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Election 1996
Postcard from Chicago
A daily report from the Democratic Convention
by MPR News Editor Bob Collins

AUGUST 30, 1996
| Teary-eyed |

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Teary-eyed
WHILE GORE WAS DELIVERING the story of the loss of his sister due to smoking, I was feeding a piece on convention music, and I had the Macarena blaring in my headphones. I'm kinda swaying along and I look around and everyone in the press box looks like they're about to start bawling. I take off my headphones and everyone's quiet. "What's going on?" I asked. The guy next to me blubbers "He's talking about his dead sister." I look across the way, and his mother is crying.

I put my headphones back on.

The funny thing is, Gore said THIS to tobacco farmers in North Carolina in 1988:

"Throughout most of my life, I raised tobacco. I want you to know that with my own hands, all of my life, I put it in the plant beds and transferred it. I've hoed it. I've chopped it. I've shredded it, spiked it, put it in the bar, and stripped it and sold it."

That was four years after his sister died.

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