The Gore Factor

Certain elements of the Democratic Party, and everybody in the mainstream media, have been wetting themselves for months now over the prospect of former Vice-President Al Gore jumping into the 2008 Presidential election contest. For his part, Gore has been as coy as possible about his future plans, indicating he has absolutely no plans to run....but hasn't ruled out the option should a certain set of circumstances arise. With Gore releasing a new book in the past week, his media exposure has skyrocketed and generated even more hype regarding Gore's hypothetical candidacy. One look at the left wing political blog Daily Kos gives proof positive just how receptive Democratic activists are towards a Gore candidacy, with more than half of poll participants suggesting Gore would be their preferred candidate if he were to get into the race.

Let's take a step back for a second folks. We're talking about Al Gore here... he of the worst Democratic Presidential campaign since 1988. However good of an ex-politician Gore may be, he's a terrible politician, actually living up to the "flip-flopper" title that John Kerry was erroneously tagged with. On top of Gore's notorious changes of heart on guns, abortion, and tobacco that directly paralleled his transition from Tennessee Senator to national Democratic Party insurgent, there's an even more egregious example of Gore's political hackdom that will always stick in my craw. Back in the spring of 2000, attempting to suck up to Cuban-Americans in the upcoming Florida primary, Gore actually broke with the Clinton administration policy to oppose the Justice Department's extraction of the kidnapped Elian Gonzalez from his familial Miami captors.

And aside from his shameless political pandering, Gore simply does not connect with voters at that all-important cultural level. And no matter how much the public may have moved into alignment with Gore over the issues of the day (opposition to the war in Iraq, global warming), that doesn't tell me that they've moved into alignment with Gore personally. After all, the majority of the public was with Gore on the vast majority of issues back in 2000 as well, for all the good it did him.

With all this said, if it came down to Al Gore or Hillary Clinton being the Democratic Presidential candidate of 2008, I'd take Gore in a heartbeat. As far as I'm concerned, Hillary is as close to a sure loser as any candidate alive, as evidenced by the fact that she has unfavorable ratings above 50% BEFORE the national Presidential campaign has even begun. Nonetheless, I'd prefer to see just about any other of the current Democratic contenders (maybe even the hapless Joe Biden) than a rehash of the disaster that was the 2000 Al Gore Presidential campaign.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Renominating Al Gore would thus seem to qualify as an act of unbridled insanity.