NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Pauline LaFon Gore, mother of former Vice President Al Gore and wife of a longtime senator, died Wednesday at the home in Carthage, Tenn. She was 92.

Gore was the heart of a powerful Tennessee political family. Her husband, the late Sen. Albert Gore Sr., served in Congress for 32 years. .

“My job is to hold things together,” Pauline Gore said after Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton picked her son as his running mate in 1992. “That’s the role of a mother throughout her life.”

Gore was an intellect who was a force behind both her husband and son’s campaigns. She was a Southern lady who favored bright beads and dresses, hair always in place. She was also one of the South’s first women to practice law, a career she choose to give up to throw her support behind her husband’s political career. To Gore, the key was that women should be able to choose what they do.

“Pauline Gore was one of the wisest, most intelligent women I have ever known,” said Mary Sasser, whose husband, former Sen. Jim Sasser, won Albert Gore Sr.’s old Senate seat in 1976.