Gore Attempts to Link Nation’s Prosperity to Campaign

Appealing to the nation’s sense of moral obligation, Vice President Al Gore promised Tuesday to use the current economic wealth to make America cleaner, healthier and even richer, insisting that he is the best candidate to keep the country on track.

In a speech that kicked off a three-week “progress and prosperity” tour, Gore gave the administration credit for the economic turnaround of the last decade, saying that the Clinton-Gore deficit-reduction policies “unlocked the potential of our people.”

“We gave them the tools to build this economy better, so now it’s able to blaze on the fuel of their ideas and skill,” Gore told several hundred enthusiastic supporters at the New York Historical Society. “None of this happened by accident.”

In a speech that previewed the campaign’s themes during the coming weeks, the Democratic candidate for president vowed to use the prosperity to preserve Medicare and Social Security, pay down the national debt, give middle-class families tax cuts and strengthen education, health care and the environment.

“America has done well,” he said with a smile. “But I’m here today to tell you: You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Republican George W. Bush’s campaign mocked Gore’s tour as the “I invented prosperity tour.”

“Gov. Bush believes that, more than anything else, it’s the individual Americans themselves who deserve credit for this nation’s prosperous times,” said spokesman Dan Bartlett.

Gore’s 22-minute address, touted by his aides as a “historic moment,” heavily emphasized the country’s “moral debts” to future generations and those still untouched by the economic boom.

“To achieve this future, we have to make the right choices--in ethics no less than in economics,” he said.

Gore’s comments about the nation’s responsibility echoed the language used in the Democratic primaries by his former rival, Bill Bradley, who spoke of the need to “take bold steps” to use the country’s wealth to help those left behind.

The vice president said Tuesday that his plan is guided by discipline, conscience, decency and boldness, promising: “On behalf of the elderly, the vulnerable, the frail, we will not rest.”

Gore’s speech marks a new phase of his campaign that advisors hope will help boost him in the polls, in which the two candidates have been running neck-and-neck.

Dressed in a conservative black suit and red tie, with his hair slicked back, Gore borrowed a line from Ronald Reagan, whose famous question--”Are you better off than you were four years ago?”--helped propel him to victory over Jimmy Carter.

“Are you better off than you were eight years ago?” Gore asked.

“Yes!” cheered the crowd, which interrupted his speech more than a dozen times with applause.

Gore said he would use the nation’s budget surplus--which is expected to be at least $500 billion more than previously projected--to pay off the national debt by 2012.

He also said he will propose a program called “Social Security plus” that will create tax-free voluntary accounts that would let people save and invest independently, on top of the traditional entitlement program benefits. Gore aides said he will detail that proposal in coming weeks.

Gore added that he is against “any effort to make Social Security a gamble,” a reference to Bush’s plan to allow workers to invest part of their payroll taxes in the stock market. But the vice president never referred to his rival by name, only calling him “the opposition.”

In addition, Gore said he would assure the solvency of Medicare by putting the payroll taxes that fund the health program in an “iron-clad lockbox,” a plan he unveiled last week.

On Tuesday, the vice president reminded people of the uneasiness that marked the early 1990s and “how helpless people felt eight years ago.”

Gore’s aides believe that if they can effectively link their candidate with the economic boom, they can warn people off from voting for Bush.

However, while many people say the country is doing well, not all of them feel President Clinton’s leadership is the reason. In a Los Angeles Times Poll last month, 46% of voters said they thought the country was on the right track, but 24% gave credit to the technology industry, while only 15% of those gave Clinton’s leadership credit.

But Gore advisors think that by showcasing progress in battleground states during the next three weeks, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, they will strengthen the association people make between the vice president and the country’s wealth.

“I do think the American people get it,” said former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, who introduced Gore. “While all these other factors are given credit, too--and they should be--people recognize the very important role that the administration’s activities have had.”

Meanwhile, Democratic Party operatives are readying a new television spot intended to benefit Gore’s campaign, ratcheting up the general election advertising war. According to several television stations, the Democrats are buying air time in Arkansas, one of two states where the GOP has an ad running and the Democrats don’t.

Also Tuesday, the GOP prepared to launch a shorter version of its 60-second ad featuring Bush’s plan to allow workers to divert some of their Social Security payroll taxes into the stock market. In the new 30-second version, Bush’s voice is heard reassuring workers that the plan wouldn’t threaten their savings, as charged by Democrats.

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Times staff writer Jeff Leeds contributed to this story.