Is Al Gore the Answer?

[katty]

Is Al Gore the Answer?
By Joe Klein

more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1725678,00.html

Unlike Barack Obama, Bill Clinton does not believe in "the fierce urgency of now." The former President has an exquisitely languid sense of how political time unfurls. He understands that those moments the political community, especially the media, considers urgent usually aren't. He has seen his own election and re-election—and completing his second term—pronounced "impossible" and lived to tell the tale. He remembers that in spring 1992 he had pretty much won the Democratic nomination but was considered a dead man walking, running third behind Bush the Elder and Ross Perot. He knows that April is the silly season in presidential politics, the moment when candidates involved in a bruising primary battle seem weakest and bloodied, as both Hillary Clinton and Obama do now. It's the moment when pundits demand action—"Drop out, Hillary!"—and propound foolish theories. And so I'm rather embarrassed to admit that I'm slouching toward, well, a theory: if this race continues to slide downhill, the answer to the Democratic Party's dilemma may turn out to be Al Gore.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. wo0t

:popcorn:

[IDemo]

2. mods, please combine this with one of the other 317 Gore threads today

Heres one -->> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5280708&mesg_id=5280708

[Andrea]

3. Please check out my thread on the same subject

And, PLEASE, jump in and help me!


:hi:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5280708

[bowens43]

4. No. Al gore lost to the stupidest man to ever run for the office.

McCain would tear him to shreds.

[balantz]

8. Al Gore didn't lose.

The presidency was stolen with the help of the Supreme Court.

[MADem]

10. The Supreme Court stole that from him and handed it to the Monkey. NT

[JuniperLea]

11. What bullshit!

Gore had that stolen from him and you know it... jeez...

[stray cat]

5. Not to any question I'm asking

[cali]

6. no

[Why Syzygy]

7. NOOOOO.

The answer to the slide is for someone to bring Hillary to the light of Reality.

Gore could have helped long ago. It's too late. Obama is our future.

[MADem]

9. If the question is "Who was robbed in 2000?" then, yes, he's the answer.

Ah, Mister Primary Colors is pontificating again....I will agree though, that if Clinton is not on the ticket, his scenario is one that would 'enthuse' me:

........The main reason superdelegates have not yet rallied round Obama is that the party is collectively holding its breath, waiting to see how he performs in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Indiana.

He will probably do well enough to secure the nomination. But what if he tanks? What if he can't buy a white working-class vote? What if he loses all three states badly and continues to lose after that? I'd guess that the Democratic Party would still give him the nomination rather than turn to Clinton. But no one would be very happy—and a year that should have been an easy Democratic victory, given the state of the economy and the unpopularity of the incumbent, might slip away.

Which brings us back to Al Gore. Pish-tosh, you say, and you're probably right. But let's play a little. Let's say the elders of the Democratic Party decide, when the primaries end, that neither Obama nor Clinton is viable. Let's also assume—and this may be a real stretch—that such elders are strong and smart enough to act. All they'd have to do would be to convince a significant fraction of their superdelegate friends, maybe fewer than 100, to announce that they were taking a pass on the first ballot at the Denver convention, which would deny the 2,025 votes necessary to Obama or Clinton. What if they then approached Gore and asked him to be the nominee, for the good of the party—and suggested that he take Obama as his running mate? Of course, Obama would have to be a party to the deal and bring his 1,900 or so delegates along.

I played out that scenario with about a dozen prominent Democrats recently, from various sectors of the party, including both Obama and Clinton partisans. Most said it was extremely unlikely ... and a pretty interesting idea. A prominent fund raiser told me, "Gore-Obama is the ticket a lot of people wanted in the first place." A congressional Democrat told me, "This could be our way out of a mess." Others suggested Gore was painfully aware of his limitations as a candidate. "I don't know that he'd be interested, even if you handed it to him," said a Gore friend. Chances are, no one will hand it to him. The Democratic Party would have to be monumentally desperate come June. And yet ... is this scenario any more preposterous than the one that gave John McCain the Republican nomination? Yes, it's silly season. But this has been an exceptionally "silly" year.

[JuniperLea]

12. I'm waiting for the "It wouldn't be fair to Obama" post...

:eyes: