Word: gore
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Unlike many previous Presidents and Vice Presidents who campaigned separately, Clinton and Gore bonded on the tour bus, creating a chemistry that seems to endure. Says Democratic political consultant Bob Squier: "They got to know each other so well that they came to talk in a shorthand only they could understand. You had to listen very closely to follow." Clinton even integrated his staff with Gore's to prevent White House infighting. Says Roy Neel, who served Gore before becoming a deputy chief of staff to Clinton: "The tension between the presidential and vice-presidential protectors, which has destroyed many...
...Gore's track record is decidedly mixed. He was able to get an international biodiversity treaty and to preserve funding for the space station. He worked out respectable compromises on the controversial timber and wetlands policies. In a fierce debate that lasted until two hours before the President was to deliver his Earth Day speech, Gore persuaded Clinton to include several tough proposals, among them a pledge to reduce greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the year...
...there have been major setbacks too. The high-tech investments in Clinton's economic-stimulus package "had Gore's fingerprints all over them," says an Administration aide, but the package did not survive. And Gore's influence was not enough to save the BTU tax from sniping by Senators and from Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen's willingness to carve out exceptions to it until there was nothing left. Budget Director Leon Panetta recalls, "When it was dropped in committee, there was a moment when I followed the Vice President into his office. He said...
Although the Vice President was never part of the Capitol Hill backslapping club, he was respected by most, and retains his power of persuasion there. One morning just as legislative director Howard Paster had got a difficult House Democrat on the line for the President, Gore walked in, took the phone and softened up the Congressman by reminding him of a fund raiser Gore had for him in 1988. Oftimes when congressional leaders call the Oval Office, Clinton uses the speakerphone and puts Gore on. In a walk-up to the first budget vote, Gore spent only five minutes...
...Gore is often perceived as Cosmic Al, and indeed his office is a memorial to planet Earth, with one huge picture of the sphere hanging where the grip-and- grin photos usually are. But Gore has tethered himself to the ground: on top of his desk is a foot-high stack of three-ring binders filled with the obscure yet costly rules and regulations that he hopes to bring under control. At the moment, no aspect of procurement escapes Gore's memory. While some politicians speak in sound bites and some in windy paragraphs, Gore speaks at book length whenever...