Then Clinton arrived Friday in L.A., with a busy, attention-getting schedule. Sensitive to the notion he was upstaging Gore, the president canceled a handful of print and TV interviews over the weekend. And that's hard for anybody to do, and I think it is real hard for Clinton. I think it will be fascinating to watch. Presidential historian Robert Dallek sees another kind of role reversal in the offing.
Tradition holds that running mates play the attack dog.
Dallek thinks that's a service Clinton can perform for his own vice president. It would be pretty good politics for Clinton to take on Bush directly and . . . He can really become the aggressive point man. That will be different from what Ike and Johnson and Reagan did. In the choice of Sen. Joseph Lieberman as running mate, and in the way Gore and Lieberman have lauded each other as men of faith and family, there is an unmistakable effort to distance the ticket from Clinton's personal behavior.