As Gore puts it, "There is winning, and there is losing, and there is that rare third category."

People wanted Gore to land one on the Bush administration, but he still seems consigned to being the policy guy. He will lose as the policy guy, because elections are no longer about issues, even in the harrowing international environment we are currently staggering through.

Politics today is about manipulation of the emotions, and the Rove group are past masters at it. Gore, sad to say, is a piker. I'm afraid to say it, but a presidential candidate may never be able to be decent again, and campaign from the heart, and connect with voters on real matters. Presidential politics (I hope what I am saying is untrue) has become a dirty, deceptive realm in which manipulation and duplicity and sales sizzle trump the issues.

To make matters worse, Gore was followed by a rave-up performance of Springsteen's E Street band, joined by the Max Weinberg brass consortium. It was, I swear, a 10 minute play it to the death epic version of "Kitty's Back," and Springsteen sang and played with remarkable youth and — what shall I call it — clarity. He cut through 30 years of claptrap, and provided an evening of passionate charm and intensity.

I sat there watching, thinking, that is what we all pray for in politics. Someone able to connect that intensely, that charismatically, that lovably.

Conan O'Brien joined in on guitar, and you could see even the jaundiced redhead was caught up in the majesty of the moment. People felt connected to, and alive, and a little bit in love.

That's what the Democrats need to come up with, somehow, and the suspicions are strong, in the wake of that performance, that that quality does not exist in the U.S. Senate, where the bulk of candidates for 2004 are huddled, or under the Al Gore rock of discretion.