Accidental Blogger

No, the Oscars had nothing to do with it – that just solidified in people’s minds what many were thinking already.  I have said it before and I am saying it now – Al Gore is the best candidate for a Democratic victory in 2008. (Billary is going nowhere, no matter what the power behind the Clinton Machine). It is somewhat ironic that a veteran of an eight year presidential term and the bitter and protracted campaign of 2000, should he decide to run, Gore’s will be the freshest face in a group of candidates that has already begun to look stale. David Remnick writes in  The New Yorker:

It is worse than painful to reflect on how much better off the United States and the world would be today if the outcome of the 2000 election had been permitted to correspond with the wishes of the electorate.

Can anyone seriously doubt that a Gore Administration would have meant, well, an alternate universe, in which, say, American troops were sent on a necessary mission in Afghanistan but not on a mistaken and misbegotten one in Iraq; the fate of the earth, not the fate of oil-company executives, was the priority of the Environmental Protection Agency; civil liberties and diplomacy were subjects of attention rather than of derision; torture found no place or rationale?

In increasing numbers, poll results imply, Americans are disheartened by the real and existing Presidency, and no small number also feel regret that Gore—the winner in 2000 of the popular vote by more than half a million ballots, the almost certain winner of any reasonable or consistent count in the state of Florida—ended up the target of what it is not an exaggeration to call a judicial coup d’état. Justice Antonin Scalia routinely instructs those who question his vote in Bush v. Gore to stop their ceaseless whinging. “It’s water over the deck,” he told an audience at Iona College last month. “Get over it.” But it is neither possible nor wise to “get over it.” The historical damage is too profound.

And yet, despite the burden of injury and injustice, Gore, more than any other major Democratic Party figure, including the many candidates assembled for next year’s Presidential nomination, has demonstrated in opposition precisely the quality of judgment that Bush has lacked in office. Gore’s critiques of the Administration’s rush to war in Iraq and of the deceptions used to justify it were early, brave, and correct. On the issue of climate change, of course, he has exercised visionary leadership. With humor and intelligence, and negligible self-pity, he dispensed with the temptations of political martyrdom and became a global Jeremiah. Beginning in the nineteen-eighties, he waged what was at first a fairly lonely campaign to draw attention to the problem; now, as a popularizing propagandist, he has succeeded in registering it as a crisis with nearly everyone, from field-tripping schoolchildren to reality-dubious members of the Administration.

Remnick is kinder to the current slate of Democratic candidates than I am willing to be.  Taken separately on single issues, all of them have something going for them. But none of them strikes me as a total package, good enough to take on Giuliani or even McCain, on the national stage. Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton the current front runner, may be worse than the others. She is everything that Gore was in 2000 and more: Too eager, fiercely ambitious, calculating, pandering, condescending, stage managed, gets on your nerves with her sanctimonious ways, no display of spontaneity and above all, joined at the hip to Bill Clinton.

Once Gore conceded defeat, he shed his eagerness and disappointment and gave one of the most gracious and lyrical political concession speeches I have ever heard. His two appearances on Saturday Night Live were among the best in SNL’s history. The man was comfortable in his skin and devastatingly funny, mostly at his own expense. His public speeches on issues ranging from the Iraq war, domestic spying, torture of detainees and of course, global warming have been unfalilingly intellingent, inspiring and eloquent. Gore now looks a bit portly, professorial and completely at ease – like a man who has nothing to prove to anyone. For him the presidency of the United States which he came so close to winning, is no longer the ultimate prize. He has other things to do – a quality that sits attractively on a candidate’s persona. He looks like his own man, not the product of a gaggle of advisors’ and handlers’ collective imagination.

When the writers at “Saturday Night Live” suggested that he take part in a sketch featuring some scatological themes, Gore demurred with a combination of ironic self-preservation and his customary good judgment. “I’m sure this is funny,” he said, “but at the end of this I want to have some bread crumbs left leading back to my dignity.”

That strikes me as the attitude of a grown up – a person who has had time to mature and master equilibrium, away from political horse trading. Come to think of it, his sage and relaxed ways can be balanced with a bit of youthful exuberance and charisma. How does Gore-Obama sound to you?  To me it sounds good and it has the ring of victory.

Update: Maureen Dowd has pretty much the same opinion of Gore as I do.  The link to the NYT article is subscription only. Read it here.