“He is anti-media right now,” says Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist from the Gulf Coast who managed Gore’s 2000 campaign. “I doubt he will become a spokesperson for our cause.”
That is Brazile’s theory about Mr. Environment’s silence. She is wrong.
He is silent on this issue for the same reason that Teddy Kennedy couldn’t join the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas fight: The equivalency to Teddy’s womanizing is that Mr. Gore has been in a two-year affair with Laurie David, also an environmentalist, and it would be, uh, unseemly.
This makes perfect sense to me. With Mr. David’s money, the former Mrs. David made whopping contributions to Democratic causes, and she did care about environmental issues. (She was also involved with the Gore documentary.) She is hot-looking, as they say, and she was also looking-looking. (Her previous amour was said to be either the contractor or the gardener at their summer home.) Tipper was not only high-maintenance, but Albert has been flying around the globe for the past two years.
The marriage-watching commentariat says this is typical Boomer stuff. Now that people may expect to live until 90 (oy) they’ve decided they will get things the way they want them for some portion of the back nine.
I find it interesting that both the Messrs Gore and David are low-affect guys – in terms of personality. If you could assign sounds to personality, both gentlemen would be monotone. Or if you want to go with colors, beige. The good news about the affair is that one of the grocery-store rags said Albert was gay! Apparently not.
