Another chance for Gore?
Another chance for Gore?
By Scot Lehigh, Globe Columnist | January 16, 2007
THE PRESIDENTIAL primary campaign is now underway, and though neither has yet declared, the Democratic main event is already being framed as a contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Each, however, comes with sizable drawbacks.
Although Clinton has proved herself a highly capable senator, worries abound about her electability. And then there’s the recurring query that worried Democrats whisper to each another: Is Bill behaving?
Obama certainly qualifies as the next new thing, and as his December visit to New Hampshire demonstrated, he has generated real excitement at the grass roots. And yet, in the age of terrorism, it will be a tall test for a first-term senator with no real Washington accomplishments to convince the country that he’s ready to be commander in chief.
That dynamic of doubt is sparking renewed interested in Al Gore.
“More and more people are asking, ‘What about Al Gore?’ ” says Steve Grossman, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “If Al Gore were to announce for president, he would be a first-tier candidate on day one. Instead of it being Hillary and Obama on the covers of the national magazines, you would have three faces there.”
The Internet activists would turn cyberspace into a potent fund-raising realm for Gore if he does decide to get in, Grossman predicts.
Publicly, Gore hasn’t ruled out running, but neither has he evinced much interest.
But when one friend asked him recently about another campaign, Gore didn’t dismiss the question out of hand. “We’ll see how things go,” he replied.
Another Democratic source says that in recent weeks, the former vice president’s camp has quietly put out feelers to presidential politicos, asking whether they are committed for 2008.
The passage of time has a way of putting things and people in perspective, and six-plus years after he won the national popular vote but lost the presidency by half a whisker in Florida, Gore looks good.
While other candidates boast of the international expertise they have acquired in the Senate, Gore, as Bill Clinton’s number two, was actually there executing foreign policy in the White House. And unlike the other hopefuls who claim foreign policy credentials, he issued a clear and forceful warning about the dangers of rushing to war with Iraq, arguing that launching an invasion, particularly one undertaken largely on our own, would hurt our ability to win the larger war on terror.
“He has a very compelling theme: I was a guy who could see what was up ahead of us,” says one national strategist. “And if ever there was a time when we needed a president who was sure-footed, it is now.”
Nor is it just on Iraq that Gore can say, I told you so.
Global warming has finally arrived as an important issue for the government of seemingly every first world nation except our own. Gore has highlighted those concerns for decades — and last year, the release of “An Inconvenient Truth” brought both his issue and his efforts into sharp national focus, helping make climate change dinner-table talk.
He is, then, a man who can rightly claim to have been prescient on two matters of international magnitude.
Short-listed for an Oscar, “An Inconvenient Truth” surely deserves one.
And with a book, “The Assault on Reason” — an exploration of the way US political culture has grown hostile to fact-based decision-making — due out in May, Gore will attract even more notice.
Now, I was not a particular fan of Gore’s 2000 campaign, an effort that struck me, by turns, as bare-knuckled, pedantic, and off-putting, with an oddly conceived message.
But in leaving public office, Gore may well have found his authentic voice, speaking with a no-nonsense bluntness and ironic humor that has been refreshing.
Some fear he could lose his much-admired status if he runs and loses again, thereby adding a third failed presidential campaign to his personal history.
“I think there would be a big chance of becoming Harold Stassen,” says Bob Somerby, one of Gore’s college roommates. “The way things are now, he lives on as the guy who won, but didn’t get to serve.”
But the potential rewards surely outweigh the risks.
As Democrats eye the White House, Gore is a could-be candidate who combines experience, knowledge, and ability in compelling proportions. In a field that lacks a truly convincing figure, that combination would make him a formidable candidate if he decides to run.
Scot Lehigh’s e-mail address is [email protected].