November 18, 1999
Web posted at: 6:24 p.m. EST (2324 GMT)

NASHVILLE (CNN) -- Nashville, Tennessee, is home to America's famed Country Music Row, where musically talented hopefuls try to make it big. And now, Nashville is the city in which Vice President Al Gore hopes to make his presidential dreams come true.

Gore opened his new headquarters in October.

Nashville is the new home of the Gore 2000 presidential campaign's nerve center. Gore's headquarters is located in a former physical therapy facility in the commercial portion of the city. The setup provides quite a contrast from the almost three-times as expensive old headquarters, which were situated just blocks from the White House.

"The vice president wanted the campaign to go directly to the American people, and by moving south and moving west, we are able to be more in the center of this country," said Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile.

"We can talk to the entire country, and not just the Beltway chatters," Brazile said.

After the move to Nashville, Brazile immediately trimmed the campaign's staff -- though she won't say by how much -- and slashed salaries, including her own, to create what she describes as a leaner and meaner campaign.

Donna Brazile

Now, volunteers stuff envelopes and answer phones, jobs the campaign used to pay for. So far, some 1,000 Tennessee volunteers have signed up for such work, including Ann Deol, who has worked in all of Gore's previous campaigns.

"I think it's great," Deol said. "This way I can help. I could not have helped if I had to travel."

The new Gore headquarters is still a work in progress. Boxes lie empty. Phones have yet to be hooked up. But volunteers cook up sweets to keep staffers satisfied, and workers say the free food, combined with the new, smaller headquarters, is giving the campaign more of a sense of family.

"We can easily walk up, go to anyone's office without having to go up to the elevator, down the elevator, using keys," said campaign worker Aquanetta Anderson.

Another reason Gore may have moved his campaign to Nashville might have been to get away from the perception that he is a Washington insider. Some political analysts say that may be the biggest benefit of the move.

And Brazile says yet another benefit of the move was the escape from Washington punditry.

The new office is located in a former physical therapy facility.

"When you're in Washington, you deal with the chatter and the noise, 'oh you can do this better, you can do this better,'" she said.

Gore joins most of the other presidential candidates with headquarters outside of Washington, but some observers say the location of a campaign is just symbolic.

"I can't underline it enough," said Erwin Hargrove of Vanderbilt University. "The candidate has to connect with people, organizations don't connect with people."

But the Gore campaign insists the change has helped the vice president get his message out -- a change he hopes will make him the headliner of the 2000 election.

Thursday, November 18, 1999

• House dispatches final fiscal 2000 budget legislation; Senate action next
• Bush promises active international leadership; offers tearful sympathy to accident victims
• Gore's new Nashville HQ reaches out toward America's midsection
• Video: Sex and the race for president
• Forbes calls Washington a swamp of special interests
• NHPrimary.com: Forbes says 'outsider' will be force of change
• Time Warner to stop contributing soft money
• Federal funds could help children leave failing schools
• Organ transplant distribution rules in jeopardy
• Gore reversing slide in New Hampshire, poll shows
• McCain compares campaign to combat
• Forbes contributed $10,000 to moderate GOP group
• Congress says internal audit will show Education Department mismanagement
• Bauer says Forbes would phase out Social Security

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