You can call me Al

Presidential candidate faces students on MTV forum

By Hanna LoPatin

Daily Staff Reporter

NORMAN NG/Daily

Vice President Al Gore talks to students during MTV's "Choose or Lose" forum taped on North Campus yesterday

Vice President Al Gore answered the questions on every college student's mind yesterday: He prefers paper to plastic, he has a Sister Hazel disc in his CD player and the biggest perk of winning the election would be the promotion to Air Force One.

Incidentally, he also plans to make his first act as president signing a racial profiling ban, he supports legalizing same-sex civil unions and despite MTV's introduction saying he "even smoked the herb," Gore opposes legalizing marijuana for medical use.

During a commercial break on MTV's Choose or Lose town hall meeting taped yesterday on North Campus, Gore even quipped, "Did you know that I invented the environment?" And after a student asked if he could call the vice president "Al," the candidate simply said, "Absolutely. You know the Paul Simon song, right?"

Engineering senior Mike Muse, one of 150 students picked through an audition process to join the audience for the forum, told Gore he had once been pulled over and "surrounded by six police cars" because the officer told him he fit the description of someone who had committed a crime.

Racial profiling, Gore said, "is a new label for a very old practice." If elected, the vice president said "a ban on racial profiling will be the first civil rights act of the 21st Century."

"That is exactly the answer I was looking for," Muse said after the show was taped.

Responding to several questions about the mp3-sharing Websites such as Napster, Gore told students and the nationwide television audience of young voters that he supports intellectual property rights.

"It's a great technology, but it can only be used over the long term if they find a way to protect the rights of the artist," Gore said. "Intellectual property is still property,"

For the final question of the event, which was taped at the Media Union in the morning and aired on MTV last night, LSA senior Brian Babb asked the Democratic vice president about his feelings on hip hop music. Babb said hip hop is a form of social statement and handed Gore a Mos Def CD.

Gore, who has criticized the record industry's marketing tactics toward children, said he'd listen to the CD and e-mail Babb his opinion on the music.

Throughout the 90-minute forum, Gore outlined his plans to address students' issues: He wants to improve access to higher education through tax breaks and increases in federal grant money; verify the guilt of those on death row through new DNA testing; and protect a woman's right to an abortion. At the end students lobbed one-liner inquiries about everything from the most influential historical moment and whether he has ever cheated on a test.

LSA senior Allyson Davis, the first student to ask a question, probed Gore on protection from violence in schools.

Davis said despite the extensive audition process, MTV executives did not instruct her what to ask.

"They didn't ask me to say anything," she said.

"In a setting like this it has to be contrived somewhat," Davis said. "He skirted around the issues a little bit. I was satisfied, but I wasn't thrilled."

Outside the Media Union and unseen to the television audience, some students who definitely will not be voting for Gore held a rally to show their support for Republican Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

"We're trying to get out the message that under Al Gore's leadership, the U.S. has fallen into an educational recession," said Michigan Bush/Cheney 2000 Youth Director Adam Killian, an LSA senior.

MTV has invited Bush to participate in the same forum but has not yet received an answer.

Following the MTV taping, Gore spoke to senior citizens at the Ann Arbor Community Center about his Medicare plan, which he formally unveiled Monday.

NORMAN NG/Daily

Gore "knocks on wood" after audience members at the Ann Arbor Community Center urged him to talk about his prospects of winning.