Pauline Gore, 92; Political Matriarch

Pauline Gore, whose son, Al, became vice president and nearly captured the presidency in 2000 and whose husband served a lengthy and distinguished career in Congress, died Wednesday. She was 92.

She had been weakened in recent years by strokes and a heart attack, and died at her home in Carthage, Tenn.

Trained as a lawyer, Pauline Gore was a familiar figure on the campaign trails of her late husband, Albert Gore Sr., who died in 1998, and her son, former Vice President Al Gore Jr.

In Tennessee, she was nearly as widely known as her liberal husband and played a central role in much of his campaign strategy. Gore Sr. served in the House from 1939 to 1953 and in the Senate from 1953 to 1970.

“She was my father’s closest advisor,” her son said in 1999. “Together, they strengthened the future of this great country.”

Pauline Gore campaigned for her son when he ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1988. During the 1992 campaign, she and her husband campaigned actively for the Clinton-Gore ticket. They went on a seven-week bus tour, with many of the stops at senior citizens’ gatherings.

She never complained openly about the demands public life made on her family, although she joked in a 1993 interview that she had seen so little of Al Gore that she had “swapped a son for a vice president.”

Pauline Gore’s public appearances were increasingly rare in recent years. But in April 1999, she accepted a state Senate resolution honoring her late husband.

She once said she never encouraged her son to go into politics but impressed upon him the importance of family values. Although she hoped he would become a lawyer, he was a divinity student who worked as a journalist before making his first run for Congress in 1976.

Born in Palmersville, Tenn., she spent her childhood in Jackson before enrolling at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She worked her way through Vanderbilt’s law school, meeting her future husband at the coffee shop where she was a waitress. In 1936, she was one of the law school’s first female graduates, and she practiced law briefly in Arkansas before marrying in 1937.

The former vice president once said his parents studied for the bar exam together and passed it on the same day.

“I’ve heard them joke about who got the highest grade,” he said. “If I interpreted the jokes correctly, she did.”

She watched her husband become one of only three senators from the South who refused to sign the Southern Manifesto opposing desegregation. His opposition to the Vietnam War ended his 32 years in Congress.

The senior Gore was briefly a vice presidential candidate during the 1956 Democratic National Convention. He withdrew in favor of fellow Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver, who won the nomination and lost as running mate to Adlai Stevenson.

Besides her son, Gore is survived by a brother, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Her daughter, Nancy, died of cancer in 1984.