Letters to the Editor
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Gore/Feingold in 2008
Gore is the candidate who would strike terror into the heart of the GOP: fearless, committed to the environment and to ending the war, experienced in government and known around the country, and without a recent track record by which to hang him.
Al, for the good of a weary nation, PLEASE run.
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Gore 2008?
God save us! This is the guy that took as a campaign strategy to distantiate himself from a popular president and from the record of 8 years of growth and prosperity. And who, to boot, took as a VP the turncoat Joseph Lieberman (Bush-lite)! And after that one, he now becomes that beacon of the liberal wing democratic party? What next?
The only reason he got so many votes is that voters in their majority (and their wisdom at the time) could not stomach W.
Please, Al, keep on enjoying your retirement.You and all of us will be better for it.
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Al Gore and the Right is Left Theory of Historical Parallels
Richard Nixon lost to JFK in 1960, in a disputed election. Nixon was Vice President in a popular administration. He ran again eight years later, and won, when the Democratic party was torn apart by the war in Vietnam. During that eight years a President from Texas conducted an unpoplar war, refusing to pay attention to public protests, and taking advice from a self-isolated gang of seven intimate advisors, who did little outside research, research which might have explained why his glib and somewhat intellectual head of the Defense department, Robert McNamara, was not getting results, even though his numbers proved they were winning the war. LBJ successfully created the Great Society, and under his leadership government ran a rather sizable surplus. His foreign policy mistakes, however ruined his Presidency.
Now Al Gore steps back on the stage, the Bush Presidency is in shambles, and the Republican Congress is under pressure from constituents to end the war. The Great Society has been replaced by the Great Economy, a mountain of debt, and deficits that future generations will have to work to pay down, in much the same way that Republicans have been trying to undo entitlements, and drown government in a bathtub. In the Right is Left scenario, Al Gore is vindicated by winning the 2008 election, and his administration sets about restoring America's pride and prestige. The achilles heel of the Bush Presidency is not the war in Iraq, but the economy, which finally succumbs to years of bureaucratic micromanaging and cronyism, and war profiteering, which were also present during Vietnam. The post Vietnam era saw the Cold War move from surrogate wars in third world countries, like Iraq, to face to face discussions with the heads of the Communist countries. Bush, like LBJ will be remembered as a very unpopular President. Nixon was a law and order candidate, and he broke the back of the antiwar movement when the National Guard killed students at Kent State. Al Gore will promote Law and Order with corporate criminals, and impose even tougher penalities on Wall Street. He will travel to Tehran, and he will be accused of duplicity with Islam, and he will show signs of paranoia in dealing with Republican smear tactics, but he will remain above their level of discourse, and prove himself a worthy man for the office of President.
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For those who think
Al Gore is somehow damaged goods, but somehow believe that John McCain is someone to be feared and respected...
let me just say that Al Gore is the one possible Democratic candidate currently being mentioned who could unify the Democratic Party, and rally both the grassroots and Democratic establishment around him.
He also could raise a huge amount of money very quickly.
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We need you, Al
Al Gore is easily one of the most underrated public servants in recent memory. Worse, the press seems to delight in belittling his accomplishments. In 2000, the Washington press corps abandoned their civic duty and chose, instead, to contrive a conflict between the Intellectual and the Everyman. Did Mister Gore invent the Internet? Of course not, despite comments taken comically out of context. He was an early evangelist and sponsored funding that enabled the creation of this great medium. Is Mister Gore a stiff, unemotional bureaucrat? I don’t think so. As a volunteer on the Clinton/Gore campaign I often saw him speak and met him twice. I found him to be deeply earnest, exceptionally intelligent, and wryly funny. Above all, the United States needs a leader with such qualities. I know he has been badly bruised by the process and those in his own party. I appreciate his ongoing contributions to progressive thinking and causes, but I hope Mister Gore (arguably President Gore) elects to run for the presidency. I would gladly work on his campaign again, and pledge to work even harder to make sure – this time – we get it right.
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As a member of the Anyone-But-Hillary camp, ...
I am ambivalent about Gore. I feel that, like Kerry, he allowed himself to be over-starched and steered to the center by bad campaign managers. But I am also a Reformed Nader Voter. Other people like me might welcome the chance to vote for Al this time. Still, Rightists hate Bill Clinton the way I hate W, and I'm not sure for most people - Fox News presumably has not been closely following Gore's academic career and heart-felt liberal speech tours - that Gore will have lost the Clinton stench even now. I think his success would depend entirely on whether he came off again as an over-starched debate club geek. But personally I would probably vote for him even if he did.
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Al Gore in 2008
Re-Elect Gore! Re-Elect Gore! Re-Elect Gore!
It has a nice ring, doesn't it.