General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Would a progressive third Party help the Democrats more than the Republicans? [View all]TheKentuckian
(25,023 posts)who was a founding member of the DLC, said he agreed with Governor Bush over and over, who felt the need to run away from Clinton, and the guy that wanted to put Joe Lieberman a heartbeat away from the Presidency.
He may be the same guy but he did not behave the same in many years of public life when he was in the moment.
I believe the model you extrapolate from is too simple to know much of anything. I have no doubt that he'd be a much more competent President than Bush, I don't know if he'd be some standout from any other Democrat including his VP. It is possible but cannot be supported by observation a voter could evaluate at the time. There was no war position to judge nor any Inconvenient Truth to throw into the calculation.
You don't win and then more importantly motivate to action beyond voting by virtue of hindsight, especially hindsight from an alternate reality that show a man in very different circumstances and no longer actively seeking the brass ring.
In event, I voted Gore as did Kentuck, I believe, but he had me screaming at the TV to stop hitting himself and trying to shrink the separation between himself and Bush, for running away from Clinton (and as as a consequence himself to a large degree) and mostly for elevating fucking Joseph Looserman which resulted in taking a clothespin for my nose to the poll and this was when I was much more moderate compared to the party as a whole. It wasn't long ago that folks like us were maybe the left hand side of the mainstream in the party and not that long before that the new Democratic mainstream would have been acceptable to the mainstream of the Republican party.