HIGH JINKS THAT TAKE THE GLOSS OFF A GORE GIRL

Karenna Schiff, oldest daughter and closest adviser to Al Gore, smoked
cannabis, drank heavily and, when drunk, once encouraged a friend to drive
her father's car without a licence, it emerged last week.

While the leading candidates in America's presidential race are wheeling
out their families to boost their images and campaigns, Al Gore may now be
wishing that his would temporarily assume a lower profile.

The revelations about Mrs Schiff, a blonde 26-year-old tipped for a
possible White House job if the campaign she is masterminding gets her
father elected, appeared in a much-discussed article in talk magazine.

Mr Gore's potential Republican rival, George W. Bush, is increasingly
playing the family card as his parents, George and Barbara, former
President and First Lady, criss-cross the key campaign states of Iowa and
New Hampshire. The older Mr Bush gave his first campaign interviews last
week, declaring: "I'm obsessed as a dad who loves his son. And I would do
anything to help him win ... I want to see him win and I don't want to see
him hurt."

But while the senior members of the Bush family remain one of American
politics' best-known and most popular couples, the younger Gore clan has
proved an equally potent phenomenon.

Mrs Schiff, a law student who married two years ago and recently gave birth
to the Vice-President's first grandson, is regarded as one of Mr Gore's
greatest assets, attracting the young audiences that her dour father fails
to reach.

Last week's disclosures are unlikely to worry them. Indeed, there is
something appealing for many Americans about the fact that, despite their
many privileges, the Gore family is not completely perfect.

The Vice-President's wife, Tipper, who returned to the campaign in Iowa on
Thursday after having part of her thyroid gland removed, said last year
that she had suffered from clinical depression after the couple's son,
Albert Gore III, was almost killed in a car accident in 1989.

Discovering she had depression was "extremely frightening," she said.

But since treatment, including medication, she has recovered. She was also
relieved to learn, shortly after Christmas, that there were no signs of the
cancer that might have caused the abnormal symptoms in her thyroid gland.

Mrs Schiff has refused to discuss her high-school days, but a Gore campaign
spokesman dismissed her indiscretions: "She was a kid. She was at high
school. We're very proud of her."

According to the magazine, friends of Mrs Schiff said she was a
"high-school rebel" during her days at the elite National Cathedral School
in Washington. "If you needed a partner in crime, the first person you'd go
to was Karenna," one friend told the magazine. "She was always up for a
good time."

Others described late-night parties where they drank heavily and smoked
marijuana.

But Mrs Schiff, who is married to a Wall Street banker and lives in New
York, is now apparently a model of good sense. "She has an incredibly good
instinct, nearly perfect pitch, a good ear for what's right," her father
said. "It's natural for me to rely on advice from my family. I've always
relied on them."

Two younger Gore daughters, Kristin and Sarah, have yet to make a public
entry into the Vice-President's campaign, as has Albert Gore III, who is
still at high school. Gore campaign officials denied on Saturday that he
was expelled from a previous school for smoking marijuana.