Bore no more

Tuesday was Kennedy day. It turns out that John F. Kennedy and his siblings had enough children to fight off all the ravages of drugs, murder, rape and that black cloud of tragedy that seems their unique inheritance. Four Kennedys spoke: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now an environmental lawyer; Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the lieutenant governor of Maryland; Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg; and, of course, Uncle Teddy, who seems to have lost his oratorical power. There were more Kennedys in the wings, Maria Shriver and Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy (said to be the real comer of the brood). Caroline emerged on stage to the show tune "Camelot," and looked fragile and stiff enough to break under the weight of so much affection. She hurried through a sweet little speech, thanking the nation for caring so much while her eyes seemed to be screaming Please leave us alone! Joseph Lieberman gave a very relaxed, agreeable speech the following night. As the first Jewish candidate for such high office in the country's history, he could consider his job pretty much over the day Fighting Al asked him to join the ticket. A man of impeccable morals and dignity, he is a dose of anti-Clinton whose sometimes heretical independence in the Senate -- supporting school voucher experiments, for instance, and advocating reforms of affirmative action -- are to be devoutly overlooked in the interests of winning the White House. I talked to a group of public school teachers in the hall, those most institutionally opposed to school vouchers, and they had already forgiven him. Barbara Kerr, a first-grade teacher at Woodcrest Elementary School in Southern California, said she didn't like Lieberman's position on the voucher issue, but felt he wouldn't dare continue to advocate such a thing while on the ticket with Al Gore.

"He won't support it anymore," said Kerr confidently. "I think he's gonna be just fine. I'm a teacher and I believe I could teach him in about a minute and a half why vouchers are a bad idea."

For all the high-blown rhetoric of the political convention, Kerr seems to have grasped the essential fact that parties are essentially cynical constructs. They are alliances of interests to acquire power. Ralph Nader complains that the Republicans and Democrats are really the same, that they both represent established shades of corporate power with different positions on abortion. I think he's wrong. One look around the multicolored skin tones inside the Staples Center, at the enormous broad back of bearded Iowa delegate Wilbur Wilson, a giant in a black, sleeveless United Steelworkers Association of America T-shirt, and there's no mistaking it for the GOP convention. The parties represent two different power alliances. They ignore issues that lack a broad consensus following, such as abandoning a fruitless war against drugs in favor of educational efforts and medical treatment for addicts, or doing away with the death penalty, because such issues hurt them more than help them on election day. But they align themselves very differently around some of the biggest issues of the day.

Fighting Al's biggest success Thursday night was to clearly illuminate those differences. He would not "waste" the budget surplus by giving it back to taxpayers (an average windfall, he argued, of 62 cents a week), and would instead use it to shore up Social Security. He left little doubt that he would fight harder than Bush to protect the environment, a woman's reproductive rights and to expand healthcare. He promised to make a campaign finance reform bill the first one he would send to Congress. There are real divisions in the country over these issues, and Gore staked out his side of the field very cleanly.

He also laid claim to being a candidate of more substance than Bush. Just as he was serving in Vietnam when the future Republican candidate was flying jets for the Texas Air National Guard, he was making decisions in the White House when W. was making personnel moves for the Texas Rangers baseball club.

If Al Gore wins this thing, I will always remember his entrance Thursday night. The Secret Service had cleared an aisle on the packed Staples Center floor, and at the appointed moment instead of walking out from backstage, Fighting Al emerged from the crowd, the very picture of a man of the people. He strutted up the aisle slapping five with both hands, stopping to pat the heads of children. As he passed me he seemed about ready to bust with patriotic pride and humble appreciation for so much plain unsolicited goodwill. The hall rocked to the rafters with cheers, with a great stirred unanimity of purpose, and I thought, damned if he hasn't pulled it off!

It may be theater, but it's great theater. Now I'm waiting for the debates.

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