Besides Gore, the potential '08 field is inadequate

[Ignacio Upton]

(Note: I've changed the title after a few complaints. While I'm not enthusiastic about the current potential field, I'm going to tone down what I'm saying specifically about them.)

I pretty disappointed that Warner has chosen not to run. I'm quite surprised, frankly. He impressed me the most out of all the potential candidates. I know that some here will flame me for that, and tell me that he's a DLCer and a corporatists (I've heard bullshit about him an the Bilderbergers before...puhleeze!) Had he chosen to run he would have almost certainly gotten my vote in the primary. However, there is another candidate that I feel has a good chance of winning, and can excite the base while benefiting from 2008's political landscape, and that is Al Gore. Why? Well, let's look at the other potential '08 candidates and see how they stack up:

Bayh, Biden, Dodd, and Daschle will be about as popular with primary voters as Lieberman was in 2004. Out of these four, I could see Biden getting a possible VP nod or nomination as Secretary of Defense, but his plagarism scandal from 1988 will sink his chances at becoming President, in addition to his coddling of MBNA and lack of a spine in standing up to Bush. Dodd is another Bob Dole, and so is Dsachle, in addition to the fact that he failed to keep our caucus together and L0ST his Senate seat after 18 years in the Senate! Bayh lacks charisma and is too close to the DLC, and unlike Warner he doesn't excit at least a segment of the base (Warner, for example, polls pretty well on straw polls at Daily Kos, while Bayh gets shit.)

Hillary is Hillary. She gives off the image of a panderer and she's too polarizing. I plan on voting for her in November for re-election, but I'll be damned if anyone tries to tell me to vote for her in the primaries. She's at the bottom of my personal pick of candidates.

Kerry only became the nominee in 2004 because of the "Anybody but Bush" movement, and the frontloaded primary system propelled him to victory after Iowa in the wake of Dean's collapse. In order words, he was an accidental nominee a la Dukakis and McGovern. He also failed miserably in stopping the Swift Boat Vets and was too timid on Iraq. Even if he's not pandering to people now my moving to the left on the issue of the war, he has the stench of failure about him from 2004. He'll end up like William Jennings Brian, Thomas Dewey, and Adlai Stevenson, in that he will REPEAT his loss just as they did in their multiple failed Presidential bids. Also, Kerry is up for re-election for his Senate seat. If he is going to run for President, he should announce in advance whether or not he wants to run for re-election. MA has a decent bench for Senate candidates to replace him (maybe Barney Frank or Ed Markey?) so if he announces not to run, keeping his seat shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Edwards was only Senator for one term and spent almost half of that term outside of D.C. campaigning for President. He'll be painted as a still-green slick opportunist and lightweight. He's more electable out of the current crop of potential candidates, but if he runs against a strong GOP nominee like McCain (who, in all honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he gets the nomination if the GOP gets crushed this year, as they might swallow their pride and abandom Bushism in order to preserve the broader conservative movement) then he gets crushed. He'll be protraryed as a Dan Quayle-like figure.

Obama: Same reason as Edwards, but in the fact that the charges against him would actually have some MERIT. He will have only been Senator for a little over two years if he announces his intention to run. Maybe he would be a good VP pick, but if he wants to run for President, he's better off running in 2012 or 2016.

Feingold is palatable to us ideologically, but a twice-divorced secular liberal Jew (think Barbara Streisand or Diane Feinstein in the yes of "middle America.") has no chance in hell of getting elected. He would do about as well as Dukakis if he gets nominated, especially if he goes against a strong GOP candidate.

Clark is my favorite candidate out of the remaining bunch, but after seeing Kerry swiftboated in 2004, I'm pessimistic as to whether Clark will be able to overcome the inevitable attacks of "he almost started WWIII!" or "he's stupidly bombed the Chinese embassy during the bombing of Yugoslavia" or "he was involved in Waco" or "he was a failed general who was fired by Clinton." And you know there will be people who served under him who will be more than willing to start in ads attacking him. I remember reading an old Freeper thread where one of the posters claimed that he served under Clark and went through all sorts of crap about why he shouldn't run. Now, I know that any nominee will be swiftboated, but I fear that the RW will make Clark out to be like a liberal verion of Curtis LeMay or Admiral Stockdale instead of Eisenhower.

...Through this process of elimination, I feel that there is only one candidate who can both get the nomination, excite the base, and make an effective case to the public for a return to stability a la Nixon in 1968, and that is Gore. Unlike Kerry, Gore WON the popular vote and we have clear proof that he WON in Florida (while it's possible that Kerry could have won Ohio in 2004, the evidence is harder to prove than in Florida, especially because Bush's "official" margain of victory was by more than 100,000 while he only "won" Florida by 537 votes.) Unlike Kerry, he's also had enough time to be outside of D.C. to take an outsiderish role, and the new Al Gore is someone who won't use Donna Brazille or Bob Shrum to help him campaign. If he campaigns with the persona that he's had for the past few years, then he won't have the wooden image. Ad on to the fact that he was opposed to the war from the beginning, and you have a compelling candidate. Imagine an election where it is Gore versus someone like Frist or Sam Brownback. He would beat them!