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If Al Gore loses this election, it could very well be because of The List. What list, you ask? The old Democrat, interest-group politics, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately list. The list that registers a perfect 10 on the trusty "pander-meter." The one that did in Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. The one that Gore spent most of his Los Angeles acceptance speech checking off, one by one.
If you'd like to read it, just go to Gore's Web site and check out The List for yourself. There, the Veep has sliced and diced America into 28 special interests. He has even carefully arranged them in alphabetical order, so as not to offend.
In Los Angeles, Gore promised to fight for everybody on the list. But a close look at his site suggests a hidden agenda. He vows to fight for some, such as African Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, Jews, women, and working families. But others -- students, seniors, middle-income families -- seem to be getting stiffed. Gore promises merely to work for them.
MISSING WHITE GUYS. If I were a student, I'd be a little worried about this. "How come he's going to fight for Hispanics, but only work for me," I'd wonder. Of course, if I were a Hispanic student, it wouldn't be so bad, since the Veep presumably would both fight and work for me. How about an African-American senior-citizen woman student? Well, she gets fought for at least twice and worked for two more times.
On the other hand, white men aren't on the list at all. That probably explains why they're supporting George W. Bush by nearly 2-1. Nothing for left-handed golfers either. Then again, they're probably all Republicans anyway.
For those deserving few, how would Gore do all this fighting and working? Here's one way: by throwing around tax credits like beads at a Mardi Gras parade. By my informal count, so far in his campaign the Veep has proposed at least 13 separate tax breaks -- each carefully targeted to some group or another. Take a deep breath, and dive into The List:
* a tax-deferred savings plan to supplement Social Security
* a similar savings plan for education
* a separate deduction for college tuition
* an increase in the earned-income credit for working families
* estate tax relief for really rich families
* marriage penalty relief for married couples with families
* tax credits for people who buy long-term-care insurance
* credits for people who buy their own health insurance
* credits for companies that buy health insurance for their workers
* a more generous credit to help pay for child care
* a new credit to help pay for after-school care
* a credit for buying fuel-efficient cars
* a credit for building or upgrading to a more energy-efficient home
I may have left a few out, so don't feel slighted if you're not on the list. Besides, it's only August.
A BUSY BUSH. Now, some may say I'm being overly harsh on the Vice-President. After all, Bill Clinton has been practicing this sort of slice-and-dice politics for years. Still, candidate Bush seems to have found a way to avoid it. Of course, by the time he's done fighting and working for oil companies and rich people, he probably won't have much time left for anyone else. Pat Buchanan avoids the trap, too. Instead of fighting and working for all those people, Pat would just kick them out of the country. That's one way to shorten the list.
Gore thinks of himself as a New Century kind of guy. But he doesn't seem to get that, especially for younger people, this list thing is a loser. Politics of Victimization? As if. Gen Xers and their younger siblings hate being labeled by politicians. They love it when Tiger Woods won't let anyone put him in the African-American box or the Asian-American box.
It's the essential difference between Jesse Jackson, who represents the old politics of race, and Gore's handpicked convention keynoter, 30-year-old Tennessee Representative Harold Ford, who looks at issues of race and class through an entirely different prism. Gore's own running mate, Joe Lieberman, gets it. But the Veep himself needs to stop the Jackson-think and tune into some Ford-think.
Al Gore had himself a fine convention. Probably got the "bump" he needed to make this election close. And I understand that he must energize the old Democratic base if he's going to win. But the world is changing. And he'd be a lot better off if he lost The List.
Gleckman covers politics and Capitol Hill for Business Week in Washington Edited by Beth Belton
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