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Gore is nothing if not disciplined, as he proved by giving a 30-minute speech filled with rhetoric that was both eloquent and deliberately devoid of any new idea or proposal that might ruffle a single Democratic feather. "We're not taking on other Democrats," boasted one Gore aide. "We're going straight for the Republicans." It was an indication that from now until the party's primaries early in 2000, the Vice President plans to play it safe, to ride his awesome built-in advantages as Clinton's chosen successor all the way to the nomination. But safety is not what DLC "New Democrats" live for; it bores them. After Gore had finished speaking, two DLC donors stood outside the men's room, rubbed their eyes and yawned. "I literally fell asleep," said one.
No one fell asleep during Bob Kerrey's speech. The Nebraska Senator has managed to refashion his reputation for flakiness, a legacy from his failed 1992 presidential bid, into a positive: he is now the party's favorite truth-teller and iconoclast. Kerrey used the forum to make an aggressive sales pitch for his proposal to save Social Security by partially privatizing the system -- an apostasy that enrages the old left wing of the party but thrills the DLC crowd. And he did it while tweaking "practical idealism," the oxymoronic campaign slogan Gore test-marketed for himself. "Practicality is not America's highest ideal," Kerrey chided. "In America, shrinking from a challenge, settling for less than our dreams, taking the easy route away from tough problems -- these are impractical."