Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Take a Mulligan, Al

Wednesday, May 31, 2000

After eight straight weeks of bad news the Gore campaign finally came up with something positive. As Maureen Dowd detailed in her Sunday New York Times column, pollster Harrison Hickman trotted up to Capitol Hill to tell shaky Democrats that the Gore campaign had conducted a focus group and found that women would prefer to go on a date with Al "Kiss-Me-I-Was-The-Model-For-Jonathan-Livingston-Seagull-Too" Gore rather than with George W. Bush.

How shrill would the howls of outrage be from the feminists if the Bush campaign had run such a focus group - much less bragged about it? Shrill enough to shatter crystal chandeliers from the New York Islands to the Redwood Forests, I'd bet.

The Gore campaign has this slogan to gain the women's vote: "Don't worry your pretty little heads about it."

Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in an opinion piece in the very same New York Times, yesterday called "obscene" the Gore campaign's charge that a downturn in the stock market "would wipe out a worker's benefits."

How does the Gore campaign react to yet another bad week? Like a kid in the playground at recess: A DO-OVER.

This isn't a Presidential campaign, it's the mulligan campaign. Don't like your shot? Take a mulligan. Don't like your campaign? Restart it. Take a mulligan. The campaign has taken four mulligans and Gore is preparing to drop another ball and tee off again.

Newsweek's Howard Fineman has identified the following Al Gores so far: "Bible Belt Al, Environmentalist Al, Good Soldier Al, Attack Dog Al, and now Intellectually Questing Al."

The questions which will be answered over the NEXT eight weeks are: Did Gore wait too long to build a positive image? Will choosing the political black hole of summer when no one is paying attention prove to be a waste of time and effort?

When the American public next tunes into this race it will be for the Republican National Convention. Gore's newest incarnation may well prove to be, in the immortal words of H.R. Haldeman, T-L- Squared.

Meanwhile up in New York Rick Lazio officially became the Republican nominee to face Hillary Rodham Clinton Rodham for the Senate seat being vacated by the aforementioned Pat Moynihan.

Lazio, who is sporting eight stitches in his upper lip as the result of a fall in a Memorial Day parade, was greeted on stage to the theme song from Rocky. Judging from the size of his lip, they just as easily have played "Jumpin' Jack Flash."

In accepting the nomination, Lazio said, "I have one advantage she'll never have. I can be myself. I am a New Yorker."

In an article describing the potential problems high gasoline prices in the U.S. may cause for the Gore campaign ("Gore in trouble as drivers face the $2 gallon") the London Times gives a short table of gas prices around the world. The U.S. we know. The price of a gallon of petrol in the UK is about $5.45; $4.38 in France; $4.19 in Germany; and, $1.10 in Russia where you can get cheap gas, but you can't get a car to put it in.

Jon Corzine, who is running against former Governor Jim Florio for the Democratic nomination for Senator from New Jersey will spend about $33 million by the June 6 primary date. In a previous Mullings, when Corzine was reportedly prepared to spend about $20 million, we noted if he were to spend an equal amount in all fifty states in a run for President he would spend One Billion Dollars.

The new total would bring a Corzine Presidential campaign in at about $1.65 Billion. That's a lot of gas.

Here's what I don't understand. The other day a woman representing PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) - the same folks who interfere with fishing tournaments because of the pain they say is inflicted on bass, or trout - heaved a pie in the face of Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman.

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