Erich Segal began working on the script for Love Story while in residence [at Harvard while Gore was a student there]. He saw in Gore some of the elements for the character of Oliver Barrett IV, the blue-blooded Harvard hockey player who falls for
Jennifer Cavilleri, the smart-aleck Radcliffe musician. Segal sketched Barrett as an amalgam of [Gore’s roommate] Tommy Lee Jones--the tough guy with the poet’s soul--and Gore, who Segal recalled, was “always under pressure to follow in his father’s
footsteps.“
The literary footnote became an embarrassment to Gore three decades later when he suggested that he and his wife were models for the young lovers. Being merely part of the inspiration for Oliver wasn’t enough; he needed to be all of it.
Segal was forced several days later to concede that Gore was only half right about Oliver and completely wrong about Jenny. ”I did not draw a thing from Tipper,“ he said. ”I knew her only as Al’s date.“
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p. 58
Born-again Baptist; serves God & obeys God’s will
His teachers at Vanderbilt Divinity school say that while Gore never intended to get a degree or to enter the ministry, he didn’t come across as a dabbler. A professor said, “He came to get what he wanted. The question of credentials was not important.
He learned what he felt he needed to know.”
When he returned to Washington to join the House of Representative, he and Tipper began attending Mount Vernon Baptist Church where they were “born again” in the late 1970s. He was also, at least through his
first vice presidential term, part of a small weekly prayer group, and friends say that religious faith is a cornerstone of his life. “I believe in serving God and trying to understand and obey God’s will for our lives,” Gore told Harvard students at
his 1994 commencement speech. “Cynics may wave the idea away, saying God is a myth, useful in providing comfort to the ignorant and in keeping them obedient. I know in my heart--beyond all arguing and beyond any doubt--the cynics are wrong.”
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p. 93-4
Congressional campaign style: hard work & cautiousness
Gore’s first campaign was the only close race he ever ran in Tennessee. A look at how he won reveals the roots of an operating style that has remained largely intact for nearly 25 years: a relentless work ethic; tactical caution; passionate
advocacy of worthy but low-risk issues; and a willingness to revise, or simply muddy up, politically inconvenient positions. “Rekindling the American Spirit” was the bland, feel-good bicentennial tag line of the Gore campaign.
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.118
In Congress, called himself a “raging moderate”
Gore worked assiduously to avoid the left-wing labeling that had hastened the end of his father’s career. He dubbed himself a “raging moderate,” a term he thought captured his carefully confined activism. Although widely viewed by voters as a moderate,
his overall record leaned to the liberal side sometimes-especially in domestic affairs. He was a reliable liberal vote on economics, taxation, and labor matters, and some of his legislative impulses resonate today as classic “big government.”
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.132
“One of our greatest Pres.” but “disappointed” by Clinton
[In August 1998, after his Monica testimony, Clinton concluded,] “Now this matter is between me, the two people I love most, my wife and daughter, and our God.” Gore praised Clinton for acknowledging his mistakes before the American people, but steered
clear of any specific character endorsement. In September, Gore reaffirmed his friendship with Clinton but made a point of calling his conduct “indefensible.” In a September cabinet session, Gore told Clinton he was “disappointed,” concluding with a
blunt warning: “Mr. President, I think most of America has forgiven you, but you’ve got to get your act together.” In December, after the House impeachment vote, Gore said, “I do believe this is the saddest day I have seen in our nation’s capital. The
president has acknowledged that what he did was wrong, but invoking the solemn power of impeachment is wrong. What happened as a result does a great disservice to a man I believe will be regarded in the history books as one of our greatest presidents.”
Source: Inventing Al Gore, p.347-50 & p.356
The above quotations are from Inventing Al Gore, by Bill Turque.
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