Democratic Convention: Al Gore, Regular Guy

The best Gore film was barely seen at all. It was created by Spike Jonze, the 29-year-old director of Being John Malkovich, a surreal movie about people getting inside a celebrity's head. No wonder it's a Gore favorite. (Bush's most recent favorite is Forrest Gump.) After using a handheld camera to shoot the Gores at their Tennessee farm and a North Carolina beach house, Jonze came up with a deftly cut montage of Gore kicking back and having fun. He makes Tipper blush by showing off the nude self-portrait she painted when pregnant with Karenna. He offers the obligatory deadpan take on his own stiffness (Tipper going barefoot "completely messes up my image") and sings a song from 1969 in praise of her ("I don't have to speak, she defends me"). But mostly he just hangs out with the family. What's revealing about these moments is not that Gore is totally loose--he's not--but that he retains a need for control even at the most relaxed of times. "My dad is a fanatic," says Karenna, skewering his video-watching habits. "No one can leave the room at all. He pauses it...and when they come back he rewinds it a little bit and we're all like, 'Nooooo!'"

Midway through the film, Gore talks about his strained relationship with politics. "I'm a lot more comfortable with the idea of rolling up my sleeves and making the system work than I am with campaigning," he says. It's a theme he returned to in his acceptance speech. "I know my own imperfections," he said. "I know I won't always be the most exciting politician. But...I will work for you every day, and I will never let you down." This was more than a dig at Bill Clinton. It was as close as Gore could come to delivering on a pledge he'd made early in the speech: "I want you to know me for who I truly am."

The convention offered a thousand opinions about who Gore is. But his speech suggested a simple one: He's a man who knows that he and the system are flawed but who just might be smart and tough enough to get some things done. Gore came out of his shiny foil wrapper.