Vice President: When in Trouble He's

As of Sept. 18, 1997, Vice President Al Gore admitted to the nation that he realized he was in trouble -- he hired heavyweight private attorneys.

Mr. Gore, who stands at the very least accused of making campaign fund-raising telephone calls literally and figuratively from the White House, with the hiring of two private lawyers admitted he faces a troubling period, perhaps a death struggle for his hold on the lead to Democratic Party 2000 Presidential candidacy; perhaps even a challenge to retaining his office.

According to news sources, "the Vice President's office said Gore had hired lawyer Jim Neal of Nashville, Tennessee, a long-time family friend and adviser, and George Frampton, a Washington-based attorney and former Assistant Secretary of the Interior Department who has worked with Gore in the past on environmental issues...Their job is to extract Gore from a deepening pool of trouble that, if it drags on, could jeopardize his bid to succeed President Clinton in the 2000 presidential election."

Without reciting the complete lyrics to the litany of charges against Gore -- White House telephone credit card arm-twisting on donors to the Clinton-Gore 1996 campaign and funny-check panhandling for donations inside a Buddhist temple are just two of the choruses -- it is evident that the stiff-appearing Vice President finally has run for the legal smoothies.

It is interesting to note, however, that even in his hectic call for rescue Mr. Gore has looked to a Washington wonk (Frampton) and an old Tennessee crony (Neal). This is consistent with what Gore himself has exemplified all along -- the "Mr. Inside-Mr. Outside" image.

Gore truly never "came" to Washington, as did his boss, Bill Clinton. Although a Tennesseean by birth and heritage, Albert Gore is as much a product of the Beltway as Marion Barry. Young Al matriculated from the District's best private classrooms, was heir to a family history of serving in the Senate in Washington and his view into Washington insider politics was as penetrating as a proctological exam.

Yet, he arrived into the Vice Presidency out of serving Tennessee in the Senate, nominally keeping his aura in the Volunteer State (where, as the tape making the rounds today attests, he was proud to have planted, harvested and processed tobacco in glowing affinity with his state's farmers of the controversial crop).

Whereas Gore's superior Clinton played no games and immediately when in trouble flew to heralded Washington insider Robert Bennett for private legal representation, Al has used that infamous telephone credit card to dial a countryman and a veteran Potomac law strategist -- and therein may be the game.

Jim Neal appears to be merely a fellow Tennesseean, an attorney with the successful firm of Harwell & Neal, perhaps a longtime friend and Gore family retainer. The Harwell & Neal offices are tied to the tony Nashville consortium called Boardwalk Lodge. The firm has notoriety, but mixed success, in representing Tennessee public office clients caught up in failures within their offices.

Perhaps there is more to Jim Neal, however. A scan of the National Contract Management Association, an alliance of corporate legal counsel and current and retired military and federal government procurement agents, finds that Kenneth Jackson of Harwell & Neal is among its corporate counsel members.

Needless to explain that the NCMA holds important sway when billions of dollars in government contracts are being let, but to call it a "lobby" is too harsh and inexact. It is, however, a wonderful insider network for touching base on "who-gets-what" in the world of government contracts. That Jackson may have come to his NCMA role with the Vice President's nod is a very distinct possibility. If so, Jim Neal may exhibit, at varying times, both the face of Tennessee outsider and Washington insider.

On the other hand there is Frampton -- Washington insider, big-time. George Frampton, formerly President Clinton's Assistant Secretary of Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, is the former president of the Wilderness Society (1986-1993), a former partner in Rogovin, Huge and Lenzer (1976-1984), a former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, and former special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. He is also a former fellow at a public interest law firm, the Washington's Center for Law and Social Policy.

As one group doing guard-dog duty against radical environmentalism capped its dossier on Frampton, "(he) has no formal environmental education, having received a Masters in Economics degree from the London School of Economics and a J.D. from Harvard Law School." He was, however, for years Wilderness Society's legal-beagle in the nation's capital and, thus, caught the eye of both Clinton's Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and of Gore when the latter was penning his tome, Earth in the Balance.

Potentially Neal and Frampton bring an incredible amount of chits. Neal may possess tentacles reaching into government agencies and contractors virtually worldwide, ladies and gents who are very used to picking up a phone to put in a good word about a "friend." At the same time, as Gore's "hometown" defender, Neal may be able to inted successor to a President who seems almost impervious to serious wound.

Al Gore wants the best defenders around, in and out of Washington, so that when the blows fall he'll be buffered enough to keep that anointment from sliding off his balding head....

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