Gore Tables Gun Issue as He Courts Midwest - By JAMES DAO - WASHINGTON, Last April, on the first anniversary of the shootings at Columbine High School, Vice President Al Gore castigated Gov. George W. Bush for offering only "half a solution" to the problem of gun violence. "We have to address not just the spiritual dimension of this challenge, but also the physical fact that there are too many guns," Mr. Gore said. "I think one of the lessons of Columbine is that we have to stand up to the N.R.A. and the gun industry."But Mr. Gore himself seems to have gone silent on the physical half of that equation. He has chastised the entertainment industry for glamorizing violence and marketing it to children. He has made family values and religious faith centerpieces of his speeches. Yet he has virtually stopped talking about gun control or the National Rifle Association. Many political analysts said they were not surprised by Mr. Gore's effort to steal a bit of his Republican rival's thunder. Among the more conservative swing voters he is trying to court, there is greater political profit in criticizing the people who produce movies than the ones who make, sell and own guns. "Clearly gun control is not an issue anyone is going to ride to the White House on," said Robert J. Spitzer, a professor of political science at the State University of New York at Cortland, and author of the book, "The Politics of Gun Control.""Hollywood, on the other hand," Professor Spitzer said, "is an absolute win all the way around." Mr. Gore's aides said he had not backed away from his gun control agenda, which includes licensing new handgun owners and limiting handgun purchases to one a month. They said he was keeping his focus on education and health care and might return to gun control later, though they offer no promises."I don't think there's any ambivalence about the issue," said Mark Fabiani, the deputy campaign manager. But privately, Mr. Gore's advisers have long acknowledged that gun control is a potentially double- edged issue. And so they have counseled him to avoid discussing gun control in rural communities and to frame his proposals as crime-fighting or child-safety ideas: terms more acceptable to gun owners."Clinton always viewed the issue as a big plus for him," said Kristen Rand, a lawyer with the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit advocate for gun control. "With Gore, I think there is a lot of ambivalence. "The logic of Mr. Gore's strategy becomes clearer with a glance at the electoral map. His race with Mr. Bush is most sharply contested in Midwestern and Great Lakes states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Missouri.Many independent voters and Democrats in those states are socially conservative, pollsters said. And many own guns. Having consolidated his base among more liberal Democrats at last month's Democratic convention, and having checked, at least for the moment, the advances of Ralph Nader of the Green Party on his left, Mr. Gore is now free to court those more conservative voters. "If he talked about gun control, he would lose further among the white men in certain swing states, places like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, all of which are in play," said Ted G. Jelen, chairman of the political science department at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, who has studied gun control as a political issue. Recent surveys of voters in the Midwest suggested that Mr. Gore's tactic is working. Ed Sarpolus, an independent pollster in Lansing, Mich., said polls that he conducted in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Illinois last week showed Mr. Gore edging up among men, while also receiving significantly stronger support among voters who said family values was the issue they cared about most. Mr. Sarpolus noted that embracing gun control can be an effective way to court women. But he said that Mr. Gore's popularity among women has improved sharply in recent weeks without mentioning the issue. "Right now, he's winning on the issues people are thinking about: health care, prescription drugs, education," Mr. Sarpolus said. "So why change? If you get onto gun control, you take yourself off-message. And then you might lose some of your own base."One reason for Mr. Gore not to change his strategy is what many analysts call the hassle factor: the ability of the National Rifle Association to energize small groups to work against their political opponents.Research by Mr. Jelen suggested that gun control opponents are a more unified and active voting bloc than gun control supporters. That means, Mr. Jelen asserted, that Mr. Gore is likely to alienate more voters than he can woo by talking about gun control, particularly in the Midwest.Advocates of gun control dispute that conclusion, arguing that the shootings at Columbine and other schools have made supporters of gun control a more single-minded and passionate voting bloc But those advocates said they also understand that the Gore campaign needs to handle the gun control issue carefully. "It's not that they are not going to talk about gun issues," said Joe Sudbay, political director for Handgun Control Inc., a nonprofit advocacy group. "They are talking about it smartly." Mr. Bush faces his own conflicts on the gun issue. Though he wants to win the conservative Democrats who oppose gun control, he is also concerned about alienating women who support it. His response, like Mr. Gore's, has been to avoid the issue whenever possible. So both men have left the job of raising gun issues to their supporters. For Mr. Bush, that has meant the N.R.A., which is promoting him without endorsing him. For Mr. Gore, the task has fallen mainly to Handgun Control, which is running commercials attacking Mr. Bush in several Midwestern cities.The risk in attacking the entertainment industry for Mr. Gore was that he might lose financial support from the executives who have lavished contributions on him and other Democrats in recent years.But on Monday, Mr. Gore raised $4.2 million, much of it from film and music stars, at a Los Angeles fund- raiser where he softened his tone. In his remarks, he mentioned the gun issue only in passing even though Hollywood executives have been strong supporters of gun control. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________________________________ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
