Gore An Heir Apparent In 2000?

CHICAGO (AllPolitics, Aug. 28) -- President Bill Clinton may be the first Democrat since 1932 to escape a significant challenge from someone in his own party, but the nominee in 2000 will not likely enjoy the same luxury.

Even though this year's race is yet undecided, speculation about Democratic possibilities four years from now has begun in earnest and four formidable names are being tossed around. Four years is a lifetime in politics, but when you have a convention center full of political enthusiasts, people are bound to talk.

At the top of the list is the heir apparent, Vice President Al Gore. Convention officials have been spotlighting Gore all week, but even at this convention, challengers have been positioning themselves for possible runs.

House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt from Missouri and Nebraska's Sen. Bob Kerrey have both given high profile speeches, while Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey, who will retire this year, has been making a circuit of "farewell" appearances.

With his boss still enroute to Chicago by train, this convention has been the Vice President Gore's show. He has kept an ambitious schedule, meeting with all the key state delegations, and will deliver the first of two prime-time speeches tonight.

Gore's public support and loyalty to the president are unquestioned, and he has been Clinton's most ardent campaigner. When asked to comment about the 2000 race, the vice president insists that he is only thinking of 1996. "I have three priorities," Gore told interviewers. "The first is to secure the re-election of President Clinton. Numbers two and three are the same."

But the Gore team is keenly aware of the importance of his remarks tonight. "This is no time for a Harvard dissertation," as one advisor said. He's supposed to relate Clinton to real people but also to deliver a speech that will be remembered a few years from now.

But some argue that Gore's front-runner status for the nomination is vulnerable, particularly because of his public perception as being stiff and boring. Even when poking fun at himself, as he did at last week's at the Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting, it doesn't always come off as, well, funny.

Rep. Gephardt is viewed as one of the the vice president's strongest opponents. Both men were elected to the House in 1976. Since the 1980s, Gephardt has been counted among the Democratic leadership, and he made his own run for the White House in 1988.

Gephardt has been busy one-upping his sometime rival this convention week, by planning to meet representatives of all 50 states. These efforts would seem like a clear sign of presidential aspirations, but Gephardt insists that his only goal is to help the Democrats in 1996.

"I'm single-mindedly looking at one thing and that's how we win the House back in 1996 and the Congress and re-elect the president, "Gephardt told CNN's Wolf Blitzer after his Monday night speech. "If you look beyond and you do other things you get messed up, it's counterproductive. We've got to just focus like a laser beam on winning this election and that's all I'm looking at."

Sen. Kerrey ran for president in 1992. The Vietnam veteran was formerly Nebraska's governor and won his Senate seat in 1988. Over the last four years he has quarreled openly with the president, particularly on economic issues, but supports the Clinton/Gore ticket.

As for the next time around? "I don't have the ambition to be president at the moment. That's going to have to change," Kerrey said in a interview with CNN's Judy Woodruff. "I'm going to have to want to become president before I'm interested in running in a Democratic primary again, and I don't currently have that ambition."

Many believe that Sen. Bradley has that ambition. What no one knows is if he ran, would it be as a Democrat or an independent? Just last year there were rumors that he would make an independent bid in this election.

Bradley angered many Democrats by his decision to abandon his Senate seat, particularly because he criticized both parties in his retirement speech. He has kept a lower profile at this convention than the one in 1992 where he gave a prime time speech. But no one is ruling him out as a prospect in four years.

But Bradley has remained characteristically coy on the subject, only saying "This might not be my last convention."

CNN's Claire Shipman contributed to this report.

Gore An Heir Apparent In 2000?

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