Gore’s in Thick of Battle for Tennessee

NASHVILLE â€”  Two years ago, Tennessee was the scene of the worst electoral rout suffered by the Democrats in a season of Republican triumph. Today, with Democrats bringing the fight increasingly into Republican territory, the state has become one of the most fiercely contested of the 1996 presidential election--and a prize especially coveted by Vice President Al Gore.

The Tennessean’s presence in the White House was supposed to hold down Republican gains in the state in the midterm elections. Instead, the GOP captured the governor’s mansion, two Senate seats and five of nine House seats.

Now, Gore needs a victory--for his pride, his ticket and his presidential ambitions. “We’re going to do our very best,� Gore vowed before he went on a six-city swing through the state, his 10th visit this year, this weekend.

Gore and his wife, Tipper, President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton have been coming here once a week since the convention. GOP nominee Bob Dole has made 12 campaign stops here.

In another proof of the state’s importance, the GOP has been spending more on TV ads per capita in Tennessee than in any state in the union, according to Gore, who says the Democrats plan to match them.

With tobacco regulation the only big regional factor in the race, the campaign is essentially a contest for the state’s big lump of swing voters.

“The midterms were a clear anti-Clinton, anti-Washington vote,� said Brad Coker, a pollster for Mason-Dixon Research. “Now that they’ve gotten that out of their system, everybody’s waiting for their judgment.�

The presidential race is still called a tossup by most analysts, even though the latest state poll had Clinton-Gore up by 10 percentage points. The congressional incumbents may all hold their seats this year, from Republican Sen. Fred Thompson and GOP freshman firebrand Rep. Zach Wamp to Democratic Rep. Bart Gordon.

With family income below the national median, Tennesseans appreciate what the national government can do for them--as symbolized in the state’s huge Tennessee Valley Authority. Gore has reminded moderates of the government programs they like: Head Start, college loans and scholarships, Medicare and Social Security.

Following the role he is playing for the ticket nationally, on this weekend’s visit Gore spoke mostly before core Democratic groups, including women, union members and black Tennesseans, who are 16% of the state population. But his speeches used New Democrat themes, including calls for greater social discipline that would presumably play well with swing voters.

On Saturday, at a Nashville fund-raising walk against domestic violence, Gore posed under a huge statue of a Roman centurion and spoke in the kind of rough-edged anti-crime language for years associated with the opposition party.

The 5 million annual domestic abuse cases, he said, “represent real criminals responsible for this violence who deserve real punishment.�

He announced new federal money to hire 1,893 more police officers for the administration’s favorite anti-crime program. The hires, scattered through 41 states, bring the administration almost halfway to its goal of hiring 100,000 officers, he said.

While the tobacco issue’s impact has remained somewhat unclear, most analysts consider it a negative for the Clinton-Gore team.

Evidence of that came over the weekend as Gore’s campaign tried to answer GOP charges that he concealed in disclosure forms filed with Congress a personal interest he had in tobacco at his Carthage, Tenn., farm. The critics have accused Gore of hypocrisy for denouncing the tobacco industry while accepting contributions from the industry for many years.

The interest was in the form of a federal entitlement to grow 1,200 to 1,400 pounds of the crop a year, a quantity aides said would be worth $240 to $280 a year.

Aides said that when Gore came to Congress in 1977, he reported that he was leasing the farm to his father for $4,800 a year. Gore didn’t break down the farm’s assets, which included the tobacco-growing rights, the land, a barn and a tractor.

Gore aides insisted that the vice president was describing the lease according to routine practice. They said he didn’t try to conceal the allotment and talked openly with constituents about it on some occasions.

Whatever damage the issue may have done, Gore remains popular in a state where his father served three Senate terms before him. And some people believe his name on the ballot accounts for whatever edge the Democrats have now.

“It may have been easy to vote against the Democrats last time,� says Coker, the pollster. “To do it this time, they would have to vote against a Gore.�

Times staff writer Edwin Chen contributed to this story.