Columnist David Broder: Without rivals, Gore will avoid issues

David Broder

Monday, Dec. 7, 1998 | 11:44 a.m.

THE FIRST Major Democratic gathering since the midterm election results inflated the party's hopes for 2000 provided a fascinating panorama of possible contenders for the next presidential nomination.

In the space of a few hours last Wednesday, those attending the annual convention of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council heard speeches from Vice President Al Gore, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska.

Gore is already organizing his campaign for the 2000 nomination. Bob Kerrey told me just before his DLC speech, "I've made up my mind what I'm going to do. I've invited my close friends to meet me on Dec. 12, and I'll tell them before I announce it to anyone else."

John Kerry, who still has four years left in his Senate term, says he will decide in January on entering the presidential race. Gephardt has the hardest choice, because he is in line to be speaker of the House if Democrats pick up just six more seats in the next election. I came away from a recent dinner uncertain what he will do, but he has told one major Democratic fund-raiser he intends to sit back for a while before deciding whether to take the gamble of joining the field against Gore.

The DLC audience is Gore's kind of crowd, affluent and educated and establishmentarian. He used his speech to show them he was ready to tackle his possible Republican opponent, Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Without mentioning him by name, Gore jabbed at Bush's slogan of "compassionate conservatism."

Gore said "listening to a so-called compassionate conservative speak from the podium of a Republican National Convention" is reminiscent of the Steve Martin shtick on the early "Saturday Night Live" shows, where a medieval monk would consider the possible advantages of moving into the age of reason, and decide, "Naaah."

His Martin imitation was passable, but the rest of Gore's speech was pap, full of the cautious, bland cliches a politician uses when his goal is to ruffle no feathers in his audience.

The theme paragraph, if you want to call it that, was: "I come before you today to issue a new challenge. Six years ago, we moved politics forward -- beyond left or right. Today, let us move politics not only further forward but also upward to a higher place -- to a place far beyond the false divisions and dichotomies of the past."

Gore did come out foursquare against "sprawl," boldly risking the strip mall owners' vote. But since he delivered his warnings against "chaotic, ill-planned development" with the same solemnity with which he twice pledged himself to adhere to oxymoronic "practical idealism," it is hard to gauge how seriously to take any of it.

Kerry and Kerrey, by contrast, ignored the Republicans and took the risk of challenging important Democratic interest groups. The Massachusetts Kerry risked the ire of the teachers unions by asserting that the "implosion" of public education has been caused not just by antiquated buildings and overcrowded classrooms but by the "stifling bureaucracy" of the school systems.

"We should end tenure as we know it," he said, by protecting teachers against arbitrary removal but empowering principals to eliminate deadwood. And "we should change certification requirements," to end the teacher college monopoly and allow talented professionals from other fields to teach their specialties.

Nebraska's Kerrey was even bolder, telling "think tank intellectuals and interest groups" from the Brookings Institution to the AFL-CIO and the AARP that Social Security should be changed by shifting some payroll taxes into individual savings accounts, that the Medicare, Medicaid and veterans health programs should be scrapped in favor of a new national health system, and the IRS code replaced by a "progressive consumption tax."

Gephardt touted his own tax reform plan, which would cut rates from top to bottom and eliminate virtually all the loophole deductions in the current code -- a far bolder step than anything the current Democratic administration has endorsed.

As the White House candidate, with full backing of President Clinton, Gore has enormous advantages in the 2000 nomination contest. But challenges from any or all of these three men might force the vice president to come down from his cliched cloudland and take part in a serious debate that would let the voters see what is really going on in that first-class policy mind of his.