Let’s review. Last fall, in the lead-up to the primary season when he was trailing Bill Bradley, we were told that people didn’t really know Al Gore. That they knew he was the vice president but didn’t really know who he was as a man.

So began his earth-tone and casual wardrobe phase, forgoing pinstripes and ties for the softer look of an enlightened and caring kind of guy. This was his Eddie Bauer period.

Then we were introduced to Alpha Gore, that strong and virile, take-charge male. At this time he began hurling vicious attacks on Bradley, misrepresenting just about everything about him while nearly foaming at the mouth.

Upon his victory in the primaries, Gore turned his snout and his barking toward George W. with his risky-this and risky-that attacks. The Bush campaign has been keeping a Risky List, which documents some 30-odd instances of Gore employing the ‘risky’ theme in just the last month.

During this time we began to see Gore shift to the Ronald Reagan look, mimicking the Gipper’s hairstyle with padded shoulders in his suits and that familiar tilt of the head. This, of course, hasn’t even come close to doing the trick. What do these folks have in their heads?

So it is that we now learn Gore is entering yet another new phase, but is it really new? His campaign is singing, yet again, that people know he’s the vice president but they really don’t know the man. Sound familiar? And they’ll also be phasing out the ‘risky’ rhetoric because, they say, people can’t get to know him when he’s in attack mode.

What more is there to know about Al Gore? That is precisely his problem. People already know everything there is to know about him, and they don’t like any of it.

While Gov. Bush has been busy presenting innovative and thoughtful proposals on a wide range of issues important to Americans, Al Gore has been hustling in and out of the costume department in between his acting lessons.

Add to this his losing battle with the truth, his defense of Clinton and his wooden persona. It’s no wonder his people don’t know what to do with him. But the American people do, which is a comforting thought. See you on January 20th.

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