-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the July 27, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
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ACTIVISTS CONFRONT GORE
By Gery Armsby
Al Gore, the likely presidential nominee of the Democratic
Party, has received notice from activists around the
country that environmentalists, death-penalty opponents,
union members and others find the Democrat equally as
repugnant as his Republican counterpart, George W. Bush.
At a July 14 town-hall-style meeting in Saginaw, Mich.,
Gore was interrogated by a broad array of skeptics on the
Clinton/Gore administration's record of "economic
success." Some said the new jobs created in Michigan
aren't good jobs and that a wider-than-ever gap has
developed between the wealthy and the poor.
One audience member, a Black community leader, strongly
criticized Gore's pro-death-penalty position and demanded
an account of how the Democrat could be certain that
death-row inmates had every chance to prove their
innocence before being executed.
The Gore campaign set up lighting and cameras, hoping
this appearance would provide photo opportunities galore
for television ads. But this proved to be a
miscalculation. The crowd put Gore on the defensive and
had him in an unflattering nervous sweat for most of the
evening.
GORE `OUT OF BALANCE'
In Knoxville, Tenn., a group of 75 demonstrators
protested at Gore's national campaign headquarters July
10. The environmental action group Earth First! organized
the demonstration. Several protesters chained themselves
together in a foyer, blocking the entrance to the
Democratic offices.
The group scoffed at Gore's record on the environment and
urged environmentally concerned voters to take a closer
look. The author of "Earth in the Balance" supports
environmental enemies like NAFTA, the International
Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization--not to
mention his family investments in Big Oil.
Other big problems loom for the Democrats this summer.
Protests are being planned to bring out thousands of
demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention in Los
Angeles in mid-August.
Gore has dodged questions about the raging nationwide
debate over executions, and repeatedly refused to
acknowledge it as a campaign issue.
Death-penalty foes gearing up for the West Coast actions
are determined to be as unrelenting in exposing the pro-
death-penalty Democrat as they have been with Republican
executioner-candidate George Bush, who is hounded
everywhere he goes.
- END -
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