This is the day Al Gore hopes to ensure that Americans don't freeze to death this winter and then elect him president as a spin-off.
Al's magic plan is to persuade his boss, President Clinton, to release oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increase heating-oil supplies and stabilise prices. Oil prices have become a hot issue in an election year when motorists are angry over the soaring price of petrol (although they only pay £1.80 a gallon). Heating-oil bills will soon hit record highs.
We gather in sweltering sunshine in Hollywood - Maryland not California - for the unveiling of the great Gore plan. The press has taken the bus from Washington 50 miles away but Gore is coming by helicopter, using umpteen gallons of fuel, but then he is the Vice-President.
You would not know that from his press releases, which talk only about someone called "Al Gore" and "Gore" as if he had nothing to do with the Clinton-Gore administration.
Against a backdrop of towering oil-storage tanks and ringed by the oil tankers of a local distributor, Baruch Oil, Gore tells about 200 supporters how he will bring down oil prices and make winter warmer for everyone.
The press release tells us we are in St Mary's County, established as far back as 1637 and "named in honour of Mary, the mother of Jesus".
Gore's plan is to persuade President Clinton (who does he think he is kidding? Everyone knows that they have fixed this already) to "make several swaps" of five million barrels from the strategic reserve. This should make more heating oil available before winter.
Big Al is going to tell Big Oil where to get off. "One of the central choices we face in this election is whether we will have a president who's willing to stand up to the big oil interests and fight for our families. That's the kind of president I intend to be."
The crowd cheered. And it just happens that his opponent, George "Dubya" Bush, is a former Texas oilman, and his running mate, Dick Cheney, recently headed the biggest oil services company in the world. Definitely the bad guys. No way is Gore going to go along with "the agenda of my opponents of by, with and for big oil."
A Gore policy adviser, Greg Simon, was briefing the press on the intricacies of the Gore plan when he suddenly burst into song:
Keep those barrels rolling,
Keep those barrels rolling - raw deal.
To Cheney and Dubya from Big Oil we love ya
For letting us keep our raw deal.
Memos, memos, memos. Who needs stinkin' memos?
He's a man of action - Al Gore.
He's not afraid to foil
The barons of big oil
And tell them that their raw deal's a bore.
Mr Simon got an encore and was even recorded for radio.
The "stinkin' memos" are a reference to a leaked memo in that morning's Wall Street Journal, which could not have come at a worse time for "man of action - Al Gore".
The confidential memo from the Secretary of the Treasury, Larry Summers, to President Clinton advised him that a proposal to drive down energy prices by releasing oil from the strategic reserve "would be a major and substantial policy mistake". To make it worse, Summers said that his objections to the plan were shared by Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, the man most credited with the longest economic boom in the US.
The audience at Baruch Oil in Hollywood heard about tax credits of $6,000 to buy more fuel-efficient cars; $400 million to help low-income families afford heating oil and a temporary tax credit for oil distributors like Mr Baruch up on the Gore platform to help build up oil stocks and bring down the price for the families in the audience.
The press had now more pressing things to deal with. The Gore aides had distributed a menu for lunch at the nearby restaurant on the Patuxent river.
The famous Maryland blue crabs were an obvious choice, seeing that they float past the kitchen door. "These creatures have had an extremely positive impact on the recreation and tourism of the region," according to a hand-out.
I can confirm that.