As if those aren’t reasons enough to like Gore in 2008, one of the best is that he is right on the issues. If I have to vote for another mealy-mouthed self-serving Democratic punk once again, I ... won’t. Is it too much to ask for a candidate with the integrity, guts and intelligence to have rejected Bush’s tax cuts, his disaster in Iraq, his Social Security raid, and his other attempts to hurl America off a cliff? Not only is Al Gore one of the few big-league Democrats who was on the right side of those issues, he was so early and passionately, at a time and in a way which looked a lot like career suicide to the DLC hacks of this world (talk about taking (a former) one to know one). Gore was a rare voice of sanity among America’s political class, at a time when it was desperately needed. As the ship of state teetered perilously in the direction of fascism, where were the leading figures of the ‘left’ party in America? Where were the patriots when we needed them most? I’ll tell you where. They were getting briefed by the likes of Bob Shrum on focus groups and polling data, that’s where.
Which brings me to yet another reason to support Gore in 2008: What is the alternative? Hillary? Besides the fact that I never understood why anybody was ever so in love with (or so hated) her, other than as another twisted manifestation of America’s gaga celebrity culture, she is also the very definition of the Democratic Party’s problem. Calculated triangulation is no way to win an election, even if your opponents aren’t vicious street-fighters from the Atwater Academy of Politics, the electoral version of the School of the Americas. Just ask John Kerry, our next alternative. After the trainwreck of the last campaign, I can’t even think of Kerry without going apoplectic, veins bulging from my temples. And so I won’t. Suffice it to say that I hope he will have the decency to do the right thing in 2008, and stay home.
Who does that leave? Joe Biden? Bill Richardson? These guys have all the steel of fresh spaghetti and all the charisma of stale sauce. John Edwards? Mark Warner? Please. I don’t know if Mario Cuomo still has it in him, and I could get moderately excited about a Russ Feingold candidacy, but nobody can touch today’s Al Gore for the total package of brains, passion, resume and guts.
I’m not wedded to Al Gore the person. Like I said, it would have been hard for me to imagine writing this column with respect to his earlier incarnation. But my gut tells me that Gore has learned what Democrats by and large have not. Namely, that you actually have a lot better chance of not going down if you go down swinging. And that, anyway, what’s the point of capturing the White House if you’re not going to do anything with it other than give it away to Wall Street in between chasing interns around the desk?
If Gore sells out, forget him forever. I’m willing to give him this second chance because of circumstances and because of the courage he’s been showing me, but certainly never a third. But I don’t think he will go astray. I think he’s crossed an ideological and personal Rubicon. People running for president following the cautious, triangulation-style strategy of either Clinton or of Kerry don’t lay down bright red markers of fire-glowing ember like Gore has. There’s no going back now, and I sense he likes that just fine.
And so do I. I could be way wrong, but I think that Al Gore has become the candidate so many of us have been craving for so long - for most, across a lifetime. Someone, that is, who is liberated from the caustic all-consuming desire simply to be president that animates so many candidates. Someone who can therefore campaign as a true patriot. Someone who mixes empathy, courage, passion, honesty, experience and intelligence into a formidably attractive candidate whom voters can affirmatively vote for, as opposed to choosing simply for lack of alternative.
Today’s Al Gore - the real Al Gore - reminds me of no one so much as Warren Beatty’s fictional Senator Jay Billington Bulworth, a man about to die, and therefore liberated from the need to play the game any longer, with refreshing and delightful results.
Gore is not about to die, of course, but in some ways he already has. They took everything from him, and he strikes me now as someone ironically unburdened in the process. Gore won the presidency, and they stole that from him, leaving him us with the American Caligula instead. Along the way they took his public reputation from him, to boot. Now Al Gore seems like a man set free, as anxious to serve the country as he is to atone for his past failures at living up to his own standards of honesty and courage, and as ready to rumble as is necessary. The guy’s not playing beanbag this time.
Howard Dean was probably pretty close to being that candidate in 2004, but when Kerry started aping his line on Bush and the war, Democrats figured they could get both the good politics and the resume in one package, and were fooled into going for the junior senator from Massachusetts. There is every reason to believe that could happen again with Hillary Clinton, but one of the best chances of avoiding that fate would be a Gore candidacy.
I therefore hope, for all these reasons, that Al Gore runs in 2008. He is just what the Democratic Party needs, and a revived, progressive Democratic Party in power is just what the country and the world badly needs as well.
Run Al, run. Run for our lives. Run hard, say what you know to be true, and don’t look back.
Run as if the fate of the nation and the world depends on who is next chosen to lead the world’s only superpower, lately and dangerously gone pathologically amok.
Because it does.
David Michael Green (pscdmg@hofstra.edu) is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles, but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond.
Thank Goodness the country is finally waking up. Gore is our hope for the future. I have known that he is a leader, and now others are beginning to take notice and pay attention.
by
Patsy (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Friday, October 28, 2005 at 9:37:26 AM
Yeeees! We strongly support Al Gore and also believe the perfect running mate would be Howard Dean (who did NOT promise he would not run for VP is tapped for the job).
Gore/Dean 2008
by
Joan in Florida (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Friday, October 28, 2005 at 3:28:03 PM
Right now I'm thinking Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is looking like an excellent Presidential Candidate for 2008! I like a man who plays a straight hand and by the rules (or laws as the case may be). He doesn't gossip; just tells it like it is. If only every attorney worked that way; we definitely wouldn't be in the state we're in now!
Rock On, P. Fitzgerald!
by
Lisa W. (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 60 comments)
on Friday, October 28, 2005 at 3:29:10 PM
I'm not sure about the rest of the field, but would be pretty hard to say that Bill Richardson has the "steel of fresh spaghetti."
He recently went to North Korea to negotiate a disarmerment deal. When he was a congressman he went to Iraq to free two Americans being held by Saddam. And, in the face of federal disengagement along the border, he took control of the situation and declared an emergency. Not many Dems have the balls to take on immigration.
by
Emmett O\\\'Connell (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Friday, October 28, 2005 at 5:15:50 PM
For the past month or so I've had this tune in my head repeating itself over and over. It started right before I came to realize by belief that Al Gore ought to be drafted for 2008. I realize it’s a little corny, but I'm old school. I just tied the tune and my belief together today after Bush's week in flames.
It's by the Stylistics, and my feelings about this article could not be better summarized than by this particular tune.
There's a spark of magic in your eyes
Candyland appears each time you smile
Never thought that fairy tales came true
But they come true when I'm near you
You're a genie in disguise
Full of wonder and surprise
And betcha by golly, wow
You're the one that I've been waiting for forever
And ever will my love for you keep growin' strong
Keep growin' strong
If I could I'd catch a falling star
To shine on you so I'll know where you are
Order rainbows in your favorite shade
To show I love you, thinking of you
Write your name across the sky
Anything you ask I'll try
'Cause betcha by golly, wow
You're the one that I've been waiting for forever
And ever will my love for you keep growin' strong
Keep growin' strong
[break]
Betcha by golly, wow
You're the one that I've been waiting for forever
And ever will my love for you keep growin' strong
Keep growin' strong
Betcha by golly, wow
You're the one that I've been waiting for forever
And ever will my love for you keep growin' strong
Keep growin' strong
Betcha by golly, wow
As a Democrat I've been waiting a long time for this guy to finally get up to the plate. Waiting for what seems like forever.
by
Cordon (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Friday, October 28, 2005 at 8:06:03 PM
Remember how Richardson simply helped put Chinese American Scientist Wen-Ho Lee in solitary confinement for a non-crime for an entire miserable year just to save his own skin?
Read his own biography if you do not remember this dark chapter of his brilliant career.
by
Ignatius (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Saturday, November 12, 2005 at 5:39:13 AM
7 comments
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