Why the “New” Al Gore can’t get elected. By John Dickerson
Who knew Al Gore could be such fun? He’s the toast of Cannes and was hilarious on Saturday Night Live. He’s also Topic A in political conversation. A lot of Democrats start to sound a bit giddy when the subject of a Gore presidential run in 2008 comes up. Even with recent troubles in the GOP, many of them have been preoccupied with the weakness of their leaders and the party’s uncertain future. When discussion turns to Gore, everyone gets excited.
At the center of the Gore boomlet is the New Al Gore. He’s full of the vision and ass-kicking clarity for which Democratic activists are thirsting. Markos Moulitsas, the founder of Daily Kos, has praised the change, calling him “passionate, eloquent, and utterly suffused with energy.” Arianna Huffington got the bug in Cannes: “When people are exposed to the new Gore—authentic, funny, self-deprecating—you can almost feel their relief and surprise as they suddenly come to face to face with what a real leader could be.”
There are lots of other reasons that Gore probably shouldn’t run, often articulated by inside-the-beltway types. A lot of Democrats still have sour feelings about a nominee who blew a winnable election. Gore never liked the day-to-day work of politics (as opposed to governing) and was a lousy campaigner. He struggled to beat a weak Bill Bradley in the 2000 Democratic primaries and lost to George Bush (sort of) with the wind of peace and prosperity at his back. In polls, voters still react to him as negatively as they do to Hillary Clinton, or even more so. He may provide a nice contrast to George Bush now, but Bush won’t be on the ballot, and in 2008 the Republican nominee is likely to be running against Bush, too.
It’s not that Al Gore changed, he was always like this…he just had a piss poor PR person that didn’t do their job right the first time around.
Then again, it’s probably also the fact that the Democrats really don’t have anything else going on for themselves…Hillary…? Eh…I don’t like her as my senator now…
His PR might be trying to reinvent him, but he’s still Al. If he had just walked away and not got involved in a legal struggle over the 2000 election he may have survived and ran again in 2004. The party core has got Hillary fever who will loose to a moderate Republican two termer. You heard it here, don’t even bother to vote in the next two elections. 🙂
I’ve recently been noticing how great of a president Al Gore would make. The “new” Gore seems very personable, authentic, & modern; something you don’t see much in politics these days. I’d love to see him run in 2008 but of course, I don’t actually see it coming.
I think this is an issue the Dems have to adress.They do not measure up to the Republicans in one important area.Who would you rather have a beer with? Even if he is a little conservative for my taste I think I’d rather have a beer with John McCain.
Look under the covers before you think he will be great presidential timber.
We never heard of him as Vice President, except for his claim to invent the internet and that he sent his daughters to private school
Burned tons of fuel flying in a private jet arround the world after he lost the election working, selling his personnal while openning doors for a hedge fund
Drove a convoy of limo’s 500 yards to the screeing of his environmental film in Cannes in which he implores his audience to drive less.
Claimed to be the inventor of the internet
On TV, looks like his spine is made of steel
Lost a terribly run campaign, in which he was way in the lead at the start, to George W Bush
There must be an honest man (or woman) who can lead us where our better angels say we should go.
Gore should stop introducing himself as president. He lost the election. Nixon was smart enough in 68 not to dispute Kennedy’s victory, even though Kennedy clearly bought it through dollars and mob corruption. All Nixon said about it was that to dispute the results would be bad for the country. Amen. Al keeps beating his drum and I think we have heard enough. I’ll bet this movie (mostly, Al Gore for President propaganda) does not waste too much lamp power in the theaters. If Gore wanted to help the environment, he should set an example how each of us, if we walked or biked a little each day, could collectivelhy, save the planet.. Al Gore on a road bike. That would be an interesting sight, but would not look as presidential as Al Gore in a suit with cameras aimed up!
Jim
John Dickerson is the guy who wrote the story in Time, proclaiming Bush “Person of the Year” back in ’04. What less do you expect from this guy?
The election in 2000 was STOLEN by Diebold and the Supreme Court. Gore won Florida, had they counted ALL of the votes.
I think that, with the proper PR team, he could win.
I would vote for him, over one of the neo-con, facist, zombie members of the Bush Crime Syndicate.
Hell, I still haven’t forgiven his wife for the PMRC debacle.
Dan,
I don’t think that the race for President should be “who would you rather have a beer with,” but who can do the job better. So far, all the people who voted to “have a beer” with Dubya, are still willing to have a beer, but they wouldn’t hire him for anything, with the exception of “cutting brush.”
#9 I believe it starts with “After 9-11,…
Yeah, that is a good one. [grin]
But I’ve always wondered just how much of “post 9/11” – which people give Bush credit for – should actually be credited to Cheny, Rumsfeld, Rove, Rice, et al.
I may just be mislead by his poor public-speaking abilities, but I’ve never had the impression that Dubya was anything more than the public face – and official signature – for the true power(s) behind the throne…
I would vote for the post 2000 election bearded Al Gore that was 50 pounds heavier. I guess I would vote for him at any weight if he would at least try to grow another crazy beard.
Question: why can’t far left-wingers get over the election 6 years ago? It’s done and over.
Jim, great point with Nixon.
Another example: Dole. He didn’t come out and bitterly say that because of Ross Perot, he lost the election. (Keep in mind that President Clinton won with 42% of the popular vote…but that’s NOT what counts…and it shouldn’t. – – I hope I didn’t open up a can of (civic lesson) worms).
#5 Jim says Gore “Claimed to be the inventor of the internet”
Prove it, Jim. Go back and find the original quote in its full context where you say Gore “claimed to be the inventor of the internet.” It was a huge misconstrual of his words, probably with the use of a thesaurus, since he never even used the word “invent.”
The reason his statement was intentionally miscontrued was to suggest that he made crazy claims based on what could only be delusions of grandeur — a man clearly unfit for office. This was a wildly successful political smear that defies common logic, but certainly doesn’t defy politics. The people who bought into this never even stopped to ask “Did he really say something so crazy?” They just believed.
This is the EXACT QUOTE:
While he never used the word “invented” it sounds a lot like he meant it no matter what anyone wants to think.
#14 John, Gore says he TOOK THE INITIATIVE in creating the internet, and from a legislative point of view in keeping with the context and actual content of the quote, he did exactly that, as the public record and even some of Gore’s political opponents (including Newt Gingrich) confirm. And just so we’re crystal clear, in the above quote, he’s also NOT claiming to have invented economic growth, environmental protection, nor education.
If you really think the full context supports the substitution of “invent” as a suitable synonym, I feel really sorry for you.
Nice one, John! (You just cheated Google out of some Adsense revenue too, from the searches that aren’t going to take place now, haha.)
Now, if you can just do something to finally put a bullet in the phrase “Information Super-Highway” that was coined during that era… I still hear people using that and “cyberspace”.
He also said he discovered Love Canal, and created the earned income tax credit. The only things he has going for him are that other internet heavies tried to protect him and say he was right, and Republicans practiced overkill by going after jokes he made about his mother singing him ‘look for the union label’.
Gore’s great when he doesn’t have any pressure. Running for veep, or when the campaign was over. When it’s him, he’s too cautious. He might have won in 1988 but became too cautious. DIck Morris said he was always worried that he might mess up. As President he probably would have worried about ‘no army ever survived Afghanistan’.
Gary, Parsing I see. Good luck with that.
And, curiously, I saw that interview live (Blitzer was a fool for not making Gore clarify). I nearly fell out of my chair. He was clearly taking credit for the Internet. But hey, whatever you want to think is OK by me.
#18. AB CD, ruefully, you sum up Gore correctly. A Bush with the intellectual mind of Gore would be a perfect president.
#19 John, both Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn (inventors of the TCP/IP protocol) have publicly expressed gratitude for the role Al Gore played in nurturing the internet from within the government. It doesn’t require any careful parsing of the quote to see that Gore was clearly referring to his legislative role, not some technical role like the ones Cerf and Kahn played.
And it’s not just wingnuts like Cerf, Kahn, and me who think Gore’s legislative role has been minimized. Newt Gingrich had this to say in a speech to the American Political Science Association:
“Gore is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet, and the truth is — and I worked with him starting in 1978 when I got [to Congress], we were both part of a “futures group” — the fact is, in the Clinton administration, the world we had talked about in the ’80s began to actually happen.”
As long as the DCR keeps reheating candidates like Gore, or threatening to run Hillery, I’m sure that the Republicans will continue to have free reign to screw things up at will. And yes, I am a Republican (generally). I just think there needs to be a little more balance to the process, and for that to happen the Democrates need a real candidate and some platform other than “Hey, at least were not the Republicans!”
If Gore gets into the race, I think he stands a very good chance of winning.
The “know nothings” that make fantastic claims about him probably couldn’t vote anyway, due to their felonious criminal records or not knowing how to use their favorite crayon on the touch screen.
The best thing in his favor at the moment is the Republican House of Cards is falling apart. With Bush a liability and evil campaign minds like Karl Rove burned, the Republican message of slander is dead in the water. It will be the issues that matter, not the lies. Most Republican claims will be viewed very skeptically.
For the record, Gore would have been a better President at his worst then Bush has ever been. Gore is a Man, not a lieing, lawbreaking, fool.
The internet basically adanced by itself, and was I think invented in 1969. Gore was elected in 1976(remember he was in Vietnam for a while). Gingrich just loves talking about tech and credits Gore who did the same. It’s how we ended up with impeachment because Newt was just so excited about putting the Starr Report online right away.
I wouldn’t vote for someone as ignorant as #24 — since the only president to nuke anyone was a Dem.
The mainstream media just cannot handle subtlety of any kind. They look for and perpetuate the easy story. And the gullible short attention span audience swallows it and then parrots it as something they thought of on their own. Thus, Al Gore is “not electable”, “ran a poor campaign,” claimed to “invent the internet”, etc. These little memes go along with other ones, like GW Bush is a “decisive leader” (back in the 2002 days), and “incompetent” now. Annoying.
Gore would have been a better president that the one appointed for us. In fact, nearly anyone would have been better. And there aren’t many people who disagree with that now.
You don’t just elect “a person” to be President. You also elect a party. Now, in that light they both suck IHMO. However, in 2000 and 2004 the Democrats sucked ever so slightly more because they lacked vision. They still do. If they could put up a candidate that actually has a vision, actually understands economics and has the balls to go to war if necessary, people including myself might vote for them.
There is no question that Gore tried to position himself as the inventory/creator/primary motivator/first consul/grand pooba of the Internet. The ONLY contribution this loon made to the Internet was mentioning the word on national television. The boom would have happened with or without Gore. Let’s also not forget that the people that think he had some sort of impact are the same people that have the computer literacy of a fence post.
#29, Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn have both strongly disagreed with you about Gore’s contribution to the internet. I know, your first impression is that as recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, they could easily be idiots like George “slam dunk” Tenet, who received that medal the prior year. But the fact is that Cerf and Kahn made a true contribution with their invention of the TCP/IP protocol, now running on your computer and mine.
So I guess the burden of proof is really on you, to cite accomplishments that are so incredible as to give you license to belittle Cerf’s and Kahn’s computer literacy, as in your statement about Gore that “…the people that think he had some sort of impact are the same people that have the computer literacy of a fence post.” I really can’t wait to find out what you invented that exceeds the technical excellence of TCP/IP. Damn, just when I was ready to drop the issue, you rope me back in with a completely uninformed statement.
Cerf and Kahn give a few details of Gore’s impact here…
http://legalminds.lp.findlaw.com/list/cyberia-l/msg27399.html
Roc…..all the votes in Florida were counted, more than once. 5 major media groups paid to have ALL the votes cast recounted(all of these groups were liberal) and guess what…Bush not only won, but got more than the offical count stated.
As to Gore wanting to count ALL the votes, thats just a crock….Gore’s lawyers asked the State Supreme Court to count only SELECTED, Democratic counties, not all of the votes cast. Check your history(it’s called GOOGLE)
Jim Peterson, you ignorant slut. Are there any other made-up-of-whole-cloth lies about Gore you’d like to repeat here?
He did not claim to invent the internet, drive a convoy of limos 500 yards to the screening of his new film or much else you list in your post.
And concerning Nixon, that was 1962, not 1968 and despite Nixon’s public pronouncements to the contrary, his operatives were busy disputing the election right up until Hawaii finally made their tally final in January of 1963.
RWilliams254: Jim, great point with Nixon.
Yeah, except for the fact that it isn’t true.
AB CD: He also said he discovered Love Canal
No dude, he never said he “discovered” Love Canal. The ignorance and disinformation here is simply astounding. With voters this well informed, no wonder we elect morons.
#33 says of modern Democrats that “A pail of diarrhea would be a better President than any of them would.”
That finally explains why you voted the way you did, sir. And apparently, you weren’t alone in your admiration for the pail of diarrhea 😉