From N.H. to California, Gore Gets His Message Out

From across the country, Vice President Al Gore cranked up his presidential campaign in California on Thursday, launching a television advertisement in the state and, in a satellite link, connecting his environmental policy speech here to a friendly audience on the West Coast.

Gore said he would continue a moratorium on offshore drilling along the California coast and ban new drilling if he’s elected--a promise echoed in the commercial.

The vice president criticized Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Republican presidential front-runner, on his environmental record, citing a federal report last week that Houston has replaced Los Angeles as the nation’s smoggiest city.

Gore’s campaign rushed out its 30-second TV spot Thursday in San Francisco and Santa Barbara. It shows a pristine shoreline and a family strolling the beach, with oil rigs in the background. In the ad, Gore proclaims that “good stewards of the Earth . . . must create a future worthy of our children.”

Gore produced the ad just hours before its broadcast. Aides said a camera crew arrived at the vice president’s home Wednesday night to film his comments in the dining room. Last week, Gore produced a commercial about the Senate’s rejection of a nuclear test ban treaty hours before it was broadcast.

“It shows a campaign that’s nimble and quick,” said one senior strategist.

Christopher Lehane, a vice presidential spokesman, said the California advertisement is intended to “reinforce” Gore’s commitment to the environment and draw a contrast to Bush. “Al Gore is going to make the environment an issue in the presidential campaign like it’s never been in prior presidential campaigns,” Lehane said.

But with a limited broadcast schedule, the ad seemed more a tactical feint than a serious or sustained advertising effort.

“This reminds people that Gore has serious environmental credentials, that he understands California, and he’s out front as a leader on these issues, and not just a candidate,” said Bill Carrick, a veteran Democratic strategist.

Gore has been a longtime champion of the environment, although activists have recently complained about what they called the Clinton administration’s weak record in this area. The vice president’s 1992 book, “Earth in the Balance,” included several controversial proposals, including the elimination of the internal combustion engine within 25 years.

In an interview Thursday, Gore said even some people at the top of the automobile industry have expressed an interest in that idea. Of his book, he said: “I wouldn’t change a word of it.”

In Gore’s speech Thursday, transmitted by satellite to environmental activists in Los Angeles, he said he is also preparing “the most sweeping anti-sprawl initiative this country has ever seen.”

Even in New Hampshire, urban sprawl is increasingly a concern. Commutes of more than an hour are not uncommon for workers making their way at daybreak toward Boston, and the state’s bucolic image is in retreat, notwithstanding the golden maples, deep green pines and white-barked birches that offered vistas along the Spalding Turnpike.

“We’re losing a lot of open space and agricultural land. We’re seeing taxpayers being asked to subsidize re-creation of urban infrastructure on cornfields,” Gore said.

Addressing another issue at the center of environmental dispute, Gore said he favors “a gradual phase-down” of MTBE, the gasoline additive used to reduce smog that has also been found to pollute underground drinking water reserves. California Gov. Gray Davis recently signed a measure to phase out the additive.