I am woman, hear me Gore

Is feminist author and Gore 2000 advisor Naomi Wolf earth-toning the vice president or just destroying his credibility?

By Jake Tapper

Nov 1, 1999 | The chattering class's tittering about Vice President Al Gore's floundering presidential campaign built into a hearty guffaw over the weekend upon hearing the revelation that middlebrow feminist author Naomi Wolf has been a $15,000-a-month paid consultant to the Gore 2000 campaign since January.

According to the original report, in Time magazine, Wolf is not only the consultant responsible for Gore's new three-buttoned, earth-toned look, but has also "argued internally" that Gore is "a 'beta male' who needs to take on the 'alpha male' in the Oval Office before the public will see him as the top dog."

When asked about it on ABC's "This Week," Gore called Wolf "a valued advisor" on "campaign strategy, communications," while pointing out that her salary has been cut to $5,000 a month. He downplayed her role, saying that she worked "with my daughter, Karenna, on an organization called GoreNet."

But there's a bit more to the story than that. Wolf -- 37 and married to former Clinton speechwriter David Shipley -- was an advisor to the Clinton-Gore 1996 campaign, where she was responsible for brainstorming about ways to reach soccer moms and other female voters. Former Clinton advisor Dick Morris once credited her with providing "remarkably prescient analyses of the social-cultural trends in the country" during that campaign.

Thus, Wolf's presence on Gore's team of advisors shouldn't be all that surprising. Gore's popularity among women voters is somewhat underwhelming, especially when compared historically with that of his sweet-talkin' alpha male ticket-mate. In 1992, Clinton beat President George Bush among women voters by 8 percentage points. In 1996, he beat Bob Dole by 16 percentage points. Without women voters supporting him so disproportionately, Clinton wouldn't have won.

Gore hasn't fared as well with women, especially when put in a hypothetical match-up with Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Gore has consistently trailed Bush in polls of female voters, though he's recently narrowed the gap to a virtual tie. Former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, it should be noted, continues to trail Bush among women voters by 13 points, according to a recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

Despite his protestations, Gore clearly is making use of Wolf's mastery of the Zeitgeist in more ways than just GoreNet. While her influence on the vice president's campaign is nowhere near that of advisors like Carter Eskew or Bob Shrum, Wolf was one in a huddle of advisors prepping Gore for last week's town meeting in New Hampshire with Bradley -- an encounter in which Gore clearly took the offensive. More of an alpha dog he could not have been, unless someone had thrown him some kibble.

"Everybody's making a big deal out of that 'alpha male' stuff," says a Gore insider. "But how different is that from what we've been saying for months, that Gore has to emerge out of the shadow of the president and be his own candidate? It's just different words. The media talks about 'alpha beta' like it has to do with the wild kingdom. But it's the same concept."

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