Editor’s note: Political Persuasions is a weekly column featuring students who campaign for different presidential candidates. This week’s columnist, Sarah Leonard, is an organizer of Cyclones for Gore.

Stiff as a board, boring, dull, no personality. Sound familiar? These are words and phrases describing Al Gore by people across the country who have never even met him.

Many laugh at the defense, “You don’t really know Al Gore.” Everyone thinks they do because he’s been our vice president for seven years; how could they not know him?

People haven’t had the chance to know Gore much in the same way that people haven’t had the chance to get to know Elizabeth Dole.

She’s been in the public eye for years, but as the woman behind the senator. Much like Gore has been the man behind the president. Their role has always been supportive. Only now do they get the chance to be in the forefront.

Gore was born 1948 to former U.S. Senator Albert Gore, Sr. and Pauline LeFon Gore. Because of his father’s position in Congress, Gore was raised both on a farm in Carthage, Tenn. and in Washington D.C.

He earned a degree in government with honors from Harvard University in 1969. Upon graduation, and in the face of his father’s opposition to the war, Gore volunteered to serve for the U.S. Army in Vietnam.

Returning to civilian life, Gore settled in his hometown of Carthage and attended Divinity School. While going to school and for three years after graduation, Gore worked nights as a reporter for the Tennessean. He and wife Tipper bought the farm they still call home in Carthage in 1973, the same year their first child, Karenna, was born. Gore later attended Vanderbilt Law School.

Deciding he could better serve the country by a life in public service, in 1976, he was elected to represent Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives. Gore was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984, and was then re-elected in 1990 becoming the first candidate in modern history to carry all 95 Tennessee counties. As a presidential candidate in 1988, he won the Democratic primaries and caucuses in seven states.

Gore’s wife, Mary Elizabeth “Tipper,” is an author, photo-journalist and activist who serves as President Clinton’s advisor on mental health policy. She has fought to end discrimination in health care for those with mental illnesses. She has been a leader on issues ranging from children’s health, homelessness and AIDS to physical fitness. Tipper is also a well-known advocate in her own right for families, women, and children.

The Gores have four children: Karenna, Kristin, Sarah and Albert. The family attends the New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Carthage.

Gore has been a central member of the president’s economic team for almost seven years.

He helped design the program and cast the deciding vote in 1993 that led to the first balanced budget in 30 years, created 19 million new jobs, reduced the unemployment rate to 4.3 percent, led to the highest home ownership rate ever, and over 2.2 million new small businesses since 1992 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 7/2/99; White House fact sheet, web site; The Los Angeles Times 1/30/99, Senate Roll Call Vote 247, 8/6/93; Bureau of the Census, 1/27/99; New Business Incorporations, Treasury Department).

This is the longest peacetime economic expansion in American history. Thanks to Gore, we have the lowest unemployment rate in almost 30 years and the lowest African-American and Hispanic poverty on record.

Gore has served as the president of the Senate, as a Cabinet member, as a member of the National Security Council and as the leader of a wide-range of administration initiatives, including family and medical leave, the fight for the V-chip and more quality programming for children on television.

Gore has taken the lead in reinventing government to make it cost less and work better. His efforts have saved taxpayers $137 billion by eliminating waste and redundancy, 16,000 pages of regulations, 640,000 pages of needless internal rules and 350,000 federal jobs to the lowest level since JFK (National Partnership for Reinventing Government Web site, www.npr.gov/accompli).

Together with Tipper, Gore has held an annual Family Reunion policy conference in Nashville to promote new initiatives strengthening fatherhood, increasing flexibility for mothers and fathers in the workplace and giving parents more control over information that comes into their homes.

The list goes on, and over the next semester, I’ll lay it all out for you. In the mean time, Vice President Gore will be in Iowa this weekend.

You will have the chance to catch a glimpse of the VP in Sioux City, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids and Dubuque. He will also be the Grand Marshall of the Labor Day Parade in Des Moines Sept. 6.

If Tipper is the one you’re waiting for, you may not have to wait long. The wife of the vice president is scheduled to be in Ames Sept. 11 for a fund-raiser put on by the Story County Democrats.

The event is a BBQ at Big Blue Stem Shelter at the Moore Memorial Park.

I encourage you to check out the ISU Democrats Web site, or get ahold of me to get involved. See you soon.

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Sarah Leonard is a senior in journalism and political science from Lawler.