LOS ANGELES - The crowd were delirious. Their hero had just stepped up on the stage, under a large banner promising a better future, and they could not contain their enthusiasm. With one voice, they were shouting: "No son of a Bush. No son of a Bush."
Just for a moment, surveying the predominantly African American faces basking in the warm glow of the Californian autumn sun, one could have believed that the Democrats were cruising towards yet another crushing victory in the race for the White House.
But the man on the podium here in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles was not presidential candidate Al Gore. It was the man whose job he aspires to take over - his boss Bill Clinton - and victory is far from assured.
All that enthusiasm, it became clear, was tinged with a heavy dose of elegiac regret. Clinton may be a master campaigner and charmer extraordinaire, but the fact is he cannot run for a third term under the United States Constitution, and his appearance just days before the election felt more like a farewell to a loose genius than a full-blooded rally for his deputy.
"Four more years," the crowd shouted. "Repeal the 22nd Amendment," read one prominently displayed banner.
Whenever Clinton's name was mentioned there were roars; Gore's name, in stark contrast, rarely received more than polite applause.
"Al Gore ain't no Bill Clinton. I feel so sorry he can't run again." Such were the sentiments heard from several people in the 8000-strong crowd.
George W. Bush and Gore are being judged - by public opinion and the press - not for what they are, but what they are not.
They are not Clinton, with his silky skills, his easy tongue, his undoubted brilliance at extricating himself from the last fine mess.
Gore oozes facts and policies, yet he cannot sell them like Bill.
Bush relies on jokes to get him through, but he does not tell them as well as Bill.
Even though this occasion was supposed to be a "get out the vote" rally, several people admitted privately that they might not vote for Gore at all.
"I don't want people to assume that just because I'm African American I'm going to vote Democrat," said Tianna Quarles, an investment banker who is seriously considering a vote for Bush.
"If Clinton were running again it would be a different matter. This guy's my hero."
Clinton himself was a little off-peak. His face was drawn and his voice sounded tired. It even became apparent he did not know exactly where he was - making references to Watts, a much poorer, traditionally African American neighbourhood 15km to the south of the shopping mall plaza where he was speaking.
He has had to struggle to have any role in the election campaign at all, being told by Gore's handlers that he should stay out of the key swing states in the Midwest for fear of alienating moderates turned off by the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Gore has vowed all along to run as his "own man" and seeing Clinton in action - even a subdued Clinton - one could see the merit of the argument that the Vice-President did not wish to be overshadowed.
After eight years, Clinton still divides Americans. To the millions of Clinton-haters, ranting over the airwaves of talk radio, Slick Willy is corrupt, philandering, mendacious, even murderous.
To Clinton-lovers - and there are millions of those, too - the retiring 42nd President is both a morally questionable but politically super-endowed figure, a giant among pygmies.
Even his biggest fans are forced to qualify their admiration with disclaimers like "a self-destructive personality, of course" or "a great President but a rotten human being."
Love him or loathe him, Clinton is fascinating. America remains mesmerised. His job approval rating hovers in the high 60s, higher than any retiring President in memory. Not since Franklin Roosevelt have the Democrats had such a winner.
He has a genius for language, and a genius for people. Rhetorically speaking, he is unbeatable, even through the cool medium of television.
In a tight 20-minute speech, Clinton eloquently laid out the case for Gore in ways that seem to elude his deputy on the campaign trail.
He couched his argument in a series of questions, to which there could only be one answer.
Was the country better off now than eight years ago? Did people want the prosperity to continue? Did people want to keep building "one America" without racial or class divides?
Clinton skewered Bush's own claims to inclusiveness and tolerance, listing such issues as a hate crimes statute, legislation on equal pay for women, and defence of abortion rights by the Supreme Court - all of which Gore supports but which run counter to Bush's programme.
He also undermined Bush's stated desire to create bipartisanship in Washington.
"We have a bipartisan majority in Congress right now for a patients' bill of rights but the Republican leaders keep saying no," Clinton charged.
"If this crowd stays in, we're going to need someone [in the White House] to stop their more extremist actions."
Clinton generously, if not loudly, trumpeted words of praise for his deputy, saying he had accomplished more in the Vice-President's office than anyone in history.
"He has the experience ... He is a good man who makes good decisions, and with your help he will make a great President."
The performance inadvertently highlighted one of Gore's biggest liabilities on the campaign trail - his reluctance to run on the record of the past eight years for fear of tarnishing himself with the scandal-tinged aspects of the Clinton Administration.
One big banner behind the stage proclaimed: "Californians Adore Gore." Unfortunately for the Vice-President, it was the one insincere note of the whole occasion.
- INDEPENDENT
* The Herald Online's coverage of voting in the US presidential election
begins at noon Wednesday.
Charm of loose genius who'd win hands down
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