LOS ANGELES - Vice-President Al Gore made a surprise appearance at the Democratic convention yesterday, rushing on stage to embrace his daughter seconds after she placed his name in nomination for President of the United States.
Karenna Gore Schiff, aged 27, cried out in glee as her beaming father threw his arms around her and mouthed the words, "Thank-you, thank-you," to cheering convention delegates.
A short time later, Florida cast its 186 votes to put Gore over the 2170 needed for nomination.
Gore, 52, will speak from the same podium today to formally accept his party's nomination.
Schiff, the oldest of the Vice-President's four children, joined actor Tommy Lee Jones, who was one of Gore's housemates at Harvard, and Lois Deberry, a long-time Gore friend who now serves as speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives, in nominating the Vice-President for the nation's highest office.
Gore's daughter, a recent law school graduate, declared: "I hope, for the sake of our country and our future, that my father is elected President. But I want you to know: to me, he's already won because he has been the most wonderful father in the whole world."
Gore arrived in Los Angeles just hours earlier, capping an eight-day, cross-country tour that began in his home state of Tennessee.
He was greeted at the airport by his vice-presidential choice, Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, and a crowd of several hundred backers.
- REUTERS
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