December 1, 1999
Web posted at: 12:57 p.m. EST (1757 GMT)

CONCORD, New Hampshire (NHPrimary.com) -- Vice President Al Gore insisted Tuesday that his neck-and-neck Democratic primary race with former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey forced personal and campaign changes that were long overdue and will help elect him in 2000.

And Gore said the near death of his youngest son, Albert III, in a 1989 traffic accident pushed him away from presidential politics, a feeling that did not return until a few years after serving as President Clinton’s vice president.

"I have run both ways and I prefer unopposed, and I would have preferred to run unopposed this time around,’’ Gore quipped during an interview with The Telegraph’s editorial board.

"In spite of what I would have preferred, I have found the tough competition to be a blessing in disguise. Winston Churchill once remarked, ‘Damn good disguise.’’’

Bradley’s surge in the polls forced him to leave the vice presidential box he had placed himself in for seven years, Gore said.

"I’m proud of what I have been able to do for the president the last seven years. But running for president is more important, and it requires a direct and clear connection with the American people,’’ he said.

Gore said running as a presidential candidate has been both liberating and easier.

"Once I made that shift, it was easy and I’ll tell you why. The easiest thing in the world to do is to just give you a spontaneous and candid response to whatever you want to ask me,’’ Gore said.

"It’s hard to stop a split second and say, ‘OK, here’s what the administration’s agenda is on this and my feelings are reconciled to that in the following way.’

"You don’t hear those gears grinding. You may see those gears grinding. If I told you six months ago that I was not having fun, that might not have been accurate. I am having fun.’’

Gore said he remains close friends, a willing adviser and an eternal admirer of President Clinton, but he found the urgent need to better define himself to voters in the first-in-the-nation primary and other key states.

"I’ve got to win this race on my own. I am campaigning in my own right, in my own voice, in my own agenda for what I think this country ought to do in the next century,’’ Gore said.

"In the process of articulating my own vision, that is not an effort to separate myself from him, but it’s simply to be who I am.’’

Gore said his son’s accident forced him to shift his priorities to family. So despite running for president in 1988, he said, he turned down the chance to do it again four years later.

"My family went through a shocking, shaking, transforming experience. It’s hard for me to talk about it right now, to tell you the truth,’’ Gore said of Albert III, who was hit and severely injured while walking in his Washington neighborhood.

"When you make a decision (not to run) that you know is right, it’s like an immediate relief. That’s how that felt to me.’’

Gore said taking Clinton’s offer to be his running mate more than a year later in the summer of 1992 was totally unexpected and not a logical stepping stone to a White House run in 2000.

"I did not accept it with an eye to running for president later on. I only slowly came to that feeling after being so close to the job at hand,’’ Gore said.

A Vietnam War veteran, Gore said he found "no basis whatsoever’’ in the Newsweek magazine report that said his late father, former U.S. Sen. Albert Gore Sr., directed retired-Gen. William Westmoreland to protect Gore with a bodyguard.

"One guy who I haven’t seen in 18 years said that he was supposed to be my bodyguard,’’ Gore said with a chuckle. "I really don’t know anything about that. If he was supposed to be my bodyguard, he was certainly falling down on the job.

"It was the first I heard of it when he gave the interview. He was a nice guy but that came as a surprise to me. Sometimes, people remember things in different ways, particularly in that period of time.’’

As for unrest in Russia, Gore said it’s important to wait for the election of a successor to ailing President Boris Yeltsin and to work through delicate channels to encourage the Russian people to bring about continued, democratic change there.

"The critical turning point will be the election of Yeltsin’s successor. I’ll try to avoid a diplomatic incident, but let me just say within the next six months keep our eye on that ball that we continue to support reform, equal rights and democracy and human rights and to do so in a way that maximizes a chance of a transition to a reform government,’’ he said.

Gore said he had not read the foreign policy speech Bradley delivered Monday, which called for withholding Export-Import Bank credits to Russia until it ends its war with Chechnya.

On personal privacy, Gore said there need to be more legal protections built into the new law that allows banks, securities and insurance companies to enter each other’s business, but the market deregulation reform was a step forward.

"I think we need more protections, but if you look at what the bill did it is an improvement of what we had. It is not ideal, but as compared to the situation before the bill passed, this is better,’’ he said.

And Gore told New Hampshire Editions magazine at least one thing he would want placed in a time capsule for residents in New Hampshire to open in the year 2100.

"I would if there was a way to preserve the brightest leaf of the fall with the date as to when in the season it reached its full brilliance," he said. "Spring is coming earlier in the Northern Hemisphere every year, and I’d like to be able to measure over the next 100 years how we reverse that."

Wednesday, December 1, 1999

• Bush offers tax plan that would aid very rich and working poor
• Analysis: Bush tax plan would leave little room for new spending
• Clinton urges greater openness in trade talks
• McCain lays out international policy priorities
• NHPrimary.com: Gore calls challenge from Bradley a shot in the arm
• NHPrimary.com: Gore draws stark line between roles as vice president and candidate
• Clinton brother to sing in North Korea
• Seeking votes, Gore cites good economic times for black America
• Forbes ad takes on Bush over Social Security
• Ex-Democratic official admits making illegal donations to N.J. senator
• Mississippi governor's race could lead to changes in state Constitution
• Giuliani, from afar, defends homeless policies
• Bradley campaigns on the Internet
• Washington Monument to close for final stage of repairs
• Activists give Clinton administration an 'F' for HIV prevention

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