Bill Clinton took a break from working on his acceptance speech Monday with a jog around Central Park as his aides held platform talks with former rival Jerry Brown's camp.
"Things are moving in the right direction," campaign aide George Stephanopoulos said of the discussions with Brown, who has yet to endorse Clinton. He wants Clinton to agree to congressional term limits and a $100 ceiling on campaign contributions.Stephanopoulos said he would meet later with Brown's representatives to see if an accommodation could be made, although Clinton aides have said the Arkansas governor is not going to accept many of Brown's proposals.
For his part, Brown said he would not give Clinton "a verbal fig leaf of endorsement" but added he hopes to be able to throw his support to the Democratic presidential candidate soon.
"I am hopeful that sometime this week, next week, sometime in the next couple of months, we are going to be on the same track," the former California governor said Monday on CBS's "This Morning."
Clinton, who has been cooped up in a plush suite at a Manhattan hotel while working on Thursday's acceptance speech, got out Monday morning with a 25-minute jog around the reservoir in Central Park. Onlookers cheered and the candidate stopped to shake a few hands along his route.
Clinton also planned a campaign foray to a youth center and housing shelter in the city.
Clinton's campaign was buoyed by the reaction to his choice of Tennessee Sen. Al Gore as a running mate. Newsweek magazine used the headline "Young Guns" for its cover story on the Democratic ticket and its new generation theme.
Gore said Monday there were millions of jobs to be created - and stolen from Japan and Germany - if the United States leads the way on the environment.
"This supposed choice between jobs and the environment is a bogus issue," Gore told CBS "This Morning."
The Tennessee senator is one of the top U.S. environmental activists. But critics fear his policies would put nature above people and cost workers their jobs at a time when unemployment is already hovering at an eight-year high.
Gore said it was not a choice between jobs and animals, adding that Washington's main economic rivals realized there were big profits to be made in exporting environmentally-sound products to the developing world.