Gore Tries Protection to Ward Off Defections

The night was growing late, the air in the high school gym was getting unbearably stuffy, but the 200 undecided voters sitting in the bleachers and plying Al Gore with questions weren’t ready to let up.

“It has felt to me like the Clinton-Gore administration gave an awful lot of ground back to the right, and I want to know why I should vote for you and not Ralph Nader,” said Judy Kerman of the Green Party presidential candidate. “And don’t tell me because I’ll split the vote.”

Kerman, a registered Democrat, is the kind of person Gore is trying to win over these days.

While George W. Bush enjoys the support of about 90% of Republican voters right now, polls show only about seven in 10 Democrats are prepared to vote for Gore.

So the vice president spent last week making a hard pitch to traditional Democratic constituencies as he attempted to paint Bush as an extreme right-winger in bed with special interests.

Gore also made one address intended to attract swing voters as well, speaking Saturday in Baltimore to the Democratic Leadership Council, a leading group of moderate Democrats. There, Gore seized on recent reports of Texas’ budget problems to cast doubt on Bush’s gubernatorial record.

But the address Saturday was an atypical event in a week devoted to courting the core of the Democratic Party. It started in Arkansas, where Gore thanked voters in President Clinton’s home state for helping put the current administration in power. He also gave a rousing speech to the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, reminding the audience, “I have stood with you.” And he finally got the endorsement of Bill Bradley, his rival for the party nomination.

At the same time, the Democratic National Committee is running an extensive ad campaign promoting Gore in 17 states--all but two of them states Clinton won in 1992 and 1996.

Meanwhile, with the luxury of party support behind him, Bush spent last week trying to win over constituencies that might otherwise be considered outside the reach of the GOP, sounding at times an awful lot like, well, a Democrat.

Bush also spoke to the NAACP, the first Republican presidential candidate to address the group since his father did in 1988. The Texas governor acknowledged the lingering presence of racism in the nation, saying his party needs to reach out more to African Americans.

“That goes a long way with this group,” said Ernestine Tash, an NAACP member from New York.

The next day, Bush visited a foster care center in a Detroit suburb, where he called for beefing up child welfare programs to protect foster kids. He also spoke with two Latino organizations.

But for Gore, the challenge was how to prevent Democrats from defecting to Bush or Nader. The skeptical questioning he received in that sweaty Saginaw gym demonstrates the size of that challenge in Michigan, a state Clinton carried twice, and in the country overall.

When EPIC-MRA, a Democratic polling firm, recently asked likely Michigan voters who they would support in a four-way race including Pat Buchanan and Nader, 87% of Republicans picked Bush and 67% of Democrats chose Gore.

But for Gore the bad news was that 12% of Democrats went for Bush and 12% supported Nader.

Some experts say that Gore faces a tougher challenge in rallying Democrats, who have a greater tendency than Republicans to vote outside their party.

“There’s clearly a difference between the kind of traditional, blue-collar union constituents who were the heart and soul of New Deal Democratic Party and the more upscale, younger voters who support the Democrats less on economic issues and more on social issues,” said William Mayer, author of “The Divided Democrats.” “I think Gore has tried to straddle a lot of those differences and, as a result, is having difficulty being very thoroughly embraced by anybody.”

But Democratic analysts say Gore will solidify his base in time. They argue that many voters who tend to the left, especially women, African Americans and Latinos, often take longer than Republicans to decide on a candidate.

“A lot of these Democrats have other things to do, like put food on the table and get the kids out the door,” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. “They’re not thinking about politics at this stage in the game. This is extraordinarily typical. It means nothing about where those people will eventually go.”

Gore aides insist that the vice president’s visits last week to reliable Democratic states such as Wisconsin and Connecticut, and the trips planned this week to Iowa and his home state of Tennessee, are run-of-the-mill for this time of year, when the candidates spend time rallying the troops.

“Are we really concerned?” said one senior Gore advisor. “No, not to the extent that we would strategically take a different course of action. This is a normal consolidation of a party base.”

But not all voters were falling into line at Gore’s appearance in Saginaw.

Several people peppered the vice president with questions about his support of free trade and the need for more employment.

The line of questioning was predictable. A picturesque rural region dotted with red barns and wide cornfields, the area has suffered the loss of local manufacturing jobs that residents say has weakened the economy.

Judy Kerman also remained a hard sell, even as an unfazed Gore made his pitch. His face damp with sweat from the hot lights being used by a DNC film crew, he touted the nation’s prosperity.

And when a sheet metal worker stood up a few minutes later to praise Gore, the vice president’s eyes lit up. He took the man by the arm and steered him over to Kerman and said, “Tell this woman why she should vote for me.”

Afterward, Kerman, 54, a college English teacher, said she still wasn’t totally sold. “I have to think long and hard on what I’ll do. The question is, what kind of message do I want to send?”

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Times staff writers Bonnie Harris and Esther Schrader contributed to this story.