It's The Kiss, Stupid 

By TAD BARTIMUS

Al Gore seems astonished he's caught up with George Bush in the polls. What, he wonders, has galvanized undecided voters to put him into a dead heat with his previously front-running rival? His stand on Social Security? His position on Roe vs. Wade? His new casual clothes?
Print and TV journalists believe it's his bull-market populism and his promise to "never let you down." Gore himself credits his new-found popularity to wonkish, policy-laden speeches, saying: "The risk I took to talk specifics has paid off."
Nah. 
It was THE KISS!
"Did you see THAT?" I shouted at my spouse, having his prime-time doze in his recliner on the last night of the Democratic National Convention.
"What? What? Is the house on fire? What?" 
There are lots of theories about why Al Gore grabbed Tipper in a passionate embrace and gave her a deep, lingering, full-on-the-lips-and-then-some, 4.398-second kiss right before he accepted his party's presidential nomination. 
Everybody who saw THE KISS has a definite opinion about it, one colored by their own romantic and sexual baggage, political beliefs and party preferences. Forget trying to change anybody's mind about how they feel about the smooch; it either turned you on or tuned you out. 
"Disgusting," pronounced columnist Robert Novak.
"Great balls of fire, Alpha Al, you the man," gushed columnist Maureen Dowd. "You got your mojo. You are looking gooood!"
"Completely put on," sniffed a traditional Republican friend. "It's like when a 9-year-old boy sees his parents kissing - YUCK!"
"Al Gore was HOT!" says another, who calls herself a "closet romantic."
"Totally out of place," said a non-voting ex-patriot living abroad. "It was undignified and looked unprofessional for someone who wants to be taken seriously as a leader and not some soap opera character."
"Risque!" said a male who's slightly older than Gore.
"It was like watching the bride and groom in a clinch at the altar and thinking, 'Come on, get on with it!'" said the man's wife. 
Let's face it: Sex sells. It made Madonna a star and "The Thomas Crown Affair" a box office hit -- twice. Even if you gussy it up with a more polite label, THE KISS was still about smoldering undercurrents and "a hunk, a hunk of burning love."
Al and Tipper had all their clothes on and millions were watching, but THE KISS smacked of passion, not politics. That plays in Peoria. Apparently enough Americans approved of the Gore lip-lock to give him a 10-point bounce in the polls and re-energize a once-flagging campaign. Why?
THE KISS, if you are not a cynic who thinks it was all choreographed, provided an unguarded glimpse into a normally very controlled man apparently still in love with his wife of 30 years after four kids, one grandchild and two decades of living in a fishbowl. Now that's family values. Soccer moms and single parents and young strivers and Boomers who sometimes think they've seen too much all can relate to love -- it's what we're looking for. In 4.398 seconds, the Gores showed us they have it.
Was it for real? It sure looked spontaneous - the triumphant candidate overcome with emotion at winning his party's nomination wants to share his big moment with the woman who's been with him every step of the way.
It was a real-life Hollywood moment. Gore's image as a cautious, beige-on-beige kind of guy exploded in sparks as he bent his wife backwards so far her prim blue dress hitched up above her knees, then wrapped his arms around her and gave her the kind of kiss that makes you want one, too. After eight years of painful scenes from the Clinton marriage, it was an antidote to snakebite.
In his 4.398 seconds as a romance novel cover model, Al Gore was perceived as a lover, not a fighter. That's the sort of video moment that sticks in the mind long after spoken words are forgotten.
Is the vice president a cold fish or a hot tamale? We'll probably never know. But in this boring campaign it's fun to speculate -- and it's probably even more fun for Tipper and Al.

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