|
|
Change Your Life! |
"The older I get, the less I'm nervous"-Gore |
|
News
|
|
|
September 30, 2000
WASHINGTON, (AP) - A lot hinges on his performance in the coming presidential debates but Al Gore says that after all these years in politics, it's getting easier to take even the big moments in stride. "The older I get, the less I'm nervous about things that might have made me nervous when I was younger," the Democratic vice president said during a mostly smooth hour with CNN's Larry King on Thursday night. Despite that practiced comfort, Gore, 52, was a bit defensive when King asked him about his tendency to exaggerate. "I think that itself is an exaggeration," he said. "In a campaign, you know, if you get a fact wrong, all of a sudden you are accused of committing some horrible offense." Playing down the intensity surrounding his first encounter with Republican presidential rival George W. Bush, in Boston on Tuesday, Gore said his preparations will consist largely of cramming with "pretty boring" briefing books. Gore heads to Sarasota, Florida, for several days of debate rehearsals after campaigning in the Washington area Friday, where he's talking about energy policy and ways to bring down fuel prices. Meeting at a Sarasota marine laboratory and conference center known for its shark tank, Gore will be surrounding himself with advisers - inviting not only his usual pros, but a selection of average citizens he's met while campaigning around the country. Gore went on "Larry King Live" with his wife Tipper, following Bush and his wife Laura by two nights. He fielded most questions from the talk show host and call-in viewers with aplomb. But he looked uncomfortable when asked about misstatements he's made in the campaign - a tendency Bush has portrayed as a career-long pattern of stretching facts. Gore recently represented figures in a study as prices actually paid for an arthritis medicine for his mother-in-law and his dog, even though the numbers were not related to his family's experience. He was trying to make a point about drugs costing more for people than pets. And he claimed to have remembered a union song from childhood even though it was not written until he was an adult. Tipper Gore defended her husband, saying that sometimes "you're just talking, you're just thinking ... just being yourself" when certain things are said and then put under a microscope. "I just think people have to understand all of that." On a separate matter, Gore expressed support for the government's decision Thursday to approve the sale of the abortion pill RU486 in the United States. "I do not think that it ought to be kept away from women for some political reason," he said. Gore hesitated when pressed about whether he'd grant overnight White House visits to campaign donors, as Hillary Rodham Clinton, the first lady and New York Senate candidate, has been criticized for doing. "If somebody is a close friend who is also a campaign supporter, yes," Gore said. But if that person was a major donor but not a close friend? "No." Gore said he thinks he can win Florida, where Bush's brother Jeb is governor but polls indicate a close race. But he admitted he doesn't have much hope of carrying Texas, where Bush himself is governor.
|