Before Al Gore made out with Tipper on national television, but after he invented the Internet, he was the bottom half of “Bill Clinton’s Democratic baby-boomer ticket.” Before Al Gore demanded a recount but after he lived with Tommy Lee Jones at Harvard, he was, as TIME joked, stiffer than “a room full of Secret Servicemen”. But that was a joke Gore himself reportedly told often, and his partnership with Clinton marked a more mature stage of the former Senator’s life as well as a turning point in American politics — alongside a Presidential candidate with whom he had much in common:
Clinton and Gore — the new gold dust twins of the Democratic Party — had been eyeing each other warily for years. Only 19 months apart in age (Gore, 44, is the younger), they have been in many ways so similar, so driven, so high-test-scores smart, so blue-suit sincere that it once seemed inevitable that their ambitions for the White House would collide. Consider the dualities: both are new-ideas moderates with a policy wonk’s love of the intricacies of complex issues; both boast blue-ribbon educational pedigrees and are not ashamed to show it; both are Southern Baptists who married strong, assertive blond women; and both, having achieved political success early in life, have never made a secret of their zeal for higher office.