The Serious Post About Al Gore

Okay, I had my fun... but seriously, why did everyone spend the weekend wondering if Al Gore is running for President?

Look, I think it's fine Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize.  It's a little silly to give it to him, but the Peace Prize is a decidedly mixed bag, and if fixing Global Warming can make world peace, then who can be opposed, really?

But this cult of Gore, the one that keeps wanting him to run, the one that, despite Paul Krugman's attempt to blame the other side, is the real engine in the Gore-fest... well, it's time to just stop.

He's not running for President.  He shouldn't run for President.  And the sooner Democrats right-size their notions of Gore, the better.  Puffing him up - figuratively and literally - is not helping.

The most positive thing to come out of the 2000 election debacle, I think, was the sense of anger that has propelled Democrats to rethink and reenergize what they do; we are not the party we were then, and we are better, in many ways for it.  We have been immeasurably aided by the weak, failed Presidency of George W. Bush, the wrong man for the wrong job at the wrong time.  And now, really, only our own sense of self doubt and interest in internal conflict can derail what, from this vantage point looks like a certain rout for the GOP in 2008 (I reserve the right to take any and all of the previous back should circumstances warrant).

It's natural, I think, that so many of us feel protective and defensive for Gore.  It's natural too, I think, that America's preference for imaginary worlds over the world we actually have has led to a sparkling notion of "The Gore Presidency" that is constantly invoked as an alternative universe to Bushworld.  It is a land where 9/11 might never have happened, where Israel and the Palestinians find peace, where we observe Kyoto protocols , where we all have health insurance, a good job... and a pony.

It's just not real.

In the real world, we have George W. Bush.  We have George W. Bush, I'd like to remind you, because the 2000 election campaign was embarrassing.  It was small, and silly and focused - we now realize - on all the wrong things.  On who was likable, on who "you'd like to have a beer with" and all the rest.  The reason for that, to some degree, was that a number of years of prosperity and relative calm had lulled us into focusing on trivialities.

And into that breach stepped Al Gore; who, though we try to remember otherwise, ran a lousy campaign.  Who couldn't seem to get his act together, replacing staffers left and right, flailing around in the realm of "image politics" (he should be manlier! he should talk tougher!  He shouldn't talk!) in a way that completely distracted from any real issues.  Who seemed utterly befuddled by how to handle the nuclear presence of the man he wanted to succeed, shutting him out of the role he was good at (moving people) and saddling him with stuff he hated (watching from the sidelines, and raising money). The result - the Clintons focused, somewhat reasonably, on what was doable - winning Mrs. Clinton a Senate seat.

There's no reason the 2000 election should have been so close that we all had to look to Florida's poor election processes to divine an answer that should have been obvious.  George W. Bush ran a lousy campaign.  He revealed himself to be shallow, insubstantive, and glib.  He spoke poorly.  He barely appealed to his own party, never mind to the Democrats, and brought with him the baggage of his father's failures, which clearly haunted the son.

And still we had to chase this thing all the way to the Supreme Court.

People will say I hate Al Gore.  That I blame him for 2000.  That I don't sufficiently blame the media, or other factors.  I don't hate him.  I don't blame him for 2000, a disaster of such unique proportion, I don't think any of us fully comprehends how it happened, even now.  I do blame the media for poorly covering the election, but I think in many ways we got the coverage we'd come to expect - trivial, focused on meaningless details and gossip, and ignorant of the world in which we lived.  We're not those people anymore. We won't repeat 2000 again anytime soon, if ever.

And most of all, we, as Democrats will go on - with someone other than Al Gore as our Presidential candidate.  Be serious.  Get serious.  Let him take his Nobel and go on to change the world.  I think that's what he was meant to do all along. Seriously.

Comments

[jinbaltimore]

"I do blame the media for poorly covering the election, but I think in many ways we got the coverage we'd come to expect - trivial, focused on meaningless details and gossip, and ignorant of the world in which we lived. We're not those people anymore."

No? see Edwards' hair, Clinton's cackle, Thompsons YOUNG wife.

Look, I agree that Gore is better left on the sidelines this time around and with all you say about parallel universes. BUT if Clinton gets the nomination, you may want to keep that right to recant the GOP rout quite close by. You're gonna need it. The hate that is flying around her projected candidacy is already palpable.

[weboy]

Palpable hate is not the same as sayng she's a goner. I think if she is nominated - which, I think increasingly is a real possibility everyone needs to face - this will be a tough, ugly election... that still has a lot of structural elements working in her favor. Rudy Giuliani can't beat her in New York. Mitt Romney can't beat her in Massachusetts (or realistically, in Michigan). Fred Thompson can't beat her in a number of places, even if he can win Tennessee. Yes, the hate will bring out ugly stuff. But I think the larger problem facing Democrats as we go into 2008 is deciding that we're unhappy with ourselves. Dissatisfaction with Pelosi, Reid and the Congress I think are bigger problems than how the GOP - which lacks money and a guiding mission at this point - will run attack ads against our Presidential candidate. What I want to reserve is that if our self doubt and self criticism grows in proprotion, then we will have talked ourselves out of our own victory. It's there for the taking. The question for me is how bad we want it.