Democratic Convention: The Daughter Also Rises

This year dynasties are not just about Republicans and men named George Bush. Waiting for Al Gore in Los Angeles will be someone whose face is carved with the angular clarity of his own. It belongs to a slight blond, his 27-year-old daughter Karenna Gore Schiff. It would be wrong to look for her only in the family box, gamely playing host to family and friends while wearing a perma-smile. Karenna's fingerprints will be across the program, from the choice of speakers to the entertainment to the look of the stage. On Wednesday she will give the speech kicking off the roll-call vote that will formally nominate her father. The gauzy biographical film touting Gore as the man from Carthage will be vetted by her; her pen will edit the remarks of both the Vice President and Tipper Gore. And when Senator Joseph Lieberman, Gore's running mate, shows up to take his place, you can be certain that she weighed in on the decision to put him there.

The Gore dynasty story is different from Bush's because the talent in the next generation rests not with a brother, nephew or son but with a daughter. It is true that Tipper has helped make Gore a better candidate by jump-starting his soul. But Tipper doesn't like politics. Her daughter, on the other hand, is taken with it, fixated on strategy and tactics, fanatical about Gore and his political future. "For Tipper, it's win-win. If he wins, he's President. If he loses, she hates to see him in pain but she gets to have her husband back," says a family friend. "For Karenna, the only thing is winning."

It is Karenna who makes herself most available to the press. She has taken on a public role, heading Gorenet, an effort to reach young voters, and speaking on behalf of her father, offering up anecdotes of Al the Dad to humanize him. She is an expert at casting new spin on his political vulnerabilities. Asked on television what was the best advice her father ever gave her, she says her father taught her to stick by a friend in trouble--a tale that adds a family-values patina to Gore's stand by a President in big trouble.

Karenna makes the best argument for Gore's intellectualism. "My dad is very forcefully logical about things. In some ways, that's why we get along quite well, because I like that," she says, sitting in the back of a Manhattan Italian restaurant in a cardigan and clogs. "Whenever you set up a heart-vs.-head thing, people always tend to say the heart is better. I think it's not as simple as that. Assumptions or prejudices are often emotional; if you look at things logically, you can often realize what things are and work through them."