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I'm mildly amused to see how my request for AOL news with the keyword :"disability" works, sometimes. And a little annoyed, here. The full article below, so I'm not accused of being a tease. <<``Al Gore's personality is here to stay. Instead of treating his wooden stiffness as a disability or explaining it away, the Gore campaign should boldly proclaim it as his badge of honor,'' said Immelman, who presented a study on Gore's political personality last year to the International Society of Political Psychology.>> Regards, Kay M. Olson Tempe, AZ <<Gore: Personality a `Requirement' .c The Associated Press By DEB RIECHMANN WASHINGTON (AP) - The rising importance of personality in TV-age politics was the heart of Al Gore's honors thesis at Harvard in 1969. Today, personality is the very trait some people think is missing in Gore's bid for the presidency. Asked what word best describes Gore, two-thirds of Americans polled this spring said: ``Boring.'' Gore jokes about his reserved demeanor, but 30 years ago he speculated in his thesis that television had made a personality that would play to the cameras a requisite for future presidents. As soon as TV cameras began panning the political landscape, as soon as TV lights spotlighted presidential news conferences, as soon as presidents could bypass reporters and talk directly to millions of American TV viewers, personality became more than just a plus for prospective presidential candidates, Gore wrote. ``A key factor in this trend is the increasing importance of the president's personality,'' Gore surmised in his 1969 paper, ``The Impact of Television on the Conduct of the Presidency 1947-1969.'' ``Because of this, it is possible to speculate that a `role requirement' of the president in the future might become `visual communication.' Just as an effective speechmaking technique has been a role requirement in the past.'' Gore presented his 103-page thesis, which traces the history of presidents on TV, to earn a bachelor's degree in government with honors at Harvard. Back in 1969, Gore's father, Al Gore Sr., the late senator from Tennessee, gave the paper to Herbert Klein, President Nixon's communications director. Klein filed it, and it ended up in President Nixon's papers stored at the National Archives. Now, personality is an issue for Gore's campaign for president - one he can only overcome with fresh ideas, said Erwin Hargrove, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University who wrote a book on presidential leadership, style and personality. Hargrove was in Carthage, Tenn., this month when Gore launched his presidential campaign. ``He was his sober self,'' Hargrove said. ``Then he started shouting. I guess he was trying to show he has some blood in his veins. It doesn't work. I think Albert has enough force of personality. He needs a message.'' Asked about Gore's bland public image, Marla Romash, deputy chairman of the Gore campaign, sighed. ``The vice president has answered this,'' she said. ``He's said, `I am who I am.' Anybody who knows Al Gore knows he's a funny, engaging, warm guy.'' Gore even pokes fun at himself, telling the joke about how he's so dull that the Secret Service code name for him is ``Al Gore,'' or standing motionless at a podium to imitate himself under a fast-blinking strobe light. For Gore to be a contender for 2000, Aubrey Immelman, an associate professor of psychology at Saint John's University in Minnesota, said, he needs to drop the self-effacing jokes altogether and send the message that his stiffness reflects integrity; his woodenness portends what would be a focused approach to the business of leading the nation. ``Al Gore's personality is here to stay. Instead of treating his wooden stiffness as a disability or explaining it away, the Gore campaign should boldly proclaim it as his badge of honor,'' said Immelman, who presented a study on Gore's political personality last year to the International Society of Political Psychology. In case Gore doesn't take this advice, Marc Perkel, a computer programmer in Springfield, Mo., is soliciting new jokes Gore can use in his campaign. Perkel, an early Gore supporter, ran a lighthearted campaign for Congress last year when no Democrat filed in his heavily Republican district. ``Gore gets into this Mister Rogers mode when he talks to the public,'' Perkel said. ``He's a real sharp guy and so sometimes he talks slow and simple so as to be understood by larger numbers of people. He needs to lose the Mister Rogers thing and be a little more relaxed.'' AP-NY-06-25-99 1551EDT Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. 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