Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Paving the road for Al Gore '08

In a long piece, New York Magazine seems to be doing its part to try to pave the road for Al Gore in '08:
Hence the argument for Gore. To begin with, unlike all but a handful of Democrats, Gore, with his ties to the Netroots and his burgeoning personal wealth, could readily raise the requisite funds to take on Mrs. Clinton. Having loudly and steadfastly opposed the war, he could challenge her from the left. Yet on national security, he could simultaneously run to her right, given his long-held expertise about bombs and bullets and his advocacy of intervention in Kosovo and Bosnia; as a putative commander-in-chief, his credentials are beyond reproach (no small thing in an age of terror). Similarly, Gore’s anti-global-warming jihad would stand him in good stead with the greens and other liberals, while his long and demonstrated history as a moderate on countless other issues (from the deficit to “reinventing government”) would allow him to score with centrist Democrats who fear that Clinton is a once-and-future lefty.

There are only two problems with Gore '08. One, he's still Al Gore. Two, his politics are perhaps more depressing and dismal than they have ever been, and American voters don't respond to that the way they do to optomistic and hopeful candidates.

You can't rule him out, though. If Nixon can make a successful comeback, so can Al Gore. If he were to win the nomination, though, the first thing I would do is get commercials made that consist solely of video clips of Gore's rage over the past 4 years or so. You know the ones where he is yelling, his face is red, his veins are popping out, and he's irrigating his audience with spittle? At the end, viewers would simply be asked, "Do you really want this man as your President?"

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