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Gore is well known for his appetite for cold-blooded analysis, whether of an opponent or a proposal. "He has a penchant for issues that are complex and intellectual, as opposed to emotional and ideological," explains a former aide. "With Gore, the question isn't, What do I believe? It's, What do I know?" Although much has been made of Bush's crash course in policy early last year, when the best minds in the party came down to Austin, Texas, to help school him on everything from China policy to the complexities of the earned-income tax credit, Gore too has a history of arranging tutorials to help him hone his views: with Leon Fuerth on arms control, Reed Hundt on the new economy, the late Harvard professor Roger Revelle on climate change.
This process applies even to what many would consider purely moral issues. When Bush needed to ground his soul, he walked on the beach with Billy Graham; when Gore felt he had lost his way after Vietnam, he enrolled in divinity school, looking for "a systematic exploration of structures of right and wrong." He never finished, and when he left, his father asked him, "Did you find the answers you were looking for?" Gore Jr. answered, "I've learned to ask more intelligent questions."
Most politicians, including Bush, use the words right and wrong to talk about gut convictions, the values they live by. When Gore seizes upon an answer, it is because he is convinced that he has got hold of the truth--the demonstrable and provable and complicated truth. Instinct and, even worse, impulse have almost no room in his world. That doesn't mean Gore has no principles, only that he won't get into a fight until he thinks he can support those principles with every conceivable footnote. Some of his most conspicuous positions--pushing the Kyoto treaty on global warming, despite near unanimous Senate opposition, or calling for intervention in Bosnia long before it was popular, or expressing the conviction that gays should be allowed to serve openly in the military--can be perceived as reflections of his value system, but in each case he also has the filing cabinet to prove it. You don't just have to take him at his word.
If Gore's confidence is born of his hard work, Bush's is born of his instinctual style. He is proudly allergic to endless briefing books and the big fat texts Gore eats for lunch. What is often viewed as a Bush weakness--his heavy reliance on staff--he considers a strength. Bush prides himself on being comfortable around smart people who will tell him the unvarnished truth, on seeing through spin and personal agendas, on spotting the weakness in an argument. He prefers talking to reading, working through an issue verbally, Socratically. "I like discussions as an integral part of the decision-making process, because I believe I'm adept at reading people," he told TIME. "I get a feel for 'em."