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Politics

Clinton, Gore back in capital

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published March 21, 2007

WASHINGTON - "Bill and Al's excellent adventure" ended tensely in the Clinton impeachment crisis and the Gore election loss - the heady '92 campaign a distant memory. Now they're back in Washington, two policy wonks cutting up the rug in the capital once more.

The old boys on the campaign bus are on separate journeys that rarely bring them in front of Washington crowds, much less on the same day. Tuesday was an exception.

The former president, a judiciously used weapon in New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, was the headliner for a fundraiser for his wife Tuesday night, pulling in more than $2.7-million. That was more than double the amount raised at a similar event Sunday in New York.

Earlier in the day, Gore previewed his testimony to Congress today about the global warming issues that won him Oscar accolades for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. The former vice president wowed an audience of institutional investors who see him as a sage on patterns of future living.

Gore preached the virtues of long-term investing in a socially responsible manner, urging pension-fund executives and trustees to look beyond the impulse to reap immediate gain.

The question hanging over the crowd - as it surely must be for the Clintons - is whether Gore will get into the Democratic presidential race despite his persistence in shooing away the idea, without ruling it out. He gave no hint Tuesday.

Jack Ehnes, CEO of the California teachers' retirement system, said Gore's visionary thinking is much needed in politics. Ehnes led a Washington conference bringing together investors of $3-trillion in pension funds.

"It's not just for tree-huggers in California," Ehnes said of the speech. "It's a business message. We do not have political leaders that have taken this challenge to heart. The vice president exemplifies this type of leadership."

Gore mixed esoteric observation with practical advice, his self-deprecating humor and jokes he's been telling almost since he lost the 2000 election in a Supreme Court decision.

Gore is looser than in his buttoned-up campaign days and is enjoying the praise of environmentalists who say he was ahead of his time on global warming when he wrote the 1992 book Earth in the Balance and is right on the money now with his film.

"Yeah, he's a sage," Rob Berridge, a Boston program manager for a coalition of environmental groups and investors called Ceres, said after the speech.

[Last modified March 21, 2007, 02:06:19]