the-times.co.uk: Whitworth: Gore drinks 6 cans Diet Coke daily 11.4.00

http://www.dorway.com/hooked.txt
http://www.the-times.co.uk/article/0,,30131,00.html

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 04 2000
DOUG MILLS/AP

Aides admit Gore is hooked on Coke
BY DAMIAN WHITWORTH

IT MAY not be his most pressing concern but one has to wonder about the
state of Al Gore’s teeth.

The Vice-President is awake each day before 6am. Within half an hour he
is meeting his campaign staff and cracking open his first Diet Coke. By
the time he goes to bed again half a dozen or more of the sticky drinks
will have been sluiced down.

"Okay, so it might not be the kind of breakfast you or I would have,"
says a campaign aide. "But these are high-caffeine days.
He needs his fuel to get through them."

A presidential election campaign is a colossal logistical exercise
mounted by an army that marches
on its constantly pepped-up blood sugar levels.
If Mr Gore is awake then all his staff are awake too — along with the
travelling press corps, the Secret Service and the hundreds of people
involved in every single event in each 19-hour day.

In fact many of the travelling Gore staff are awake long before the man
himself, talking to the campaign war-room in Nashville, plotting
strategies to suggest to the candidate and compiling a briefing book of
press cuttings and talking points that
runs to more than 100 pages every day.

Both candidates are trying to visit as many states as possible before
election day. Mr Gore was in Missouri, Iowa and Tennessee yesterday; Mr
Bush, whose schedule is slightly less insane,
in Michigan and West Virginia.

Every time Air Force 2 and its following press plane land, the routine
is the same. A motorcade of about 30 vehicles is waiting on the runway:
a limousine, or heavy sports utility vehicle for the candidate, another
with an open back carrying Secret Service officers armed with
machineguns, and then a long train of other security vehicles, police
cars, staff minivans and four coaches carrying the press.
The Vice-President then scorches across
the countryside like a Roman emperor down cleared, sealed-off roads.

The Secret Service and an advance team of campaign workers usually
arrive at each site four days before the event takes place.
The Secret Service ensures that every police officer in the area is
on duty in order to keep the roads clear.

The campaign workers, often in teams of just six, organise the staging
of the events. Contractors are hired to build stages, set up lights,
provide sound systems, confetti-blowing machines and fireworks.

School cafeterias or, as in Los Angeles this week, a vacant shop, are
commandeered as press-filing centres where the installation of dozens
of phone lines is supervised by a phone company executive who travels
permanently with the campaign. Photocopiers and faxes must be installed
so that schedules and press releases can be printed off and distributed
immediately to reporters. Caterers are hired to feed the press and
staff.

The advance team relies on scores of volunteers from the local campaign
office, and unions often provide drivers and control crowds. Telephone
banks are set up to call registered Democrats and pull in a crowd.
For the huge rallies fliers are distributed across town and campaign
officials make themselves available to local radio and television
stations.

Mr Gore has been using celebrities such as the rock star Jon Bon Jovi
and the comedian Bill Cosby to attract an audience and get it warmed up.

Music blaring across a small town ensures that eventually most people
come down to find out what is going on.

The smaller-scale events are invitation-only, with guests carefully
screened to ensure they are sympathetic or relevant to the theme
of the day. Whatever the subject of his speech Mr Gore, like
Mr Bush, has to have a mix of people, young and old,
black and white, standing behind him.

Before he arrives the audience is given its orders. "This is a serious
event not a rally, so no jumping up and down," a campaign aide told an
audience of 200 on a beach in Michigan this week.
"And when you clap, take your gloves off — it makes a better sound."

Many of the events staged by the campaign are not officially staged at
all. "We just decided to stop and these people were here," a staffer
said after the entire motorcade had pulled off a road in Michigan this
week.
Mr Gore chatted in front of the cameras with a cluster of voters who
just happened to be carrying Gore-Liberman posters
and be standing behind a rope line.

Once the candidate has left, the focus turns to getting out the vote.
The Democrats have distributed more than half a million placards in
the key states, and by election day will have made 50 million
phone calls to voters, sent 40 million pieces of mail
and 30 million e-mails to supporters.
Some 50,000 volunteers will work in those states on election day.
The Republicans will have sent out 1.6 million placards,
made 62 million phone calls and distributed 110 million articles of
mail.

There is a certain machismo about the length of the hours worked.
"Our campaign consists of a lot of long days and a lot of short nights,"

Chris Lehane, the Gore campaign spokesman, said.
"While some candidates may look for their feather pillows,
Al Gore is looking for every single undecided voter he can find."

Sometimes Mr Gore will end the day sipping a beer with his
brother-in-law and best friend, Frank Hungar,
but usually he calls one of the Air Force 2 stewards,
or goes to the hotel minibar and requests one more can of a
certain brand of cola.
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So, 6 cans gives over 2 L of Diet Coke, 120 mg methanol, of which
a certain amount of formaldehyde, a deadly cumulative toxin,
accumulates in all body cells. Bill Clinton is also well known for
copious consumption of diet sodas for the last decade. The EPA
limit for methanol in drinking water is 7.8 mg daily. Aspartame was
FDA approved in 1981 by Commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes,
appointed by the new President Reagan. Reagan always carried
blue packets of Equal in his pockets...

Dr. Woodrow C. Monte, "Aspartame: Methanol, and the Public Health,"
Journal of Applied Nutrition, Volume 36, No. 1, pages 42-54, 1984.
(62 references) Professsor of Food Science
Director of the Food Science and Nutrition Laboratory
Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287
6411 South River Drive #61 Tempe, Arizona 85283-3337
602-965-6938 woody.monte@...
The methanol from 2 L of diet soda, 5.6 12-oz cans, 20 mg/can,
is 112 mg, 10% of the aspartame.
The EPA limit for water is 7.8 mg daily
for methanol (wood alcohol), a deadly cumulative poison. Many users
drink 1-2 L daily. The reported symptoms are entirely consistent
with chronic methanol toxicity. (Fresh orange juice has 34 mg/L, but,
like all juices, has 16 times more ethanol, which strongly protects
against methanol.) www.dorway.com/wmonte.txt

A radioactive tracer study proves that the methanol from a low dose of
of aspartame binds formaldehyde, a deadly cumulative poison, into
tissues: Trocho C et al, June 26 1998, Life Sci, 63(5), 337-349.
www.presidiotex.com/barcelona/index.html

Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal, Canderel, Benevia) is reported by
scientific studies and case histories to be toxic: headaches; many
body and joint pains (or burning, tingling, tremors, twitching,
spasms, cramps, or numbness); "mind fog", "feel unreal", poor memory,
confusion, anxiety, irritability, depression, mania, insomnia,
dizziness, slurred speech, ringing in ears, sexual problems, nausea,
seizures, poor vision, hearing, or taste; fever, fatigue; red face,
itching, rashes, burning eyes or throat, dry mouth or eyes, mouth
sores; hair loss; obesity, bloating, edema, poor or excessive hunger
or thirst, anorexia; coldness; diarrhea or constipation; breathing
problems; racing heart, high blood pressure, erratic blood sugar
levels; sweating; birth defects; brain cancers; addiction.

UPI reporter Gregory Gordon: 96K 3-part expose Oct 1987:
http://www.dorway.com/upipart1.txt
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