WASHINGTON - It is a political confrontation of a unique and unusually intimate sort.
This week, hearings on campaign fund raising, chaired by Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) are scheduled to turn the spotlight on the man whose former Senate seat Thompson now holds: Vice President Al Gore.
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When the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee reconvenes, it will focus on a fund-raiser Gore attended last sepil at a Buddhist temple outside Los Angeles - a site Democrats later acknowledged was painfully inappropriate. It is unlikely Gore will be called to testify himself, but photographs of the vice president at the temple and questions about his role will be prominent.
With Gore considered the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination three years from now, and Thompson a potential contender for the GOP nod, the week's proceedings may someday be seen as a crucial early skirmish in the 2000 race for the White House. They also mark the first collision of two ambitious and skilled Tennessee politicians who have managed to stay almost entirely out of each other's way throughout their careers.
"They never were adversaries," said one Gore intimate, "because they never had to be."
That all will change this week, as Thompson summons a series of witnesses from the Hsi Lai Temple for what could prove the most colorful, and widely televised, testimony of the hearings so far. And though the temple affair is likely the most dramatic, it is only one of the committee's lines of inquiry that could lead to Gore. Others range from questions about the vice president's role in the overall Democratic campaign fund-raising efforts, particularly solicitation calls he made from his office, and the role of his former Senate chief of staff in lobbying for major Democratic donors who did business with the administration.
"There is substantial exposure left" for the vice president in the hearings, said Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) a member of the investigating committee. Gore's role in the controversy, he added, will face "substantial questioning."
With Republicans pointed down that track, the investigation poses a direct political risk for Gore. But the proceedings are proving to contain a surprising degree of political risk as well for Thompson, who appeared with other potential GOP presidential aspirants last month at a party gathering in Indianapolis.
Widely heralded as a rising GOP star after his election in 1994, Thompson has faced second-guessing from Republicans unhappy with his willingness to look into alleged GOP fund-raising abuses. Democrats question his allegations that there is an ongoing Chinese plot to "subvert" American elections. While the hearings in July advanced the story of the 1996 fund-raising abuses on many fronts, they have not yet produced a blockbuster revelation to rivet the public's attention.
"Presumably the hearings offered Thompson an opportunity to catapult onto the national stage," said Guy Molyneux, a Democratic pollster. "But that opportunity is slipping away from him."
Thompson has done his best to discourage such analysis. On NBC-TV's "Meet the Press" earlier this summer, he forcefully pointed out that he has not "actively considered or ... done anything" to prepare for a possible presidential bid. And he disputes the notion that the inquiry has taken particular aim at Gore, as many Democrats allege.
"I've not talked about any individual, whether it be the president or the vice president or anybody else in terms of where they stand in the order of things," Thompson said. "I'm not going to do that, and I don't think it would be fair."
Yet Thompson appears keenly aware of the drama inherent in the implicit showdown between Tennessee's two best-known politicians: "Never occurred to me ...," Thompson said - before breaking into a broad grin.
Administration officials maintain that, in fact, Thompson is gunning for Gore.
"The Republicans are focusing their attacks on the vice president every chance they get, and I think it has everything to do with 2000 politics," said a White House official.
While the Senate inquiry marks the first direct clash of interests between the two men, they long have worked at cross purposes. In 1970, for example, Thompson - then a young attorney - worked in the Senate campaign of Republican Bill Brock, who unseated Gore's father, Al Gore Sr. And in 1994, Gore campaigned for Democrat Jim Cooper, who Thompson swept past to capture the seat Gore vacated when he was elected vice president.