Michelle here.
Confession time: I rarely keep up with secular news. I glance at the headlines on the Internet, scan the front page of the newspaper kept in the company break room, and very occasionally watch the local news, but for the most part I’m out of the loop on current events. So Al Gore’s prospects in the 2008 presidential election may be old news to you, but it threw me for a loop.
"The burst of enthusiasm for Gore owes much to his emergence, since 9/11, as one of the Bush administration’s most full-throated critics. On state-sanctioned torture, wiretapping, and, crucially, Iraq, his indictments have been searing and prescient, often far ahead of his party. He has sounded nothing like the Gore we remember — calculating, chameleonic, soporific — from the 2000 campaign. He has sounded like a man, in the words of a top Republican strategist, who ‘found his voice in the wilderness.’
"But the Gore boomlet is also being driven by another force: the creeping sense of foreboding about the prospect of Hillary Clinton’s march to her party’s nomination. ‘Every conversation in Democratic politics right now has the same three sentences,’ observes a senior party player. ‘One: "She is the presumptive front-runner." Two: "I don’t much like her, but I don’t want to cross her, for God’s sake!" And three: "If she’s our nominee, we’re going to get killed." It’s like some Japanese epic film where everyone sees the disaster coming in the third reel but no one can figure out what to do about it.’
"Gore’s loyalists take pains to avoid criticizing Hillary (on the record, at least). But many of them plainly see their guy as the solution to the Democrats’ dilemma. ‘If he runs, he’s certainly the front-runner or the co-front-runner with Mrs. Clinton,’ contends Ron Klain, Gore’s former vice-presidential chief of staff. ‘And, in the end, he would probably win the nomination.’"
(Nod to Katie Allison Granju for the link.)
The Democratic choice in ’08: Lady Macbeth or Treebeard.
Should be fun to watch them duke it out.
[JIMMY ADDS: Michelle wrote this piece last week and over the weekend Al Gore apparently said to "Tell everyone I’m not running." But then politicians frequently say that when they’re planning to run, so who knows?]
So basically the three leading candidates in 2008 are Gore, Clinton, and McCain.
There’s a reason my political despair grows every day.
A roommate of mine once interned in John Kerry’s office, and he got the distinct sense that Kerry was planning to run again. Whether or not he would stand any real chance is another matter entirely.
I’m not sure it matters who the democrats run, as I believe they will win this next election simply on the grounds that we’ve had a republican in office for 8 yrs.
Nobody (Al Gore)who goes to Saudia Arabia and tells the all-Muslim crowd that the U.S. soldiers in Iraq are murdering and raping women and children on a daily basis will EVER win the U.S. Presidential election.
Period!!!!
I don’t believe that the onodrim will be particularly pleased with that appelation.
Wouldn’t it be refreshing if there were a viable conservative with as much zeal.
“I believe they will win this next election simply on the grounds that we’ve had a republican in office for 8 yrs.”
You may be right, Jason.
Americans and their horror of the “same old thing”.
President Gore would be a truly, poetically horrible and fitting penance for Republicans for having missed their chance at greatness.
My wife is a speech pathologist. She could help him with that lisp.
Puzzled is correct. Fangorn would not be pleased. Say rather that he is one of the Huorns.
Gotta agree with Mary Kay here. Don’t insult Treebeard!
Also, come on, there’s gotta be someone better than McCain to run up against these guys.
Ugh.
“The Democratic choice in ’08: Lady Macbeth or Treebeard.”
Really, it’s an insult to both of them! (Granted, Lady M is only slightly less power hungry.)
But it’s darn funny! ;D
But I’d sure like to be in the audience of the “town hall” debate between La Hilary & her Republican challenger & ask this question: “Senator Clinton, you’ve been quoted as saying that elected officials should effectivly check their conscience at the door when making policy & law. I see this as akin to checking one’s morality at the door & it’s led to numerous presidential scandals in the 20th century alone. How, Senator, were you to be elected, would you check your conscience at the door & avoid the opinion President Nixon famously expressed to David Frost when he said, ‘Well, when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal’?”
But I don’t think I’d get the opportunity.
Gene: I think the moderator would cut you off at the mention of the word “morality.”
Don’t be hasty. I love Treebeard, so like the others I don’t like Gore being compared to him.
What do you people have against McCain though? Granted I am not particularly politics-savy but everything I hear about the man makes me like him more. He’s strongly pro-life, and not being one of Bush’s close buddies gives him some chance of winning. The Repubicans have no chance in 2008 if they nominate a Bush III or Reagan II.
I think the Ents and the Elves would like him more than most Republicans too.
“Don’t be hasty. I love Treebeard, so like the others I don’t like Gore being compared to him.”
As for the Treebeard reference: Al Gore has sometimes been compared to a tree because of his stiff demeanor and he is known for his environmental politicking. Since there aren’t too many anthropomorphic trees in literature for me to have chosen from, Treebeard won by default.
David B.
I am a bit confused by your comment… I don’t think that Saudi’s have a vote in the U.S. General Election.
also Jimmy, you wrote, ” ‘…I’m not running.’ But then politicians frequently say that when they’re planning to run, so who knows?
So, does this mean that Dick Cheney and / or Jeb Bush are going to run then since they have both said the same thing and denied running in 2008, too.
“I am a bit confused by your comment… I don’t think that Saudi’s have a vote in the U.S. General Election.”
I’m guessing that David means that Gore will lose many votes because of his “Dixie Chicks moment”, stabbing the U.S. military in the back in front of a crowd of America haters overseas.
Unappealing, even for Gore.
I must also take exception to comparing Algore to Fangorn.
How about Old Man Willow instead?
Old Man Willow sounds apt also 🙂
Perhaps Algore would be better represented by the wise ol’ tree from the Disney movie Pocahontas – sure, it was a ‘woman’ tree, but since the liberals try to convince everyone there’s no difference between the sexes, then the comparison bears poetic irony.
JR, McCain is not “strongly pro-life.” He’s wishy washy on the subject at best.
Basically, conservatives don’t like him because he’s not conservative.
Two words. “Mitt Romney”.
Are these two REALLY the best that the Dems have to offer? (That’s probably a rhetorical question).
And I’m sorry, I don’t believe McCain is really pro-life. Somebody correct me if he didn’t flip-flop on this issue in 04.
Tim J.,
thanks for watching my back.
momof6,
I’m assured by your post that you don’t know this: Mitt Romney said on Fox News Sunday that to him, the ‘religion of politics’ came before his own religion. Not much of a conservative if you ask me.
Looks like I was wrong about McCain being pretty pro-life. I knew he wasn’t perfect, but it looks like he has made conflicting statements and has supported embrionic stem cell research. Sad.