Politics & Power Quote by Rich Lowry

Lowry’s line is less an observation than a framing device: it shrinks Al Gore’s debate performances into an identity problem. “Adopted” does quiet but decisive work here. It suggests costume and calculation, not evolution or adjustment. Gore isn’t responding to different questions or audiences; he’s trying on masks. That choice primes the reader to distrust whatever follows, because inconsistency becomes not a human trait but a political tell.

The phrase “three utterly different personas” is a deliberately inflationary accusation. “Utterly” leaves no room for ordinary campaign calibration, the kind every candidate does when one debate demands policy fluency and another rewards warmth. Lowry isn’t arguing that Gore emphasized different priorities; he’s implying a fundamental absence of self. It’s a classic editorial move: turn style into substance, then treat style as evidence of character.

Context matters. The 2000 debates were obsessed with “authenticity” as a media sport: Gore as the stiff overachiever, Bush as the “regular guy,” the whole contest filtered through body language, sighs, and tone. Lowry’s sentence plugs directly into that ecosystem, where “persona” is both a campaign necessity and a cultural slur. By counting them - three debates, three selves - he gives the charge a tidy, almost mathematical punch.

Subtext: if Gore is this malleable onstage, what is he offstage? The insinuation is that the real Gore is not any of these versions, but the opportunism connecting them. It’s a neat piece of rhetorical skepticism dressed up as commentary on performance.