BY JODI A. ENDA
 Herald Washington Bureau

 PHILADELPHIA -- A combative Vice President Al Gore lashed out Tuesday at
 critics, including those in his own party, who have accused him of politicizing the
 fate of Elian Gonzalez and pandering to Cuban Americans.

 ''This is not a set of views that I suddenly adopted because I'm involved in a
 presidential campaign,'' Gore said in an interview with The Herald's Washington
 Bureau.

 ''And it's ironic that some of those who leap to that calculation turn around in the
 next breath and say, ''And he's so foolish because the vast majority of the voters
 disagree with his position.'

 ''This is a matter of principle with me. It has been from the beginning. I have not
 changed my view. I have been consistent throughout.''

 Characterizing himself as a longtime ''hard-liner'' on Cuban President Fidel Castro,
 Gore rejected as ''baloney'' the view that Elian should return to Cuba simply
 because his father -- speaking through and in the shadow of a dictator -- has said
 he wants the boy to do so.

 ''Let's focus on what's in the best interest of this child and let's don't let Fidel
 Castro manipulate this situation, speaking for the father, intimidating the father,
 not allowing the father to come here to see his child for more than four months
 after this tragedy occurred,'' Gore said emphatically.

 In a break with the Clinton administration, Gore released a statement last week
 expressing his support for legislation that would grant Elian permanent resident
 status in the United States while his case was pending in court.

 The move was widely derided as a political stunt driven by Gore's desire to carry
 Florida -- it has a large Cuban-American population that tends to vote Republican
 -- in the November election. In a lengthy defense, Gore testily said Tuesday that
 his position on Elian has not changed since the boy was rescued from the sea.

 The Democratic leader in the Senate, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, said
 Tuesday that despite Gore's position, most Democrats are ''overwhelmingly in
 support of reuniting Elian Gonzalez and his father . . . very few members of our
 caucus support anything else.''

 INS Commissioner Doris Meissner spoke to Democratic senators on the case
 and reminded them of many instances of U.S. parents trying to get their children
 out of foreign countries, Daschle said.

 ''Do we want to endanger our ability to retrieve children from other countries by
 setting this precedent in this country? I don't think we want to do that,'' Daschle
 said.

 Sen. Connie Mack, the Florida Republican, said he might offer a ''sense of the
 Senate'' resolution on the controversy calling for independent psychiatrists to
 examine the boy before any transfer occurs -- an idea offered by lawyers for the
 Miami relatives Tuesday.

 Mack, Florida Democrat Bob Graham and Rep. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., have
 introduced bills to grant Elian permanent residency status -- the measure that
 Gore supports.

 Gore said the boy's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, should be allowed to come to
 the United States and speak freely and then have a family court determine
 whether Elian will remain with relatives in Miami or return to Cuba.

 The boy has been at the center of an international dispute ever since he was
 found on Thanksgiving Day floating on an inner tube off Fort Lauderdale, one of
 three survivors of a shipwreck that killed his mother and other Cuban refugees on
 their way to Florida.

 Suggesting that Elian's father might reverse his position if he were free to speak
 truthfully, Gore said, ''Those who accept Castro's version of what is in this father's
 heart may be surprised by what is really in this father's heart.''

 But Gore appeared to backtrack on a statement he made earlier in the day. He
 said on NBC's Today that the desire of Elian's father, if he comes to the United
 States, ''is likely to be determinative, and will be determinative.''

 ''Now in a family court, traditionally a parent's view carries tremendous weight,''
 Gore said. ''Of course. But it is not automatically the be-all and end-all.''

 Herald staff writer Frank Davies contributed to this report.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald