Vice President Al Gore was born on March 31, 1948, and is the son of former U.S. Senator Albert Gore, Sr. and Pauline Gore. Raised in Carthage, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C., he received a degree in government with honors from Harvard University in 1969. After graduation, he volunteered for enlistment in the U.S. Army and served in Vietnam. After the war, Gore became an investigative reporter with The Tennessean in Nashville, after which he attended Vanderbilt University Divinity School, then Vanderbilt Law School
Gore's Congressional career began when he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976, where he served eight years representing the then 4th District of Tennessee. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984 and was re-elected in 1990, becoming the first candidate in modern history -- Republican or Democratic -- to win all 95 of Tennessee's counties. A candidate for the Democratic nomination for President in 1988, Gore won more than three million votes and Democratic contests in seven states.
Al Gore was inaugurated as the 45th Vice President of the United States on January 20, 1993. President Clinton chose then-Senator Gore to be his running mate on July 9, 1992. He was formally nominated as the Democratic nominee for Vice President one week later at the Democratic National Convention in New York.
Vice President Gore is married to the former Mary Elizabeth "Tipper" Aitcheson. They have four children, spend summers on a small farm near Carthage, attend New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Carthage.
Perhaps the most important issue to Vice President Gore is his stance on the environment. Among elected officials, Vice President Gore's environmental record is unparalleled. In June 1992, he chaired the U.S. Senate Delegation to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He also is the author of the national best-seller EARTH IN THE BALANCE: Ecology and the Human Spirit, which outlines an international plan of action to confront the global environmental crisis.
Last year, President Clinton and Vice President Gore unveiled the Global Climate Change Action Plan, a public-private partnership to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere while promoting economic development. Gore was instrumental in breaking the gridlock on the national wetlands policy and in forging an historic partnership between government and industry to develop a new generation of fuel-efficient vehicles.
Of the three policy issues presented by the `simulation,' Gore's agenda is as follows:
1) On the education issue, Gore sides with the President - His ideas on community empowerment show that he would support the President's Education Bill.
2) On the Fast Track/IMF issues, the Vice President's support of NAFTA proves he would support the President's stance.
3) On the crime issue, the V.P.'s constant agreement with Clinton's policies show that he would almost definitely support the President's crime bill.