Watercooler Stories

GORE IN '04?

According to a new CNN/Time poll, with the next presidential election two years away, two-thirds of the public expects Al Gore will be the Democratic Party candidate, but only 41 percent said they would vote for the former vice president if the election were held today.

The poll -- conducted Nov. 13-14 -- found that 61 percent of Democrats said they would like to see Gore run again, after he won the popular vote by lost the electoral vote to George Bush following a controversial U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Gore has said he will decide by the end of the year whether to run again in 2004.

The poll found that Gore's favorable rating with rank-and-file Democrats has risen over the past nine months -- from 56 percent in March to 71 percent now. The general public said he was likable, compassionate and honest -- less than 40 percent saw him as a strong leader or thought he would be good in an international crisis.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Gore called the 2002 outcome "a crushing disappointment" and criticized the 5-4 Supreme Court decision that put Bush in the White House as "completely inconsistent" with the court's conservative philosophy.

"I believe that if everyone in Florida who tried to vote had had his or her vote counted properly, that I would have won," Gore said. "I strongly disagreed with the Supreme Court decision and the way in which they interpreted and applied the law. But I respect the rule of law, so it is what it is."

In an interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, Gore said he "absolutely" believed he would become president when the Florida Supreme Court ordered a recount of all disputed ballots in the state.

His wife Tipper told the Post, "I still believe we won."

GETTING PARENTS INVOLVED

Two leading U.S. educational organizations are launching a campaign this week intended to get more parents involved in their children's education -- including informing themselves about the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act.

The Parent Teachers Association and the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education College plan to kick off the campaign with a three-day symposium in Washington -- "Partners for Student Success 2002: National Summit on Parent Involvement in Teacher Education."

They plan to mobilize educators and parents to get more parents involved in teacher education.

The organizations want parents to educate themselves about the new federal education act, which for the first time nationally requires annual testing to measure annual yearly progress known as AYP. They also want parents to question principals and teachers about when and where tests will be administered, the standards that students must meet, and strategies teachers plan to use to prepare students for the tests.

SHOT COPS SUE GUN INDUSTRY

While the gun industry looks for help in Congress and state legislatures to fend off product liability suits, ABC News reports that two Orange, N.J. police officers are suing a West Virginia gun dealer and the company that made the 9-mm semiautomatic that a suspect used to shoot them during an attempted robbery.

Shuntez Everett was killed in the shootout with officers David Lemongello and Kenneth McGuire -- who filed suit last week in Kanawha Circuit Court in Charleston, W.Va. The police officers are seeking compensation from a West Virginia pawnshop, Will's Jewelry and Loan, and from Sturm, Ruger and Co., which manufactured the gun Everett used in the shootout.

The suit also named gun traffickers James Gray and Tammi Lea Songer as defendants, as well as Everett's estate. Lemongello and McGuire allege that neither Will's Jewelry and Loan nor Sturm, Ruger exercised the controls that are required by law in gun transactions -- allowing Everett to possess the gun.

"Gun manufacturers and gun dealers have known for years that gun trafficking and multiple sales of firearms supply the criminal gun market," said Jonathan Lowy, an attorney with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence's Legal Action Project, which is representing the two policemen.

"They have the ability to stop the flow of guns to criminals, yet they do nothing," he added. "They must be made to realize that their irresponsible conduct has very real consequences -- in this case, the shooting of two police officers."

THERE SHE IS

Miss America and the brass at Miss America Pageant headquarters have gone through a bit of a tiff over sexual abstinence.

Erika Harold -- the reigning Miss America -- was adamant that she will promote abstinence outside of marriage during her term, and pageant officials had to be persuaded to let her do it.

The disagreement came up after Harold won the crown in September on a platform on working to reduce youth violence. She told pageant officials she planned to hit on the abstinence theme in her public appearances, but they told her not to -- because it was not the platform she had campaigned on.

Harold took the disagreement public a few weeks after the pageant when she told an audience at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. that she would "not be bullied," and planned to wage the abstinence campaign anyway.

In her three campaigns to win the Miss Illinois title, Harold routinely ran on an abstinence platform. But she also signed a contract -- along with other contestants for the state title -- agreeing to run on a youth violence platform if she made it to the Miss America pageant.

It took some negotiating, but Harold eventually got Miss American organizers to drop their objection to her campaign.