Fightin' Al

Under Bush's plan, Gore said -- without naming Bush even once -- "for every $10 that goes to the wealthiest 1 percent, middle-class families would get one dime and lower-income families would get one penny." The average family would only get enough cash "to buy one extra Diet Coke a week," Gore said. "About 62 cents in change. Let me tell you, that's not the kind of change I'm working for."

The audience went wild at this, his one joke. "That's the difference in this election," Gore said. "They're for the powerful, and we're for the people."

There were loads more policy proposals and liberal raw-meat thrown in there -- a Santa's wish list with something for every interest group present. Hate crimes laws. Employee Nondiscrimination Act. An end to racial profiling. Fifty-thousand more cops. Abortion rights. Affirmative action. Fighting global warming. Gun control.

Stealing the catch phrases of both business and labor, he pledged both free and fair trade. Because he's a New Democrat, he made sure to mention that he's one of the few Democrats (along with Lieberman) who supported the Gulf War. A welfare reformer. A man who wants to "challenge a culture with too much meanness and not enough meaning."

Gore's own mean streak reared its horned head during the primaries, and so tonight he explained the heart within fightin' Al Gore, the one America has yet to really meet. Biographical snippets were thrown in hither and yon. He volunteered in 'Nam, worked as a police reporter at the Tennessean, became a crusading anti-toxic waste congressman -- but only after having a daughter who convinced him that he "could not turn away from service at home -- any more so than I could have turned away from service in Vietnam." (Unlike certain others.)

Tipper's introduction of her husband was replete not only with her alarmingly arhythmnic dancing but also, fittingly, an Erich Segal-esque saccharine biopic and the disco hit "Turn the Beat Around."

"Only a vice president of the United States gets a second chance to make a first impression," quipped former White House press secretary Mike McCurry. "Politically, he became his 'own man' tonight."

Indeed, he did. And in case you missed it, he even said at the start of his speech that he was "stand(ing) here tonight as my own man." After his deflated climax, Gore was joined on stage by Tipper, then Lieberman, then a whole bunch of Democrats who've been part of this interesting, disjointed, disorganized, unpunctual convention, where growing pains creaked.

"It must be frustrating for my Democrat counterparts trying to manage the message these days," John Czwartacki, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., e-mailed me the other day. "Nightly news and morning papers teeming with the sad and pitiful story of an entire vessel sunk with almost no hope of rescue. All because a political leadership -- thought reformed from their rejected ways -- cannot escape its old guard instincts that are so offensive to citizen onlookers.

"Then there's the story of the Russian sub."

That might be a bit much, but Gore certainly laid out his campaign message tonight. And, as with the "I stand here tonight as my own man" bar mitzvah speech excerpt, in case we missed it, they replayed it on the TV as the balloons fell and the music pumped. An instant replay of comments Gore had made just minutes before.

"I know one thing about the job of the president," he said (twice). "It is the only job in the Constitution that is charged with the responsibility of fighting for all the people. Not just the people of one state, or one district, not just the wealthy or the powerful -- all the people. Especially those who need a voice, those who need a champion, those who need to be lifted up so they are never left behind.

"SO I SAY TO YOU TONIGHT," he bellowed, "IF YOU ENTRUST ME WITH THE PRESIDENCY, I WILL FIGHT FOR YOU."

Clang!

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