Al Gore Political Life Essay, Research Paper
Campaign 2000 Report
Albert (AL) Gore Jr.
The life of Al Gore on his way to the presidential candidate was a long and fulfilling path leading from his beginnings as a young man working on his families farm in Tennessee to his strong leadership as a congressman and Vice Presidency to Bill Clinton. The man that many people now respect as a true leader grew up like most ordinary citizens of America, growing up on his parent’s farm in Tennessee he learned the importance of caring for the environment and the value of hard work. The after his military service fighting for our country in Vietnam, Gore returned to Tennessee and attended the Divinity School and to work nights as a Police Reporter and City Hall Reporter for the Nashville Tennessean. The Gore’s then purchased their own farm in Carthage in 1973 and started a family. He later attended Vanderbilt Law School. This farm is still home to the Gore’s while they campaign for Al’s various goals and careers.
There are many player groups that are both for and against presidential hopeful Gore on his way to the presidency of the United States. Some of the major player groups that are supporting Gore on his way to the presidency are the Law Enforcement Officers who have Gore’s support not only with pro-crime prevention legislation but also with the needed materials and technology to fight the advanced crime of today. Another major player group that supports candidate Gore is the Postal Unions, who are supporting Gore because of Bush’s plan to privatize the Post Office causing the current government program to be destroyed and the loss of many jobs, Gore wants to keep the current Postal System. Another group that is in favor of the Gore administration is the School Teachers who favor Gore’s plan to keep the current school system but to add money to modernize school’s as well as to hire new teacher’s and decrease the class size along with avoiding such inconsistency’s as ignoring the problem’s that schools are having. This is in direct contrast to Governor Bush’s plan to give parent’s vouchers to send their kids to private or religious schools instead of giving money to public schools to fix the problems. Another issue that Gore is challenging is the problems that the nation is having involving considering the environment and global warming and Gore is supported by the environmentalists who like his plan to invent more fuel efficient automobiles and to try to destroy the American dependency on fossil fuels and devise new forms of energy for American’s. Also included in the groups that support Al Gore are the Pro-abortionists who like Gore’s policy of a woman’s right to choose and Gore is also a long time supporter of Roe v. Wade and wants abortions to be “safe and rare”. He also wants to increase security around abortion clinics so that patients and doctors of abortion clinics are protected. The groups that do not share Gore’s idea’s include the Finical Advisors who would like to see the money from Bush’s tax plan invested in the stock market and not kept in a “lock-box”. Another group that does not support Gore’s plans are the National Rifle Association who does not like Gore’s plans to increase the age on hand gun purchases as well as putting new gun control legislation into effect that would make it harder for some people to purchase guns in the United States. Also included in the Anti-Gore supporters are many Government employees who will lose their jobs under Gore’s plan to shrink the federal Government and Gore also pledges not to add one new federal position to the government.
The position that is held by presidential candidate Gore is that of a liberal perspective while still holding traditional values of government. The views that he takes on such issues as Abortion rights include Pro-choice or a woman’s right to choose whether or not to have an abortion but that the abortion should be “safe and rare”. He also takes a similar view on Affirmative action in which he supports it but thinks that it must have more funding to protect people’s civil rights. The view he takes on Campaign finance is that of supporting the elimination of gray area’s in legislation and that he backs the McCain-Fein gold Bill. The view that Gore hold’s on other important issue cover’s such things as the crime problem in which he feels that there is no more fundamental responsibility than to make Americans safer and more secure in their lives. The view of Gore on Defense spending is that we need a strong military and calls for continued development of advanced weaponry. He also feels that the drug problem in America is a major one and that parents need to be there for their children between the hours of 2 and 6 p.m. when children are most likely to get in trouble. Another issue that Gore has a good policy on is the Education money issue in which he feels that there should be increased funding for schools with problems and not avoiding the problem and letting the parents just move the child from a public school to a private school with vouchers. Another policy that Gore would like to put into effect is the Gun control policy in which there would be mandatory background checks at gun shows to purchase a firearm along with supporting the Brady Law. Another issue that America feels is very important is the Health Care issue and the position that Gore takes on this is he supports quality health care to all Americans, especially seniors and children along with preventative health care education and the expansion of biomedical research for AIDS and Cancer. The issue of Foreign Policy is covered by Gore’s plan of intervention and believes that America should lead the way in promoting freedom and Democracy in the world of interdependency. Along these same lines Gore believes that we should be a “Free Trader” country and plans to open more Foreign markets to U.S. trade.
The last major issue that seems to be the main focus of recent events is the tax issue and the Budget surplus in which Gore feels that we need to keep the interest rate low as well as keeping the investment rate high. On this same issue Gore also feels that we need to keep “reinventing government” to keep wasteful spending down. This issue is very important because Gore also wants to pay down the national debt by taking the budget surplus and paying down the $3 Trillion dollars that we owe.
The chances that Gore has For winning the election are very good because most of the national polls hold the race of Bush v. Gore with Bush ahead at between 46 and 49 percent and Gore following with 43 to 48 percent with a 3 to 4 percent error making this one of the tightest presidential races in many years. The deciding factor that many people feel may be the turn around in this election will be the popular votes that Ralph Nader swings away from Al Gore and this may cause him to lose the electoral votes he needs to win this election. This election comes down to the states that are still up for grabs and the candidate that wins the majority of these states being the one likely to claim the presidency.
Websites
http://www.selectsmart.com/president/results.php3
http://www.issues2000.org/Al_Gore.htm
http://www.algore.com/health_care/hlc_accomp3.html
News Articles
Time Magazine-November 6, 2000
SPECIAL REPORT-THE CHOICE