Remember when Al Gore....

[ProudToBeLiberal]

Wow that took me off my feet :). Ah it would be great if Al Gore was in the white house instead of that mongerel


edit-word tense

[AlGore-08.com]

1. I was driving home from work when the speech started

listening to it on NPR. I didn't know anything about the kiss until the next day, when I saw the news.



I miss him a lot.

[Must_B_Free]

2. *sigh*

He's not running
He's doesn't want to run
He's a liar
He's a loser
He's boring

Just keep repeating these things and recall how much safer we are with Bush as president. And remember - 911 changed everything. America can never be the same. In fact, the constitution itself may need to be replaced with a military form to government.

</talking points>

[Kathleen04]

4. Good impression...

[elperromagico]

13. Should we "get over it"?

;)

[Freddie Stubbs]

3. Remember when he picked a DLCer DINO stealth Repuke as his running mate?

Perhaps joe isn't as bad a guy as some people make him out to be.

[Myra]

5. Good perspective Freddie Stubbs

I love Pres Gore, but yikes, I didn't love his running mate.
Then again, the strategy did win them Florida.

[AlGore-08.com]

6. My take on why Gore picked Lieberman

I think that the choice of Lieberman had everything to do with the composition of the Congress and Gore's own experiences as Vice President.

1.) Lieberman's real strength has been his ability to get the Republicans to cooperate on legislation, which would have been essential with a Congress that was either majority Republican or evenly split - - and frankly, there was no way that the Congress was going to be Democratic after the 2000 election.

2.) When Clinton was being impeached, Gore was under a lot of pressure to turn on Clinton. If Gore had thrown his weight behind the impeachment, it might have been successful, and Gore would have become President. One of the reasons that Gore was so ruthlessly investigated during the Clinton administration was that he wouldn't stab Clinton in the back.

The Pugs made it crystal clear that they were not going to accept a Gore Presidency. So Gore would have needed a Vice President who would put loyalty before personal gain. Gore and Lieberman were close friends at that time, and had been for many years.

A lot of the the other people Gore was considering are now running for President. And they threw their hat in the ring almost immediately after the 2000 election ended (I saw Kerry tell a reporter he was running for President the day after the electors were confirmed). Lieberman was the lone exception: he refused to commit to a run until Gore said whether he was running in 2004.

3.) If you go to Project Vote Smart's profile of Lieberman, you'll see that Lieberman is not the most conservative guy who ever lived.

http://www.vote-smart.org/issue_rating_category.php?can_id=S0141103

Here are a few of his recent ratings:

NARRAL: 100%
Planned Parenthood: 100%
Human Rights Campaign: 100%
National Hispanic Leadership Agenda: 91%
NAACP: 94%
NEA: 100%
AIDS Action Council: 100%
AFL-CIO: 92%

Oops, sorry to clutter the discussion up with facts. ;)

4.) Chosing Lieberman got Gore a ton of positive press right before the convention. Give Gore his due - - it was a pretty gutsy thing to do, to pick a Jewish running mate.

[Isome]

7. Thanks for the explanation...

I can now give the President his due for choosing Lieberman as VP. I'm still mad at him for not fighting harder... but he couldn't fight alone. He didn't have a whole lot of encouragement from the Dems in office.

[AlGore-08.com]

10. Mad at who for not fighting harder? Gore or Lieberman?

I'm not sure how Gore could have fought harder.

He started out 20 points behind Smirk and ended up winning more votes than any other Democratic candidate in history - - and the second highest number of votes of any Presidential candidate. The only candidate to beat him was Ronnie Raygun, who set the record during his reelection campaign. Considering the positive press that Ronnie got, and the fact that he was running as the incumbant President, that's an even more impressive stat IMNSHO.

If all the votes had been counted in Florida, Gore's victory would been viewed as an amazing piece of politicing. The GOP spent millions studying the Get Out The Vote strategy used by Gore 2000, and that's one of the reasons that they won so many races in 2002.

If you're talking about the recount, again, Gore did everything that he could do, legally. Gore is often bashed for not asking for the entire state to be recounted, but there is no provision in Florida law that would have allowed him to do that. Smirk would have had to agree to a statewide recount. Gore publicly asked Smirk twice to agree to one, and Smirk turned him down both times (I know, everybody's shocked to read that).

Once the Supreme Court stopped the Florida vote count, there were no legal avenues left for Gore that had any possiblity of success. The only thing left to do would have been for at least one Congressman and one Senator to challenge the Florida electors - - something outside of Gore's direct control. And if the electors had been challenged, it would have been up to the GOP controlled Congress to decide whether Florida went to Gore or Smirk. And even if some unbelieveable miracle occurred and the the Florida electors were given to Gore, the Florida State Legislature had already announced publicly that they would not accept electors pledged to Gore and would send a second set of Electors to D.C., pledged to Smirk. If that had come to pass, guess who would have gotten to decide whether the electors should go to Gore or Smirk? Jeb!(TM) Bush.

Really, the only thing that Gore could have done differently was slap a blue bandana around his head, grab his old M16 and start a civil war. As awful as Smirk is, a civil war would have been worse.

[kskiska]

12. Great summary.

I get so mad at people who blame it all on Gore not fighting. The Dems in Washington were all sitting on their hands, not being supportive at all. He was on his own, and it was futile.

[dajabr]

9. Hey Freddie...

I think someone changed your avatar while you weren't looking. :shrug:

rubs eyes and blinks...

:-)

[Freddie Stubbs]

11. It was no accident

I have a big rant that I will be posting tomorrow regarding my support for Dean.

[goforit]

8. OMG!!!...If only our wishes could come true!!!....Thanks proudtobealibral!

I really miss this guy and his family.

[neuvocat]

14. I remember fondly.

I guess it woulnd't be so bad if the election weren't rigged.