What Al Gore must do to win

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio

An election takes place in many dimensions. First, there's the mechanical level, organizing people, getting Democrats on a precinct level to get out the vote, getting union members to get their members to vote.

But there's another dimension, a spiritual dimension. Its up to Gore to reach that. He needs to touch people's hearts. He needs to inspire people. If he can do that, he can win hands down. Some think it's a Rubicon to be crossed, but I think he has it in him. After all, the bridge to the 21st century runs over that river.

Tommy Smothers, entertainer

If Al Gore came to me and asked for my advice on how to win, I wouldn't have anything to do with him. It's not just that he's a Democrat, it's the whole system. I was a Perot voter before. Now I'm for Ralph Nader. I'm enthusiastic about Nader because I've known him a long time and he does good deeds, cares about people and is very knowledgeable. He's not going to win, but it's important to vote for his ideas. He won't do very well unless there's a three-way debate. His views need to be heard. That's why the Shadow Convention is so important. I tell people make sure your vote counts, so vote for a third party, any third party.

Robert Dallek, presidential historian

I think what he has to do is use Joe Lieberman, and I think he should use Bill Clinton to defend the record of the past few years, well not so much to defend it but to underline it, underscore it and connect himself to the success of the administration. I think the campaign rally cry has to be, "Are you better off now than you were eight years ago?"

It's a three-pronged approach. One is they have to lay out the achievements of the past eight years. Second, Gore has to enunciate his vision of where he will be taking the country in the next eight years, or at least four, how he would continue the record of prosperity, how he would tackle education, the environment, the issue of drugs for the elderly on Medicare. He has to speak to the issues and how he would handle them. And I hope that's what we will be hearing from him Thursday night.

Third, they have to lay out how inadequate George W. Bush's plans are, and couple that with his failings in business. They have to look at his record in Texas on the environment, healthcare, child healthcare, education -- he's been trumpeting his achievements in education, but there's plenty that one can say about it that is critical.

Daniel H. Pink, chief Gore speechwriter from 1995-1997, is a Fast Company contributing editor and author of the forthcoming "Free Agent Nation: How America's New Independent Workers are Transforming the Way We Live."

Gore should steal the best idea of the 2000 campaign: John McCain's proposal to cut corporate welfare to oil companies, sugar barons, and agribusiness -- and use the proceeds to finance school vouchers for a few hundred thousand poor children.

This idea is brilliantly attuned to the values of the new economy voters who will decide this election. Forget Big Business vs. Big Labor -- or even public spending vs. private investment. The real divide in politics, commerce and most realms of American life today is between the big and arrogant and the nimble and responsive -- between the rigid, one-size-fits-all approach of the old economy and the experimental, tailor-made attitudes of the new economy.

By seizing some version of McCain's idea, calling it an "experiment," and awarding enough funds to allow families actually to afford private school tuition, Gore can land himself on the right side of the divide. He's already partway there with his effective jabs at Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, and Big Polluters. But he loses credibility by almost always siding with Big Schoolhouse.

Teachers' unions, of course, will howl if Gore reconsiders his longstanding opposition to vouchers -- even though this proposal steals not a cent from public schools. But most American schools today are profoundly flawed. And keeping poor children trapped in deplorable schools is no more noble than doing the bidding of Archer Daniels Midland.

However, this isn't just the right thing to do. It's also politically ingenious. Since African-Americans overwhelmingly support school choice, it would rally the Democratic base. Attacking corporate welfare steals an issue from Ralph Nader. And supporting a modest school choice experiment signals to centrists, swing voters, and McCainiacs that Gore is willing to break with Democratic orthodoxy and challenge the party's own special interests. It's an electoral trifecta.

This time around, don't think triangulation. Think larceny. Steal this idea.

Sean Wilentz, Dayton-Stockton professor of history at Princeton University and a contributing editor to the New Republic

A note to Al Gore: You must keep running on the issues, against the Republicans as well as against W. Remember that, while we're all good family men in this race, the public sided with Clinton and the Democrats against Starr, Hyde, DeLay and the GOP over impeachment. Look to the future, running as the new guard against the Bush old guard. But don't completely forget one of your better lines: "We say legislate; they say investigate." Once in a while, give 'em hell! (You look looser that way.) Above all, disregard everything that the D.C. in-crowd pundits and "experts" say to you -- and about you.

• View blog reactions