and told his audience, “Stand with me and we will work together and create an America in the 21st century of which it will be written 1,000 years hence, ‘This was the greatest nation ever on the face of this Earth and its finest hours began in 2001.’ ”

To be sure, the new century and the new millennium form a theme that will be milked by every candidate for every office higher than mosquito abatement commissioner. But Gore ought to think twice before conflating himself with those who decisively shaped this century. His rhetorical trope--that America’s finest hour will come thanks to his presidency--is of course a lift from Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s speech to the House of Commons on June 18, 1940: “Let us brace ourselves to our duty,” Churchill said as Hitler’s Luftwaffe rained incendiary bombs down on London, “and so bear ourselves that if the British Commonwealth and Empire lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’ ”

But if not turning back Nazism, what critical concerns was Gore addressing on the stump? What causes would define his millennial presidency? Pressed by reporters, he identified two: universal pre-school and reducing classroom sizes.

No doubt some will be persuaded, just as they agreed with him last December when he declared that Clinton “will be regarded in the history books as one of our greatest presidents.” But many more might chortle, as they did when Gore announced that he was the role model for Erich Segal’s novel “Love Story” and that he had invented the Internet.

Oratorical overreach aside, Gore’s emerging platform is filled with contradictions that even Whitman and Clinton working together would have a hard time explaining away. Earlier this month, for example, Gore announced a series of “regional transportation livability summits” to deal with the issue of “urban sprawl.” He put forth various high-concept, low-content initiatives that were duly noted and then duly forgotten.

But one proposal lingers, because it wasn’t just piffling; it was positively pernicious. Gore suggested establishing a national 911-type phone number for traffic information. Of course, such a national traffic reporting network already exists: radio stations. To create a publicly funded telephone-based system that would presumably have drivers fumbling with their cell phones while on the road is not only dumb, but dangerous.

Moreover, the whole notion of fighting suburbanification is at odds with Gore’s oft-stated micro-chip vision. From Massachusetts to California, entrepreneurial start-ups have flourished fastest in low-rent, low-rise areas.

And so the contradictions multiply. Gore must be a New Democrat in time for the general election, but he must be an Old Democrat to clinch the nomination. He was silent as union-influenced congressional Democrats killed the administration’s “fast-track” trade legislation last year, along with yet another trade-expanding measure: the African Growth and Opportunity Act. And now the one-time hawk must defend the administration’s distinctly dovish--some say doormat-ish--policy toward China.

In 1860, a British critic said of “Leaves of Grass,” “One of the most curious traits of this volume is the crazy earnestness with which the writer believes in his own poetical infallibility.” Whitman was indeed confident that his free-verse style would prevail, contradictions and all--and he was right. Similarly, Clinton, with his alternating tears and smirks, has mastered incongruity and discrepancy.

But then there’s Gore, who has earnestness but no poetry, energy but no persuasiveness. No wonder he’s 15 to 20 points down in the general election polls.