Clinton / Gore feud?

[FredStembottom]

Last night on the Rachel Maddow Show (Air America), Rachel and Kent Jones made jokes about Al Gore and Bill Clinton appearing together at some event. The jokes were all about the former Prez and vPrez not fighting. There was general wonderment and laffs that fisticuffs had not ensued........

Help me out here (cuz' I wouldn't know what to search on). Is there some long-standing hate-fest between Bill and Al? Am I, like, the only person in America who doesn't know about it?

:dunce:

[William769]

1. Only in the minds of Gore supporters for President

When all is said and done Gore is going to come out and support Hillary, then we are going to see a massive EHS.

[Ninga]

2. Hell will freeze over before that ever happens ! Ain't gonna do it.

Gore that is....endorsing Hillary.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. I Always Read That Al Gore Got Along Better With Hillary Than He Did With Bill

eom

[karynnj]

21. I also read that Gore resented Hillary usurping his position as #2

The thing these have in common - they were baseless gossip that never had any substantial source behind them. Both were motivated to want the Clinton administration to succeed, both are mature, disciplined people, who I hope would put their personal views of whether they "like" the person aside.

If Gore does endorse her, it could even be because of some agreement for her to go further than she would otherwise on global warming, especially if he does it when it is unlikely she could be stopped. I could even see Kerry, who she really did stab in the back, endorsing her for the same reason if she took a more diplomacy, less military position on Iraq and Iran than she nows has. For both, it would be the way they could leverage whatever support they bring with them to get movement on issues they care about. That they haven't may mean the Clintons are offering enough - and as time goes on they are not likely to offer more. I would credit both these men with considering the world and country over any personal slights. (If that were not true, Senator Kerry would not have strongly endorsed Webb in the primaries, raising most of the primary GOTV money.)

What you will hear in public, even speaking of Republicans, are at least weak comments of liking the person. Therefore, what we hear from people in direct quotes is likely too positive and what we hear "inside the beltway" is more likely to be whatever makes a juicy story. Believing either whole heartedly is likely naive.

[wyldwolf]

6. hmmm...

Hell will freeze over before that ever happens ! Ain't gonna do it.

Clark... McGovern... Gore that is....endorsing Hillary.

[Clark2008]

11. Who ever said Clark would NOT endorse HRC?

I don't remember a soul saying that.

My only disappointment with Clark's endorsement was that he wasn't running - so I'm still left without a candidate to support.

For the record, I don't hate Hillary. I just don't think she can win a general election. I live firmly outside of the blue bubble.

[Sufficient Voice]

14. Yep. Dems need to here that before it is too late.

[surfermaw]

18. Sure wasn't me

I was led to believe that Clark got in the race to hold Edwards off from getting the nomination, and that Clinton was behind the deal.

[Cameron27]

26. Where did you come up with that idea?

Not a single Clarkie, even those with some pretty good backroom info, ever speculated that was a reason.

[FredStembottom]

7. So the jokes had to do with an idea that Gore may declare.....

for president - and that makes Bill pro-actively hate him (as a potential threat to Hillary)?

I wonder because, to my mind, friendship with the Clintons is what keeps Al from declaring. But if they have some long-standing feud, already in progress, then that theory doesn't fly.

By the way, what's an EHS?

[William769]

10. Exploding Head Syndrome.

[surfermaw]

19. That is funny

Never going to happen!haha at Gore coming out for HILL>

[BootinUp]

24. EHS? n/t

[Maribelle]

3. Actually, I thank Clinton for giving us Al Gore.

Sorry, but for as much as I love Al, to this very day I cannot figure out his Lieberman thing, which I hated from the start.

I hate Lieberman.

I hate that he was Gore's running mate.

[movonne]

9. With the DLC running our dems, I don't think Al had much choice..

[Maribelle]

12. You're saying Al Gore had no choice?

Do you have any links to back that up?

[AlGore-08.com]

13. Basically, Gore needed a conservative to balance the ticket

Gore started the 2000 campaign a month after the impeachment and was 20 points behind as a result. At that point, Bill Clinton's job approval was still over 50%, but his personal approval rating was -60 nationally and slightly lower in swing states. Clinton's personal popularity was lowest with moderate swing voters and conservatives. Bush I's approval rating was much higher than Bill Clinton's; Clinton lost hypothetical match ups against him. Rove's publicly stated strategy was to "have people see Clinton when they hear Gore".

Gore was running as a populist, which did not sit well with the media or the Democratic party establishment, who felt that Gore needed to run to the right to win. But the voters felt differently. By August 2000, when Gore announced his running mate, Gore had gained a lot, but was still 10 points down. The press was still being massively unfair to his campaign; he needed to pick a running mate that would gain him votes among the swing and conservative voters who were necessary to win - - and would be acceptable to the institutional left.

Lieberman was a very popular, conservative Democrat. The Democratic party establishment loved Lieberman. The press loved Lieberman. The institutional left loved Lieberman - - Arianna Huffington called Lieberman "The Last Real Democrat". The voters loved Lieberman. He was a very popular choice.

But there has been a lot of historical revisionism about the 2000 election, which began during the election itself. There was a small but very vocal minority of Democrats who refused to recognize that Bill Clinton's personal unpopularity existed. Some of them in the Beltway (anonymously) complained to the media that Gore was loosing because he wasn't using Clinton "enough". They wanted the 2000 election to be about Bill Clinton and his accomplishments, not Al Gore and his accomplishments. (This also flies in the face of common sense - - when you apply for a job, if you spend the interview talking about what your boss accomplished and what a great guy you boss is, you will not get the job.) It didn't matter what Gore said or did - - for example, it was often claimed by these people that Gore "refused to run on Clinton's economic record", even though Gore's speeches all began with a recap of their admin's economic accomplishments and a promise to improve on it.

Bill Clinton remained problematic through the 2004 election; the Kerry campaign still had difficulty in figuring out how to use him in a way that gained more votes than it lost.

(Another reason that Gore chose Lieberman was that Gore wanted to show his commitment to civil rights, but that's another post... )

[karynnj]

23. From the time they were both Congressmen,

if anything, Leiberman was to the left of Gore. He was also an ally on Global warming - so they had worked together. Overall, Leiberman had a better environmental record than Gore. Leiberman was on domestic non-economic issues, pretty liberal then. That was why I was shocked, even after his years of kissing up to Bush, when he voted against Dodd's restoration of Habeus Corpus bill. Leiberman has changed. I doubt that in 2000, Gore would have chosen the bitter man Leiberman has become - that was not who he appearedin 2000.

Leiberman was likely chosen to give an historic and moral values tint to the ticket. As you said it was an attempt to balance the ticket. LBJ was not a friend of Kerry. Edwards was never among the Senators that were close to Kerry. All provided balance and were picked mainly for their potential in giving the ticket at least a little boost - or a substantial one as Gore did to Clinton.

[Maribelle]

30. The way I remember it, Gore tried to give himself a therapeutic bath, with Lieberman ...

as the little rubber ducky floating in the tub.

And most of my Democratic friends felt that way, as well. Some I know almost didn't vote for Gore for this very reason. But reality set in with Baby Bush.

Our keen perception then was that Lieberman was selected solely on the basis of his name calling on the Senate floor against Clinton "immoral, disgraceful and damaging to the country.".

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/09/03/clinton.lewinsky/

Most of my Democrtic friends believe Lieberman's quest to drop cluster bombs on the innocent children of Iraq goes off the immoral chart, will be a thousand times more disgraceful than what Clinton did, and will be damaging to our children and grandchildren in this country for decades.

[wyldwolf]

4. There has never been a real feud.

[rosesaylavee]

8. No feud that I ever heard of.

Rachel was just joking.

[AlGore-08.com]

15. Wow, this makes me wonder if I'm the only person on this board who was an adult in the 1990s

There were rumors all through the Clinton/Gore admin that Hillary and Al Gore didn't get along, or that Tipper didn't like Hillary, or that Bill Clinton and Al Gore were mad at each other. Like any working relationship.

There are three main J"rumor streams" that the Maddow team may be referencing. During the impeachment, it was widely rumored that both Hillary Clinton and Al Gore were furious with Bill Clinton over his affair with Monica Lewinski. Superficially, they were reported to be furious because they had asked Clinton if the rumors were true, he lied to them and said they weren't true, and then both Hillary and Gore publicly denounced the rumors as false. Then, when they learned that Bill Clinton had lied to them, they hit the ceiling.

There were also a number of rumors during the 2000 election that Clinton was furious at Gore for not using him "enough" on the campaign trail - - and that Gore was furious with Clinton for criticizing Gore and his campaign to the press.

There was another rumor that popped up after Bush v. Gore that Gore and Clinton had a closed door meeting and were overheard screaming at each other.

None of these rumors have ever been confirmed by the Clintons or the Gores.

[FredStembottom]

16. Thanks AG-08.

That's helpful to me. :thumbsup:

[janx]

17. And talk shows and gossip columns that call themselves

news sources THRIVE on rumors. During any primary season, rumors are picked up by those who want to believe them. ;-)

[surfermaw]

20. No..Ive been here for a long time, and you hearing is well

[blm]

22. Clinton , as president, should've made an executive decision to COUNT ALL VOTES

all over the country and given the states the support to do it.

Bush would do it if he thought HIS VP was getting screwed out of his votes by Democratic election fraud.

[William769]

25. So you wanted Clinton to abuse his power and override the courts?

How very Democratic of you. :eyes:

[blm]

27. You looking to side with BAD election law when it benefits BushInc? How quaint.

Point is that had Clinton done that, it would be pretty hard to argue that all the votes SHOULDN'T be counted.

[William769]

29. The point is you wanted him to abuse his power.

Nuff said. Of course if he had you would be screaming bloody murder.

[karynnj]

28. Interesting

He was President during that time. I would guess he felt he had to be neutral, which I think was what he said in authorizing working with both on succession at the same time. In retrospect, he could have given the justice department a much more public role as soon as a Palm Beach government employee found her husband's name on the felon's list, when he was not a felon (and this was verified.) This was why this county did not use the list that was used in other counties. This happened BEFORE the primaries. Had they launched a fast track investigation on how that list came to be. This could have caused a spot light to be focused on FL's election making it riskier for the Republicans to do many things they did.

The Clinton justice department was better positioned to protect against the Republican theft of 2000, than Gore was to fight after the fact and certainly after the Supreme Court intervened. (they also had far more power than a MA Senator, officially down 120,000 votes in Ohio and 3 million in the popular vote - controlling no part of the government and (at that point) not even having the allegiance of 100% of his party.) The lackadaisical attitude of that era and administration were likely an unnoticed at the time factor in getting us to where we are.