August 14, 2015

Why Al Gore is an impossible, horrible alternative to Hillary.

Buzzfeed has this, by Andrew Kaczynski: "Al Gore Insiders 'Figuring Out If There’s A Path For Him To Run."
But in recent days, “they’re getting the old gang together,” a senior Democrat told BuzzFeed News. “They’re figuring out if there’s a path financially and politically,” the Democrat said. “It feels more real than it has in the past months.”...

A member of Gore’s inner circle asked to be quoted “pouring lukewarm water” — not, note, cold water — on the chatter. “This is people talking to people, some of whom may or may not have talked to him,” the Gore adviser said....

Gore has had other focuses in recent years. In particular, Gore and a business partner are suing Al Jazeera, which purchased Current TV from him, over $65 million dollars held in escrow during the deal; Gore and his associate contend the money belongs to him. The Qatar-based network acquired Current in early 2013 in a deal reportedly worth $500 million.
We're supposed to figure that mess out in public? Just the fact that he's embroiled in a lawsuit with Al Jazeera seems toxic.
The former vice president has taken a step back from the climate change advocacy groups he helped to found, focusing instead on his business ventures and being a public climate change expert, if not the active lobbyist he once was. 
Imagine this hashed out in the space of a presidential campaign — how the man pushed a cause and then turned it into obscene personal profit. How would that work with the Democrats' economic justice issues?

But Kaczynski doesn't mention what I think makes Gore impossible: women. The Democrats depend on "war on women" and gender justice themes. There's so much invested in the ineffable feeling that this is the party for women. Al Gore lost his wife Tipper — why? And there's that awful accusation of a sexual assault on a masseuse — was that ever resolved? How could Al Gore possibly get into proper women-friendly condition to suddenly throw himself onto the presidential stage?

ADDED: Isn't it obvious? They're going to have to play the Elizabeth card.

42 comments:

Gahrie said...

The Democrats depend on "war on women" and gender justice themes.

You say that like it is a good thing.

furious_a said...

And there's that awful accusation of a sexual assault on a masseuse — was that ever resolved?

Un-resolved accusations of sexual assaults on women never cost Al's then-boss a d*mn thing. And Tipper Gore was never exactly America's Sweetheart, either.

gspencer said...

A path for Gore?

Only if he can magically add some years to his life. With today's Democrats, 67 is just too young. Democrats are starting to rival the elders of the Mormon Church who typically stay on into their 90s.

bleh said...

A climate change expert? I don't recall any original scientific research done by Al Gore.

traditionalguy said...

Gore Man is still looking for a binder full of women he can get them to warm his equatorial climate on demand and then cool it and leave. But so what, as long as AlGore pays equal pay for equal sex positions, then what feminist could complain.

tola'at sfarim said...

The Democrats depend on "war on women" and gender justice themes.

Hillarys the frontrunner....

Bobber Fleck said...

Hillary.
Buzzfeed has this, by Andrew Kaczynski...
Ted's brother?

Al "the blimp" Gore is 67 years old, unlikeable, overweight, and has a truckload of baggage. He is arguably the dullest man ever to earn the Democrat nomination for President, with Kerry a close second.

Joe Biden turns 73 this year and is a walking gaff machine.

Hillary Clinton turns 68 this year and is a wrinkled, lumpy, shrill cheat.

The Democrat bench is young and deep, no?

Ronald Reagan was 69 when he assumed the office of President and was labeled "too old to serve". My how the rules have changed.

Michael K said...

Global warming IS Al Gore's business interest.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

The Democrats depend on "war on women" and gender justice themes.

Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean that any of that applies to them!

We are talking about the party of Bill Clinton after all....

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Bernie Sanders - 73
Elizabeth Warren - 66

Ann Althouse said...

"Ronald Reagan was 69 when he assumed the office of President and was labeled "too old to serve". My how the rules have changed."

1. Reagan himself changed the "rule." It became possible to cite Reagan.

2. The Baby Boomers — who, when young, had the slogan "Never Trust Anyone Over 30" — got old. We changed the "rule" because we continually change the culture as we age our way through it.

RonF said...

What the heck. The Democrats have a lot of low-information voters, and they've got a lot of voters who really don't care a whit for their candidate's personal morals as long as he'll shovel money to them. I don't see where any of Al Gore's issues are going to affect too many Democratic voters.

MadisonMan said...

A climate change expert? I don't recall any original scientific research done by Al Gore.

Plenty in the blogosphere claim to be experts in all sorts of things without doing any scientific research.

rhhardin said...

Gore has to marry Hillary.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Al Gore will become increasingly prominent because Coca-Cola needs to distract him away from the War on Sugary Drinks.

rhhardin said...

Polar bear as first lady.

First different species marriage. DSM.

Big Mike said...

@MadMan, wonderful, pithy, comment.

Etienne said...

Gore doesn't speak Spanish or Mexican, so he's out. The next President will have to speak Americas working class language. The baby boomers will all be on social security and out of the labor force.

Big Mike said...

They're going to have to play the Elizabeth card.

Just what everybody needs -- a female law professor of no particular political accomplishment (besides being elected from an incandescently blue state) who gamed affirmative action based on an alleged family history and zero documentation.

Hell, Althouse, if the Dems are going to run a female law professor they'd do a lot better to draft you!

john said...

Al would be the spring chicken in the democrat hen house. The dems need to look at the younger generation.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Speaking of war, the lecturer on The Iliad that I'm presently listening to posits that the "Achilles Heel" alludes to the spiffiest armor back in those days which nevertheless left vulnerable the back of the lower leg. Similarly, he posits that the story of Helen was propaganda to justify wars of aggression -- better take the fight to those guys before they steal your woman and make her moan for the bone.

Sounds plausible enough to me, although "posit" is probably too strong a word.

Let's just say that he throws that out there.

Roughcoat said...

How would that work with the Democrats' economic justice issues?

It seems to me that Democrats will vote the party line no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT.. You can't reason with them in this regard. They overlook all of their candidates' flaws no matter how egregious because they believe that Democrat ideology is morally superior despite its often problematic execution. To their way of thinking Republicans are venal and corrupt and wicked from the get-go whereas the Democrats are intrinsically good. Their candidates may in due course stray or fail or go bad but the purity of Democrat Party ideals remains unsullied and that's all that counts. Jews and blacks and millennials and soccer moms will continue to pull the lever, as it were, for the Democrat candidate because it's the right thing to do.

You know that scene in "The Usual Suspects" where Verbal Kint says, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist"?* I think an even bigger trick played by the Deceiver was convincing a vast number of Americans that the Democrat Party stands for the poor, the oppressed, the working man, minorities, etc. He even convinced blacks that the Democrat Party is the party that was responsible for ending segregation and passing civil rights legislation (causing poor Everett to roll over continuously in his grave) and that it was somehow connected with ending slavery. How brilliant is that?

*A rephrasing of Baudelaire's La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu'il n'existe pas.

Rusty said...

Algore is a horrible alternative to a human being in general.

William said...

In one generation, the Dems have offered up Gore, Kerry, and Hillary. What is it about the Dems and charm? Or take Pelosi and Harry Reid. Do they confuse heaviness with gravitas?.........Obama is the only Dem in the last fifty years who had more charm than Nixon, and Nixon had none.

dbp said...

I think the nomination is Gore's if he wants it.

Yes, he made a ton of wealth on the global warming scam but most Democrats see him as a global warming hero and won't care if he profited. Meanwhile, the Clintons have become just as wealthy without any discernible source.

If Hillary, the enabler of serial abuser Bill is okay with the feminists, Gore should be just fine with his relatively minor offenses.

Finally, Hillary lost the last time she tried to get the Democratic nomination. At least Gore managed to get that far and the majority of Democrats think he won the general election too.

Roughcoat said...

The Baby Boomers — who, when young, had the slogan "Never Trust Anyone Over 30" — got old.

Which Baby Boomers said that, and how many actually believed it? Not many. It was just another one of those bullshit rhetorical gimmicks that the media picked up on and sensationalized, to the point of making it seem that it represented the attitude of an entire generation.

Matt Sablan said...

Bill Clinton is still respected, and he was accused of about as much with women as Gore. If Hillary supported him, I think it wouldn't matter.

Matt Sablan said...

"Plenty in the blogosphere claim to be experts in all sorts of things without doing any scientific research."

-- I'm an expert in the blogosphere.

Bill said...

The masseuse story is interesting. Her oral statement is or at least was online, and she sounded highly credible in the recording. However, the police gave her numerous opportunities to further document the claim, and in the end the Portland police did not find the allegations credible based on multiple strands of evidence.
I have no love lost for Gore, but let's give discredit where discredit is due.

Fritz said...

How would that work with the Democrats' economic justice issues?

It seems to me that Democrats will vote the party line no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT.. You can't reason with them in this regard. They overlook all of their candidates' flaws no matter how egregious because they believe that Democrat ideology is morally superior despite its often problematic execution.


Up to a point. But the problem with democrats is voter participation. Their coalition is composed mostly of naturally low turnout voters, who need to be excited to go to the polls. First black will do it. First woman might, if she's not totally corrupt or in jail. First socialist will, but will lose the independents so it won't help. I don't see a first Hispanic on the horizon, but I wouldn't be shocked to see one try to fight his/her way in.

I don't see Al Gore generating much excitement, but a lot of jokes.

furious_a said...

The dems need to look at the younger generation.

The "younger generation", the Dems' bench, got wiped out up-and-down the ticket in the 2010 and 2014 mid-terms. Martin O'Malley is about it for then.

Balfegor said...

ADDED: Isn't it obvious? They're going to have to play the Elizabeth card.

Well, there are worse things. She is at least a person of substance in a way that Obama and Biden are not.

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rockeye said...

For you Wisconsin people,Elizabeth Warren = Mary Burke. For everyone else just think "sacrificial lamb." The majority of voters already recognize that they will hold their nose and vote for whomever the party they prefer trots out. The crucial independents (or low information voter if you prefer) will as always swing the election. I don't think Warren could do well with them. What a fiasco this election looks to become.

mikee said...

Carter won because he was organized, with the party backing across all states, by the time he was in reach of the nomination. He spent about two years working on that, pre-campaign, to make it happen. Bill Clinton did the same, and also found the term "triangulate" a magic pass to fool voters.

Hillary has spent 6 years or more on this campaign. She can only be stopped by the realization of criminal charges, with some heft to them. Or (even less likely) Colbert opens his show nightly with a straight-faced hilarious denunciation of her, with specifics, for about 6 months. Otherwise she is going to win.

And if you think this election is going to be a fiasco, just wait for her first 100 days in office.

Brando said...

They have to be desperate to consider Gore. He's in even worse shape than in 2000. Better off drafting Biden, or Cory Booker.

Skeptical Voter said...

Yeah that "Second Chakra" of Al Gore keeps sticking up and never gets released. And aside from making several hundred million dollars being the flim flam man for global warming since 2000, Gore has picked up what seems to be several hundred pounds of fat around his middle. Don't think that the womyn are going to go for the Graf Zeppelin Gore. Now Billy Jeff could receive offers of oral sex in the press from female journalists because his position was so right on abortion. But I don't think any woman will want to have any part of Gore's Second Chakra.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ann Althouse said...But Kaczynski doesn't mention what I think makes Gore impossible: women.

Counterpoint: Bill Clinton. It's fine to say "he wouldn't get away with that today," but he has! His standing with the Left, and feminists, is just fine as far as I can tell. If they don't mind a lil' massive hypocrisy from Clinton why would they mind any from Gore?

Same answer w/r/t the money/capitalist problem. I get that Bernie's surging, but is Hillary Clinton's standing with the Left actually hurt by her massive wealth (obtained in ways the Left is supposed to dislike)? Let's not give the Left credit for adherence to anything so trite as "the principles they claim to hold."

Sebastian said...

"Al Gore lost his wife Tipper — why?"

Top man deserved a top woman.

lgv said...

I would think there would be a lot of masseuses that were all too willing to do a "full release" massage. They would also be willing to sell their story to the National Enquirer.

Mountain Maven said...

"How could Al Gore possibly get into proper women-friendly condition to suddenly throw himself onto the presidential stage?"

How do any of them?
Hillary is the poster child for both being a victim of a man as well as destroying other women's lives. While riding her rapist husband's name to the top.
Sander's bio is not women-friendly.
Kerry divorced his wife and married for money.
Slow Joe, he's a serial groper.
Fauxahontas, sending the message that you have to lie to succeed.

O'Malley, the least worst of the bunch, actually governed a state. He hasn't been vetted.

Nichevo said...

Why Hillary Clinton is a horrible, impossible alternative to an American president...