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Sincerely. No, really. From the Bottom of His HeartBy Rick Horowitz "I am passionate about the need for campaign-finance reform." Al Gore, recently. (With a straight face.) There's still a chance that this only-just-begun-and-already-endless general-election campaign will turn out to be an edifying exercise, a high-minded and substantive competition of ideas that will honor the democratic process and pay homage to the loftiest ideals of American citizenship. There's also a chance that I'll sprout four hooves and a tail and win the Kentucky Derby. But I wouldn't count on it. You want to take a bath already, don't you? We've still got months and months until the conventions, let alone Election Day, and already we've reached life-deadening levels of mean and nasty. You've got your daily insults and distortions, your hourly mudballs and vituperations. And that's not the worst of it. That's not the biggest danger. The biggest danger is that you'll fall off your chair and hurt yourself from laughing so hard -- or that you'll bust a gut trying not to. Which brings us, for the moment, to one Albert Gore, Jr. Or should we say, to Albert Gore, Instant Convert? "An audacious attempt," the newspapers are calling it, which is journalist-speak for "Can you believe this guy?!" What has the reporters reeling (in their fashion) is the vice president's recent jaw-drop announcement that a centerpiece of his quest for the White House will be: campaign-finance reform. Stopped guffawing yet? I'm sorry -- I should have warned you; we don't need any more injuries. You heard right: Al Gore, Tiger of the Telephone and the Temple, wants to join -- no, lead -- the parade for a better, cleaner way. He's "learned" from his "mistakes," he says. From the "pain" of those "mistakes," he says. In fact, he says, he's perfectly "passionate" on the subject. And he says all this, presumably, without even cracking a smile. Think Jesse James going door-to-door selling bank vaults. ("I should never have robbed that Glendale train.") Think John Rocker running diversity-training sessions. ("Let's celebrate our differences!") Al wants to be our Gore in shining armor, rescuing the system from the scoundrels and the scalawags. How inspiring. How courageous. How convenient. This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with all those lost and lonely John McCain voters suddenly out there for the taking, would it? There's nothing like a whiff of disinfectant to make certain independent nostrils flare with excitement -- even if the disinfectant in question came off the assembly line all of a minute and a half ago. But hey, who's counting? Not that Al's opposite number hasn't been up to a little strategic reinvention himself -- or do you think George Dubya was always "A Reformer With Results"? Those McCain voters look more appealing, more important, all the time. So whatever it takes, right? There's a place -- there has to be a place, I'm sure of it -- where candidates can go to get ready for the big time. They do surgeries at this place. First they override the gag reflex; they don't want a candidate choking on his own sanctimony. Then they bypass the nerves that register embarrassment; the candidate has to be able to say the most outrageous things without the slightest blush or bead of sweat. And if that's not enough? There's the ultimate weapon: a total shame-ectomy. It's risky surgery, no doubt about it. After all, they have to cut away an entire human conscience without impairing the candidate's ability to think and speak, to pound the podium and rattle the rafters. If it isn't done exactly right, you've got a candidate who's constantly holding back, a slave to mindless consistency and petty principle. You've got a candidate who's doomed to failure. But when it works? Just look around you. Posted 3/14/00. Passionate
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Rick Horowitz