Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Main man’s man

Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2000 | 10:01 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

Winning as his own man.

I am probably the last person to give advice to either of the two presidential candidates who have a chance of winning next Tuesday. They have experts who are paid to do that, and I'll bet both camps are running on overtime as the race draws to a close in what many believe to be a race close to a draw.

But as a citizen who continues to care about the nature of our democracy and the direction in which it must continue to grow if we are to be a better country tomorrow, I have a responsibility to speak out now or, as the saying goes, forever hold whatever it was that I wanted to say. So why, Mr. Vice President, won't you do all that you can to win this thing for the Gipper?

This column was written Sunday on the way to Washington, D.C., so by the time it is published Al Gore may have seen the light pointing so very clearly toward victory. If that's the case, throw this away with the rest of the armchair quarterbacking and congratulations for being not only your own man but a man for all the right reasons. If he hasn't, though, if his people are still talking about how the vice president must be his own man until we are all numb from listening, and the single best campaigner in the 20th and 21st centuries is still on the bench -- well, pay attention, because it may already be too late.

I think Al Gore's advisers are confused about what it is to be your own man. For sure, they are concerned about how the electorate -- or what little is left that hasn't made up its mind -- will react if President Clinton gets out on the stump for his vice president. You hear the words "impeachment" and "negative personal numbers" whenever there is talk of such an occurrence. But I am here to tell my friend Mr. Gore that the people in this country are so much smarter than they are being given credit for -- by the pundits and the rest of the in-crowd -- that to pay any more heed to them is folly.

I have said from the very beginning of this race that it would be Al Gore's to lose. By that I have meant that the voters, when they hit the privacy of the voting booth, will decide between what they are telling the pollsters -- that a change would be nice -- and what they are telling themselves. Excuse me, asking themselves. And that is, "What the heck do I want to change so badly in my life?"

You see, the American voters are pretty smart people. They almost always act in their own best interests. In this case, their best interests are to continue this incredible economic boom that we have grown to like under the Clinton-Gore administration and to continue the policies that allow regular folks -- those who work every day and send their kids to school and dream about better tomorrows -- to pursue their own hopes and aspirations. Sure, they'd like to have it all wrapped up in a nice, neat package in one candidate, but that's not life. Life is about tradeoffs, and the fact remains that Al Gore represents the continuation of what we have today, and George Bush represents something else.

The problem has always been that Gore doesn't have the ability to nuzzle up close and personal with the American people. For sure, he is as American as it gets and as good and decent a person as we could ever hope to have as our chief executive or as our neighbor, but that just doesn't come across our television sets the way it should. Call it a Gore shortcoming.

But Gov. Bush has a few shortcomings of his own. Beyond the specific anti-Nevada beliefs that he harbors but won't let out, Bush comes up way short on the capacity question and on questions about his ability to deal with the complexities of the big, bad world in which we live. No problem. As his own man, he has surrounded himself with people, such as Gen. Colin Powell, who are supposed to make us feel good and safe that they may be on the job as advisers or even members of the governor's Cabinet should he be elected. The people, obviously, have bought his line and think not one bit less of his ability to be his own man. In Bush's case, where he is strong on form and weak on substance, he has brought in people of some stature to shore him up.

In Gore's case, though, he doesn't need anyone to prop him up. He is a man of stature, of intellect and of great ability to decipher the facts and deal with the issues. His problem is that he is a man of great substance, but he comes up short in the form category. So why can't he take a page from the Bush campaign? After all, Bush has taken the entire Gore playbook and made it his own!

There are two people on this planet who know Vice President Gore's vision better than anyone else. One has been trying to share that with America for more than a year and has not quite gotten the job done, and the other one is being kept under wraps, however eager he may be to get out on the campaign trail and tell the story. Out of great deference and respect for his friend and vice president, President Clinton has been sitting on his hands.

Just like Bush has allowed Powell and others to take center stage where it will help him, so, too, must Al Gore let the president work his magic. In what everyone believes will be the closest election in modern history, now is not the time to stand on the political petard of "being one's own man." Bill Clinton can tell the story where it needs to be told better than Gore, better than Bush and better than anyone else.

If you are going to lose this election, Mr. Vice President, please go down swinging with everything you've got. And if you are going to win it, do so by showing the country that you are your own man. Show us you are secure enough in who you are and trusting enough in who we are, that you will bring out the big dog and let him hunt.

When the votes are counted and Al Gore has won, there will be plenty of time to reassert yourself. But by then it won't be necessary. The voters will have already made up their minds that you are not only your own man but the man they want in the White House.

Make the call, sir.