LOS ANGELES — Step aside Friends of Bill. It's time for the Pals of Al.
As part of the effort to dispel Al Gore's wooden image, a number of the vice president's friends and associates will appear at the Democratic National Convention.
Among them:
JIM FRUSH: Frush led Gore and his teenage son to the top of Mount Rainier last summer through rain, wind, driving hail and fog. "I learned on that climb what kind of man he is," said Frush, a Seattle-area attorney. On the day that Gore reached the peak, other climbers had turned back because of foul weather, but Gore urged his group to press on. "He carried us," Frush said. "I've always said he was the spark plug, he was the guy with the heart who led us to the top."
BOB DELEBAR: Thirty years ago, Delebar and Al Gore were Army buddies who joked around, took weekend trips to the beach and held long talks about the Vietnam War. He says the Gore he knew in the Army was downright funny. "I happen to think that he's very passionate," said Delebar, a delegate from Washington state.
STEVE ARMISTEAD: As a boy, Gore linked up with Armistead each summer on the family farm in Tennessee. Armistead remembers them hopping the fence for midnight skinny dips in the public pool and slipping in after a night of joy-riding just before Gore's father would rouse them at dawn for a day's farm work. "We were not lax for getting into whatever we could," Armistead recalled.
FRANK HUNGER: Gore's brother-in-law Hunger is one of the vice president's closest confidants. He was married to Gore's sister Nancy, who died of lung cancer in 1984 at the age of 46. Hunger, a Mississippi lawyer, often travels with Gore on the campaign trail and strategizes with him behind the scenes. Hunger was there for the final deliberations when Gore selected Joseph Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, as his running mate. Hunger, who had piped in only here and there during several hours with shifting groups of advisers, jumped in at that moment, his Mississippi twang at its thickest: "If the country's not ready for it, it damn well should be." The vice president seconded Hunger's sentiment.