Talking Points for Gore Supporters

1. Gore Knows How Real People Live: Before entering politics, Gore's father was a farmer and teacher; Gore's mother was a waitress. Both worked their way through college and law school. As a child, Gore worked for his father on the family farm, getting up before dawn to help feed the livestock, clean out hog parlors, and help to clear and plow fields with a mule team. Gore served as an enlisted man in the U.S. Army. After he left the service, Gore worked as a newspaper reporter in Nashville, Tennessee. Now since leaving the Vice Presidency, Gore teaches at various colleges in the US.

2. A Lifetime Spent in Service to the Nation: Although he was offered a position in the National Guard that would have kept him out of the Vietnam war, Gore volunteered for the Army and was posted near Saigon. Gore served four terms in the House (1977-1985) and two terms in the Senate (1985-1993). He served as Vice President from 1993 to 2000; his duties included being an advisor to President Clinton, a Cabinet member, President of the U.S. Senate, a member of the National Security Council, and head of a wide range of Clinton Administration initiatives.

3. Intelligence: Al Gore received a degree in government with honors from Harvard University in 1969. He wrote "Earth in the Balance", a ground breaking book on the environment which reached #13 on the New York Times bestseller list. Gore was instrumental in the creation of the Internet and literally dreamed up the Triana satellite, which was designed to study global warming. Since leaving the Vice Presidency, Gore has taught graduate level college courses, even creating a new academic discipline on how to build family friendly communities.

4. An Economy For The People, Not The Powerful: Gore cast the tie-breaking vote that passed the 1993 federal budget, which turned record deficits into record surpluses and ushered in the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. More than 22 million new jobs were created under the Clinton/Gore Administration, the most jobs ever created under a single Administration. The unemployment rate was the lowest in three decades (3.9%). Hispanic unemployment and African-American unemployment were reduced to the lowest levels ever recorded. Under Clinton/Gore, the minimum wage was increased for the first time in five years, real wages rose at all income levels and home ownership reached record levels.

5. A Champion OF The Environment: Gore chaired the first Congressional oversight hearing dealing with toxic waste clean up. He co-sponsored early legislation to study global warming and was an original cosponsor of the Water Quality Act of 1987. The Clinton/Gore Administration cleaned up three times as many toxic waste sites as the Reagan and G. H. W. Bush Administrations combined. Gore was instrumental in launching a partnership between Detroit and the Federal Government to develop more fuel-efficient vehicles by 2003. Al Gore helped negotiate an agreement between 142 countries to reduce greenhouse gasses at the Kyoto Global Warming Conference. The Clinton/Gore Administration created 13 new national parks and used the Antiquities Act to preserve and protect more acreage in the lower 48 states than any prior administration. Al Gore also spoke out on an uranium enrichment plant that was to be put it Middle Tennessee. This prevented that plant being built in Tennessee.

6. A Commitment To Civil Rights, Not Photo-Ops: Gore cosponsored the Civil Rights Restoration Act. He was an original cosponsor of the Civil Rights Act of 1990, the Equal Remedies Act and also an original cosponsor of legislation to create a federal holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Clinton/Gore Administration filed over 500 cases to enforce fair housing laws, more than any other Administration. Gore made history in the 2000 campaign when he selected Senator Joe Lieberman as his Vice Presidential running mate, making Lieberman the first Jew to run on a major party Presidential ticket. Although he was criticized bitterly by the media and some members of his own party, Gore fought to have every vote counted in the Florida 2000 election, and asked the Justice Department to investigate Civil Rights violations that occurred there. Al Gore has recently been speaking to college students and citizens about racism and how to overcome it. He says we must first recognize our differences and also look at the mistakes made in the past and bridge them with the future.

7. A Leader In Women's Issues: As a Congressman and Vice President, Gore was an advocate for the Family and Medical Leave Act, which was the first bill signed into law by President Clinton. Gore cosponsored the Freedom of Choice Act, which sought to codify the Roe v. Wade decision into federal law. Gore was one of the most outspoken supporters of the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Violence Against Women Act. He cosponsored the Breast and Cervical Cancer Mortality Prevention Act of 1990 and the Women's Health Equity Act. In 1988, Al Gore fought successfully for legislation that would require a warning label on alcoholic beverages about the dangers of alcohol for pregnant women.

8. A Real Education President: Gore co-sponsored the bill which created the Department of Education. The Clinton/Gore Administration made the largest single investment in higher education in 30 years, securing a historic increase in the Pell Grant program. Gore cast the deciding vote to create the Direct Student Loan Program. The Clinton/Gore Administration increased funding for Head Start by 90 percent. In 1994, Al Gore set a goal of connecting every classroom in the country to the Internet; by 2000, 63% of classrooms and 95% of schools were online.

9. Gore Has Proven He Can Beat George W. Bush: The 2000 Presidential campaign began with George W. Bush leading Gore by 15 points; and it ended with Gore receiving the second largest number of votes of any Presidential candidate in history -- over 540,000 more votes than Bush. Gore's victory was record breaking in a number of other ways: he also got more votes than any other Democratic Presidential candidate; more votes any other first time Presidential candidate; and more votes than any other Vice President who ran for President. Mathematical models prove that Gore's margin of victory in Florida would have been over 49,000 votes, if everyone in who voted in Florida had been able to cast their vote on modern equipment.

10. Al Gore was one of the few Democrats to stand up to President Bush on important issues such as Iraq, terrorism, civil liberties, and the environment. For more info, please read this passage: http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0925-01.htm

Thanks to Al Gore Democrats for this fine record of Al Gore talking points.

For a detailed list of Gore's record and proposals for America, please visit his Vice Presidential site here: http://clinton3.nara.gov/WH/EOP/OVP/initiatives_bottom.html

Hi:

I would STRONGLY URGE that you add one more "Important Topics" to the three you already have: one that is SPECIFICALLY designed to respond to all the FALSE and NEGATIVE AD HOMIMEN attacks against Al Gore that will accelerate in late 2006 and get worse as we approach 2008. It would be related to the "Al Gore Talking Points" Topic, but it would address SPECIFIC attacks against Gore.

For instance, a right-wing relative of mine (I would never have any right-wing friends, but I'm stuck with my relatives), sent a link to a right-wing attack against Gore printed at (of all places) USA TODAY:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/edito...ore-green_x.htm

WE need to have a complete set of talking points to counter Schweizer's lies and false arguments, as presented here.

I would like to have a place I would go to FIRST to check the accuracy of any attack on Gore, and to have the ammunition to counter that attack. In this example, I would search for "Schweizer" to see responses to Schweizer's charges against Gore.


Here's my response to my cousin:

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This isn't a news report, it's a biased opinion column, written by a right-wing hack, Peter Schweizer, who's just trying to promote his book by maligning other people. You're taking this idiot's claims at face value, though -- he may be lying totally about, or badly distorting, everything he says in the column. He's proven himself to be someone I would normally ignore as worthless. What Gore has said about Global Warming is supported by 99% of the world's scientists. I trust Gore totally.

Here's what Publisher's Weekly has to say (taken from Amazon.com's site) about his book (I call your attention to the underlined sentences):

Working with a broadly inclusive pantheon of "the Left" that places Ralph Nader and Barbra Streisand on equal footing with Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, Schweizer (The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty) suggests that liberalism's heroes conduct their lives in ways that prove their philosophy to be "ultimately self-defeating, self-destructive, and unworkable." While acknowledging that conservatives can be high-profile hypocrites as well, Schweizer employs a double standard, arguing that "when conservatives betray their publicly stated principles, they harm only themselves and their families," but when liberals misbehave, they harm their principles first and foremost. Sometimes his research uncovers significant contradictions, as when Schweizer points out that Noam Chomsky, who tends to demonize the military establishment, wrote his first book, Syntactic Structures, with grants from the U.S. Army, the Air Force and the Office of Naval Research. But many of his charges are egregiously hyperbolic, as when he suggests that Cornel West is a "segregationist" because he bought a home in a largely Caucasian suburb. Schweizer clearly knows the limitations of his argument, since he backpedals from many of his most damning statements in his closing remarks. For all its revelations, in the end, this volume reads less like a critique of liberal philosophy than a catalogue of ammunition for ad hominem bloggers. (Oct. 25, 2005)

That sums up Schweizer's column on Gore: a catalogue of ammunition for ad hominem bloggers

Here's another expose of Schweizer's "red-baiting" technique:

http://www.campusprogress.org/soundvision/...ousine-liberals

He attacks Chomsky and Moore for making lots of (capitalist) money giving lectures against capitalism: as another person has said about Scweizer's specious arguments, "Apparently Left wing Intellectuals must wear sack clothe and ashes, in order to live up to their ideals, while champagne and caviar are fine for the right."

Schweizer is an idiot.
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Welcome, AnthonyR. We have a Gore Grassroots Media Watch Group where we post lies and negative articles directed at AL GORE. The horrible article you are refering to, I posted at Gore Grassroots Media Watch Group. Check it out:

http://s8.invisionfree.com/Al_Gore_Support...hp?showforum=16

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/8/10/101558.shtml

Not only do I trust AL GORE on global warming, I trust everything he has to say. He is definitely a man with intelligence and pure integrity.