ADDED: Here's a New Republic article from a couple months ago that's very positive about Al Gore running in '08:
...Gore is the only anti-Hillary candidate who can credibly attack her on both fronts. His early, vocal, and unwavering opposition to the war in Iraq has made him a hero to many Democrats. The Hollywood liberals over at Huffington Post as well as the university-town activists at Daily Kos and Moveon.org love Gore. If he ran, he would instantly become the favored candidate of the "netroots," the antiwar, anti-Bush crowd that championed Howard Dean and that will be a significant source of money and buzz in the run-up to 2008. The activists in the liberal blogosphere, more than any other opinion-making constituency in Democratic politics, revere Gore. They still wave the bloody flag of the 2000 recount. They still pump out bitter posts about how the mainstream media trashed Gore in 2000 yet gave Bush a free pass. They remember that Gore endorsed Dean in 2004 and they burst with pride at the fact that he chose Moveon.org as the forum for his most important speeches.
Of course, any antiwar candidate could criticize Hillary's vote for the war in Iraq. But the logic of the Gore candidacy is that, unlike other Democrats, he could attack Hillary as both out of step on the war and unelectable come November. If he runs for president he would be the only candidate in either party who instantly passes the post-9/11 threshold on national security issues. Hillary's credible case that as first lady she engaged in diplomacy and was treated abroad like a world leader would be dwarfed by Gore's eight-year record as vice president sitting on the National Security Council.
And Gore might be the only Democrat who can solve a vexing issue facing the party: How does a candidate establish a reputation for toughness on national security while simultaneously criticizing the war? Gore supported the Gulf War and, in most Clinton administration battles over the use of force, he took the more hawkish position. He is the party's only credible antiwar hawk.
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Well, the key point with the TNR piece is that IF the Dems want an opponent of the Iraq War, they will need someone who doesn't seem weak on national security. Who else but Gore?
I might be able to vote for a Lieberman/Gore ticket but not the other way around -- never again.
Funny how the NR article morphs the bloody shirt metaphor into "the bloody flag of the 2000 recount."
Gore has made some really wacko statements since 2000, especially during his bearded phase. So wacko that it not only places Gore outside the mainstream, it places him on another planet.
Those statements will come back to kill his chances because bloggers never forget.
The fact that none of these people seem like good candidates (and I agree with Ann about Gore) gets back to the difficulty of running from a national stage. In the last 40 years, only Bush Sr running against a very weak democrat has won from there. Senators especially.
Al Gore says he has no interest in returning to electoral politics. He describes himself as being "in recovery" from politics--as in, he's over it. The New Republic needs to get over it too, and the Democrats need to get serious about their situation if they want to hold the presidency again.
There has been one tradition in US politics of losing nominees from major parties being renominated for the presidency. Unfortunately for renominated candidates, another part of that tradition is that generally, the candidates have lost again.
William Jennings Bryan lost three times...and deservedly so. Thomas Dewey lost twice. Adlai Stevenson lost twice. Richard Nixon, as you point out, is the only one to break "the curse," so to speak, winning in 1968 after losing in 1960. (He also lost the California governorship in 1962, making his subsequent win all the more remarkable.) It's fair to point out that after having pulled off one of the most notable comebacks in US political history, Nixon also disgraced himself as President and was forced to resign; so, his resurgence as a presidential candidate may be seen as a hollow thing.
The key to Nixon's comeback, by the way, was that he campaigned hard for Republican candidates in the 1966 elections. GOP success that year came two years after Barry Goldwater was crushed by Lyndon Johnson in the presidential election amid predictions that the Republican Party was, if not dead, then ticketed for permanent minority status. Nixon was seen as a key ingredient in the Republican resurgence that year and many newly-elected or re-elected Republicans owed him big-time for their wins. Nobody else, including the successful Republicans of 1966 who didn't owe Nixon anything for their victories and who challenged him for the 1968 nomination, notably Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney, had as many chits to call in as Nixon did that year. The lesson is clear: If Kerry and Gore want to run for President again, they need to campaign for Dems in 2006 as though their political lives depended on it.
But of course, the incidents of political resuscitation I've mentioned represent the exceptions, not the rules, in our presidential politics. Americans, it seems, may be forgiving in many ways; but once they've spurned a major party nominee for President, they're pretty much voted off of the White House island forever.
Kerry and Gore though, both have some legitimate reasons for thinking that they each deserve another shot and that they could win the whole thing.
Gore nearly won in 2000 and Kerry got more votes than any Democratic nominee in history...and he did that in the middle of a war when Americans were inclined to rally 'round the flag and the Commander-in-Chief.
Both are lackluster campaigners--except when Al gets into one of his bizarre moods and sounds like an angry, volatile, sawdust preacher-wannabe. If either of them do run, I doubt that they will perform well.
But who knows what might happen in a crowded Democratic field in 2008?
Mark Daniels
ChuckB has to be right. I remember saying to myself every time I heard one of Gore's special statements that he has given up politics for good.
How 'bout a Gore / Hillary 2008 ticket? No, never mind, I don't think they like each other at all. What about Gore / Kerry? Oh, to hear both candidates campaign speeches together on one stage, well my head would just explode.
I am very interested in the list, or lack there of, of candidates for the GOP in 2008. Bush will be leaving office without a clear, hand picked sucessor. McCain? He may be too old, and has pissed off too many on the far right. Giuliani? He has the 9/11 hero cred, but his posisions on social issues will be hard for the same far right to swallow. Mit Romney. Young but unknown.
PS. My blog is one year one yesterday. To celebrate, I went and saw KIng Kong.
You know, I voted for Gore. I liked him. Even thought he won the debates!
By the way, Ann, thanks for your outstanding blog...and have a happy 2006!
Mark Daniels
Great. It seems we are faced with a choice between pernicious dynastic candidates and been-there-done-that losers.
Pathetic state of affairs.
Reader:
I do so loathe the existence of political dynasties in our politics. We may have won our independence from the Brits, but we have yet to effect our independence from royalism!
Mark Daniels
1) Neither Gore nor Hillary will be able to win a national election.
2) Hillary can, and will, however win the Democratic primary. Remember, these are delusional moonbats we are talking about here. They are going to consider her a compromise candidate in the name of electability. Even they realize that neither Gore nor Dean could win a national election.
There's 290 million people in this country. We should have more choices for President than what we have seen so far and, if we are destined to have political dynasties, there certainly should be ones of better quality than either the Bush or Clinton families.
Recently I went to see Gore give a talk on global warming (a subject for another day). The guy was impressive. Either this whole "stiff one" thing is just an urban myth, or spending 5 years out of Washington has been very good to Gore. He spoke entirely without notes for an hour and a half. He was persuasive, he was interesting, and he was entertaining. Looking ahead, if he can deliver a coherent message on terrorism and Iraq and address global warming in a way that doesn't scare off the skeptics, he can be a viable candidate in '08.
Kerry is giving off lots of body language that says he's going to run again, but he's worn out his welcome with his base of support among Dems and independents. Too bad because I continue to believe he'd be decent better president.
I used to be one of those people who thought that Hillary would make a fine president but could never win a general election. Many people far more liberal than me would prefer that she not run in '08 for precisely that reason. In the past year, the situation has flipped; she's done a pretty decent job reinventing herself as a moderate, but at the expense of seeming inauthentic. I'd probably vote for her over any Republican who's likely to be nominated in '08, but I can't see myself getting excited about her candidacy.
I guess Al Gore would have to re-invent himself again. Remember all the nutty stuff from the 2000 campaign? Hiring the consultant to turn him into an "alpha male"? Wearing too much makeup in the second debate and looking like someone's Aunt Minnie? The magazine cover (Rolling Stone?) with the enhanced "package"? All the heavy sighing in the first debate?
I always read how Gore is a great guy in private but in public always seems uncomfortable in his own skin. He seemed to decompensate after the 2000 elections, I almost wonder if he could mentally handle another campaign.
If the Democrats could come up with a candidate who comes across as a regular guy they'd probably have a winner, as they did with Bill Clinton.
No wartime election in U.S. history has ever been won by the dove candidate. Not one. They have always been won by the incumbent when the incumbent ran, and by the more hawkish when the election was open. If the U.S. still has combat committments that make the newspaper in 2008, no anti-war candidate will win, whatever their "national security" credentials.
So, the question is, if we're still in Iraq, can the Democrats nominate a more-pro-war-than-the-Republican candidate in 2008? Yeah, right.
Which means the only hope for the Democratic Party to win in 2008 is that we either clearly win in Iraq or withdraw from Iraq sometime in 2007.
Steven, you pointed up an interesting tidbit of political history.
My nephew is in Iraq. For the first seven months, he ducked roadside bombs and motar shells. (Two of his vehicles were destroyed. He was uninjured.)
Recently, his unit moved far into the desert. The only Iraqi thing he has seen in the last three weeks is one stray camel.
It looks like the U.S. is quietly pulling back.
That means there is a decent chance the war issue won't be on the front burner at the time of the next Presidential election.
If anyone wants to paint Gore as "strong on defense" all we need to do is remind people of the Florida Democratic Party's attempts to get a lot of servicemembers absentee ballots disqualified in 2000.
About the only Democratic administration at this time that might be acceptable to the majority of the military would be one headed by Sen. Lieberman.
Because he went to Iraq an saw - and told - the truth.
Kerry can't run for one reason:
SF-180
If he doesn't sign it, he's toast.
If he signs it, he can't continue to be a U.S. Senator, much less a Candidate for President.
Jeff, what does the Dems' actions regarding absentee military ballots have to do with being strong or weak on defense? It's a near certainty that any given sample of military ballots will contain more votes for the Republican than for the Democrat.
" all we need to do is remind people of the Florida Democratic Party's attempts to get a lot of servicemembers absentee ballots disqualified in 2000.
It would be dishonest to do that without also reminding people that some of those ballots were mailed late, and that the state of Florida sent out two ballots--neither of which was marked as a sample--to some of its servicemembers serving overseas. Also, some overseas ballots arrived incorrectly filled out, and a local poll worker took it upon himself or herself to correct them. Timeliness, multiple ballots, and tampering are legitimate issues to contest. They have nothing to do with one's credentials on national defense. Gore has a good record on that, so the GOP would pretty much have to resort to demogoguery and slurs, which is exactly what this ballot kerfuffle amounts to.
D_Walters;
Running against scandal is barely more effective than running doves in wartime. There isn't a Watergate in any of the so-far-revealed Bush 43 scandals. An Iran-Contra or a Teapont Dome, maybe, but those don't lose elections. Hell, even Ford came within a hair of beating Carter despite the combination of stagflation and Watergate with no "at-war" advantage.
Of course, past performance is no guarantee of future results. But history does not show any reason to think Democratic prospects in '08 are bright unless Iraq is no longer an issue.
Brylin: I graduated from high school in 1969. He graduated from law school in 1968.
"Somebody has on rose-colored glasses."
And I think those somebodys are the ones most likely to have round, rose colored wire rimmed glasses in the bottom of their drawers next to the McGovern pins!
Ross:
Gore came out in 2002, and while not denying that Saddam had WMD, he argued that what was being done (keeping him in a 'box') was the best way to handle things. You are supposing that a belief in WMD (whether correct or not) equates to support for the war, and it did not in Gore's case.
And frankly, with the situation in Iraq giving Iran everything that they fought for nine years to attain during the 1980's (removal of Saddam, a Shiite dominated Islamic republic) plus seeing the US no longer able to pose a credible invasion threat against Iran, it is clear who the winner is in Iraq. I think Gore could see that when he could speak against the concept of 'regime change' in Iraq while still thinking that Saddam was a bad guy.
His biggest problem is not being able to articulate things, and in a way that allow political opponents to smear him. For example, during the 1988 and 1992 campaigns, he talked about an 'information superhighway,' which would link computers all over the world. So, during the first Clinton term, Congress (acting on Gore's advice) passed a tax on phone bills which went towards establishing this network. So, Gore later took credit for it calling himself 'the inventor of the internet.' Well, there had been small scale networks before that, so technically he was not (and got hammered by everyone from the GOP to late night comedians for saying it), and about the only part of it that the GOP advertised was his phone tax. Had he brought back the term, 'information superhighway,' then people would have remembered him saying it and could take credit where it was due.
goober_snatcher --
The NSA monitoring is maybe Iran-Contra material, but it's a heck of a lot less obviously illegal and a heck of a lot more logically connected to the national security interest. A significant fraction of Americans will defend it, just as they defended Iran-Contra, as perfectly justified, and another fraction will judge it, at worst, an overzealous defense of their own lives. On the other hand, nobody but diehard partisans would defend the Watergate break-in as justified or reasonable.
And instead of doing a cover-up or denials, the President is loudly taking responsibility and defending the monitoring as the right thing. That's miles away from actively hindering an investigation into an unjustifiable act, and it should tend to keep the wound from festering. Without the festering, it's hard to see how it will hurt Bush any more six months from now than it already has -- and the polls don't seem to show any actual damage now.
I mean, I guess you can try to run a campaign in '06 on the platform of "You should really be upset about this story that didn't upset you ten months ago when it first came out!" I just don't think it's a strategy that will work. And when it's "thirty-four months ago", I really don't think it will work.
Note I am not expressing an opinion on whether it's serious enough an action to deserve to be bigger than Watergate. I'm just saying the politics are such that it won't be.
Regarding Al Gore's internet comment....
While a number of explanations can be given to prove his statement technically correct, it's important to remember the context of the claim and reaction. This statement, actually made during a 1999 primary debate with Sen. Bradley, became an issue when Gore developed a reputation for resume-padding and playing fast and loose with statistics during the 2000 Presidential Debates. Other examples include claiming to have accompanied then FEMA director James Lee Witt to Texas in 1998 to survey fire and flood damage (Witt was never there and Gore was there on a fund raising trip unrelated to the emergency); claiming a role in establishing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (enabling legislation was passed over a year before Gore was elected to Congress), and misrepresenting the status of the woman he used as an example of someone suffering due to high prescription drug costs (she refused to accept financial help from her son, and he implied she traveled to the debate at her own expense when her trip had been supported by the Gore campaign).
A reasonable neutral list of these and other mis-statements here.
The premeditated nature of many of the examples argue against him being simply inarticulate.
Speaking of spin ....
Gore was the sitting Vice President of a two-term administration that supposedly created the best economy in decades.
He SHOULD have won that election without breaking a sweat.
The fact he didn't speaks of his inability to connect with voters and/or their concern about who he really was.
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