Reply #39: If the 'new' Al Gore runs, he'll win. Period?

[Tom Rinaldo]

This type thread is asking for trouble. The OP I respond to asks me to explain my reasons if I happen to disagree with that contention. That means giving a run down of the negatives I think might hurt Al Gore's chances if he runs. We haven't even had the mid term elections yet and Democrats have to pull together for that, so no, I won't detail all of my reasons for why Gore is NOT a shoo-in. Gore is a good and strong Democrat and we need many more like him.

However no one will simply win if they run, period. Period. Gore has real strengths, but he has real weaknesses also. A lot of people who are not deeply issue oriented just do not warm up to Al Gore easily. 2000 should have been a route for the Democrats, the nation wasn't even using electronic voting machines then. George W. Bush by all measures was a relatively weak opponent. Al Gore was not very popular with most Americans, and it's not because they never got the chance to know him. The "Old Gore" used to come off to many people as "wooden". So bring on the "New Gore". Now Gore alternates coming across as "wooden" with coming off as "sweaty", to many voters who do not key in strongly on the issues (and unfortunately DUer's are not representative of many Americans when it comes to how closely we follow issues). And while "the issues" should favor Gore again in 2008, that can be said for most of the Democrats considering running. Now me, I love it when Al works up a good sweat denouncing the Bush Administration. But I am not a typical voter.

Al Gore lost his home state of TN while running as a sitting VP, after having served TN as a multi term Senator, as the heir to a popular TN political family dynasty, and it wasn't because people in that state rejected the more Liberal "New Gore". Al Gore mostly hadn't become the "New Gore" yet. In many ways the "Old Gore" should have been able to win his home state easier than the "New Gore". "Old" or "New", there were a lot of states that Al Gore should have won easily in 2000 that he didn't. The United States was prosperous and at Peace.

The simple fact that people can now so openly talk about an "Old Gore" and a "New Gore" should give us a clue about where some of his potential trouble will come from. Generally in American politics it is a potent weapon to use against someone, if they can easily be caricatured as reinventing themselves to change with changing political winds. Even though I do not think that charge is fair against Gore, it will be made. Repeatedly.

It wasn't long ago that Gore picked Joe Lieberman out of all of the Democrats in the nation, to try to elevate to the Vice Presidency. Had the 2000 election not been stolen, chances are very good that Lieberman would be well into his second term as Vice President now and locking up the Presidential nomination for 2008. Al Gore wasn't just reaching for a politically shrewd maneuver when he picked Lieberman. Gore knew Lieberman very well personally, Gore knew exactly who he would be elevating into the White House by choosing Joementum, his eyes were wide open.

Gore was among the founders of the DLC and he worked closely with Lieberman for years in the Senate and in the Clinton Administration. Either Gore hasn't changed much since 2000 when he was obviously comfortable picking Lieberman, in which case there really is no "New Gore" which would make the OP moot, or Gore has changed significantly in six years, in which case the Republicans and other Democrats can mine mountains of materials from Gore's recent "Old Gore" political past to use against him in the standard "flip flop" line of attack.

Having said that, I do like Gore, and he is among three Democrats who I would be happy to see win the nomination. Gore ranks third in my current personal line up.