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His Background . Born on March 31, 1948, Al Gore spent his childhood living between Carthage, Tennessee and the state of Washington where his father worked. In Carthage, he grew up farming and raising cattle which instilled in him a love for the environment.

In 1969, he earned a degree from Harvard University and then joined the Army. Two years later, he went to Vietnam as a military correspondent. Upon his return to the U.S., he joined his wife, Elizabeth, in Nashville, Tennessee where he enrolled at Vanderbilt University to study Religion. In 1971, while working nights as a security reporter for the NashvilleTennessean newspaper, Al Gore began his political career, scoring when he wrote a news scoop about the corruption of a prominent lawyer.

In 1973, Al and Elizabeth bought the land in Carthage that they now call "home." Being very attached to this land, he came home practically every weekend while he was a member of Congress.

In 1977, Gore was elected to Tennessee's House of Representatives, and then to the State Senate from 1985 to 1993. In 1979, he was the first Representative to be televised while making an address to Congress. During his 16-year tenure in Congress, Al Gore contributed to several items of legislation. First, he worked on a bill to establish a Congressional section to deal with educational issues. Second, at the age of 34, he introduced the nuclear weapons control program to address one of the most sensitive issues in American politics. Third, in 1984 he introduced a bill which created the first computer-assisted network to provide organ transplant patients with information on prospective donors.

Contrary to George Bush, Jr., it can be said that Al Gore is a self-made man who did not depend on his family's influence or money. He is also basically a religious man, and a member of the Protestant Baptist Church in Carthage which does not allow members of the congregation to be baptized before they are old enough to understand their faith.

Al Gore The Conservative. In 1988, Al Gore was the Democratic Party's candidate for the presidency. In 1992, he was successfully elected as Vice President. Peculiarly, Al Gore is seen as the "Democrat who prefers to keep things as they are." To quote Newsweek, Gore is the "status quo candidate" and the "practical, conservative man" who makes few changes. He opposes the intensification of nuclear defense advocated by his rival Bush. In addition, there is his peculiar playing of a religious tune. As Newsweeks says, Al Gore can find nothing better than to talk about religion to distance himself from "the bad side of the Clinton Administration." It is not improbable to see him praying to win the upcoming election, and there is no better evidence of his playing a religious tune than his choice of Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, as his running mate. Lieberman boasts about his religious affiliation, and unabashedly prays in public. Of course, Gore's choice of Lieberman, his friend of fifteen years, was not only a part of his donning the cloak of religion, but a strategy to testify to his "following the straight and narrow path" in the wake of Clinton's scandals. And, as Lieberman announced, it is also a testimony to his being "a man of courage."

Conservative Al Gore supports Clinton's stand on a limited defense deployment to the State ofAlaska. He is also a strong supporter of a total ban of nuclear testing. Therefore, he regards George Bush's proposal on Star Wars as a study in naivete and superficial thinking, and accused his rival of remaining captive to the "Cold War" mentality and the "intensive defense and deterrence" concept. Gore also believes that, by proposing the revival of Star Wars, Bush is taking American foreign policy lightly. In fact, the Democrats in general attack their adversary Bush on this angle, describing him as inexperienced in foreign policy and ignorant of world geography. On still other occasions, they have accused him of generalization and oversimplification of matters.

The Path Of New Democracy. Clinton's arrival at the Oval Office marked the beginning of a change in the Democratic Party's traditional perspectives as he shifted the party from left to center, and mixed old concepts with new. The result is that the Democratic Party has lost much of its credibility, which in turn has significantly reduced the numberof Democrats in Congress. The party received its hardest blow in 1994 when it lost a majority of seats in the House of Representatives for the first time in 48 years.

However, despite their numerous disagreements, Democrats - old and new alike - joined forces against House of Representatives Speaker Gingrich, demonstrating their solidarity and close ranks against the Republicans when need be. The question now is, "Will Clinton's ideology of a "new path to democracy" survive if Al Gore becomes the next president of the United States? And will the Democrats return to the far Left, where they were before the Clinton Administration - particularly if the Republicans win the election?

Al Gore And Israel. Al Gore has said that the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 "was and continues to be a major factor in the preservation of America's national security." He continued, "Since the establishment of the State of Israel, every American president has seen that the protection of Israeli security is the key toAmerican national security. Since the 1970s, America has been committed to funding the peace project, and should continue to do so." Gore has assured Barak that he will continue to assist Israel in maintaining its military forces to enable it to preserve its security under any circumstances. He has affirmed that peace will be realized only if all parties, i.e., the Arabs, Israelis, Americans and all others, agree to make peace a way of life and not just a chant or song. Gore also believes that if peace is attained, it will improve life for all Middle East families. Therefore, he repeatedly affirms that the United States cannot suspend the agreements it has concluded, and he calls not only for expanding the circle of peace, but also advocates people-to-people contact through the creation of an environment of tolerance and fraternity in the media and in schools, and a culture of peace between Arabs and Israelis, particularly amongst the youth. Gore supports the Seeds of Peace Program which brings together a number of Arab and Israeli youth every year in order to establish better relations among them