Gore Says He Is Considering Excluding Clinton From Campaign

Vice President Al Gore said Friday that he is considering telling President Clinton not to help him as he campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“I haven’t made a decision yet,” Gore said during a luncheon interview with reporters and editors of the Washington Post. “I may do that.”

Gore, whose grip on the nomination is being seriously challenged by former Sen. Bill Bradley, said running for the White House is a “very personal quest.”

Earlier Friday, an apron-wearing Gore dropped in on a local soup kitchen to promise a healthy school breakfast for every child and food stamps for legal immigrants if he is elected president.

Fourteen million children are among the 36 million Americans who go hungry each day. “That should gnaw at our conscience because we have the food, we have the resources, we have the means to do something about it,” the vice president said, speaking on World Hunger Day.

His hunger-fighting platform was rushed out ahead of a long-scheduled address on child poverty next week by Bradley. Gore tried something similar last month when he scrambled to assemble a plan for guaranteeing health care to every child in advance of Bradley’s much broader health reform announcement.

On Friday, without detailing how he would reach his goals, Gore said that as president he would:

* Give communities unspecified resources to design innovative strategies, such as expanding the number of schools that provide free meals or making sure parents know that breakfast is available at school for their children.

* Allow working families to own “a reliable” car of unspecified value without jeopardizing their food stamp eligibility. Under current policy, families getting food stamps cannot own a car worth more than $4,650.

* Push for full food-stamp eligibility for legal immigrants. The landmark welfare reform bill, which took effect in August 1996, deprived legal immigrants of many benefits and services. Last year, Congress restored food stamps for elderly, disabled and minor noncitizens, covering 250,000 of the 935,000 legal immigrants who had lost those benefits under welfare reforms. Gore’s vow echoes a Clinton administration proposal unveiled in February that would restore welfare benefits to those who entered the country legally after August 1966.

* Reward states that do a “good job” signing up families for food stamps.

* Support anti-hunger partnerships among local, state, national and religious groups.

Meanwhile, in New Hampshire on Friday, Gore’s campaign won a big endorsement from Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen. The support was especially significant because polls indicate that Gore is trailing Bradley in New Hampshire, site of the nation’s first primary on Feb. 1.

Gore aides said Thursday the vice president would try to halt the slide with three trips to New Hampshire in the next two weeks. He planned to spend seven full days in the state, culminating in his first debate against Bradley on Oct. 27.

Shaheen, whose husband, William Shaheen, has been Gore’s New Hampshire campaign chairman since March, is scheduled to formally endorse Gore in Dover, N.H., on Monday.

Gore is scheduled to start his first big round of TV ads next Tuesday in New Hampshire and Iowa, site of the nation’s first presidential caucuses on Jan. 24. The vice president is spending about $440,000 to broadcast the initial series of ads, edging his presidential campaign closer to state-by-state spending limits three months before the first vote.