'Should Gore Run in '08?'
By JB Williams (10/16/07)
Sharing the Nobel Prize with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has given rise to a lot of talk about yet another Al Gore run for the White House. Nobody looked more uncomfortable Friday morning than Hillary Clinton, the current front-runner for the Democrat nomination, who clearly saw her own star fading fast as Al accepted the highest honor offered any international leftist.
The Draft Gore Campaign was eager to capitalize on the news that their 2008 presidential dream candidate had just joined the ranks of Jimmy Carter, Rigoberta Menchu, Wangari Muta Maathai and Yasser Arafat as an esteemed Nobel Peace Prize holder, an accomplishment which is only a pipedream to ex-president still in search of a legacy, Bill Clinton, and well beyond Hillary’s reach.
To some, like the Union Leader, Gore’s Prize represents yet another Fraud on the People. Gore received the Nobel for the same work product that won him an Oscar and an Emmy from like-minded Hollywood political activists. But as the Union Leader points out, “on Friday the prize was given to Al Gore and the International Panel on Climate Change. Two days before, a British judge ruled that Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," contained so many errors (read: lies) that it could be shown in British public schools only if accompanied by a fact sheet correcting the errors.”
To others, like those working to draft Gore into the 2008 presidential race, Gore’s best-selling book, internationally acclaimed Global Warming thriller and Nobel Prize represents an opportunity for Al Gore to take one more stab at his birthright, the American presidency.
A three-time loser?
Gore lost a 1988 bid for the Democrat nomination to Michael Dukakis after alienating the black vote with what Rainbow Coalition candidate Jesse Jackson called “racist” campaign tactics, by initiating the infamous “Willie Horton” campaign strategy, later used to derail the Dukakis campaign in the general election.
He was gearing up to make a second run in 1992 when his son Albert was nearly killed in an automobile accident while leaving the Baltimore Orioles opening game. Leaving Bill Clinton a largely unchallenged candidate for the party nomination in ’92 helped Gore secure the Vice President’s position in the ’92 and ’96 Clinton administrations. But by 1999, that friendship had become so fractured that Gore would not even allow Clinton to campaign for him in 2000.
Gore made his third run at the Oval Office without Clinton in 2000, and although he lost to the Electoral College system, he did win the national popular vote by roughly a half million voters. He lost the legal battle over “hanging chads” in Florida to end his third bid for the White House. But it was actually losing his home state of Tennessee that cost him the election and caused him great personal disappointment.
The Gore name was now tainted in the Democrat Party as a three-time loser. Though he remains a very popular icon to the polarizing far left-wing of the Democrat Party, he is seen by many Democrat voters as a waste of vital political resources.
Should he run again in 2008?
Despite all of the above and the fact that Hillary has a lock on the DNC nomination thanks to Bill, this remains a valid question.
The 2008 Democrat field has only one viable national candidate, former First Lady and New York Senator Hillary Clinton. Obama’s star is already predictably fading and John Edwards fizzled in 2004, as the weaker running mate to weak national candidate John Kerry. No other 2008 Democrat presidential wannabe has even a chance of winning local dog-catcher.
Hillary Clinton appears to be running away with the nomination, but only because the race is void of any serious challenger. Al Gore might not be able to derail her nomination, be he would be a very real challenger to her general election… and nobody knows this better than Bill and Hillary Clinton, other than maybe DNC chairman Howard Dean, who has been quietly courting Gore for several months now.
In answering this question, I must point out an important fourth presidential Gore loss.
In 2004, Gore again broke ranks with Bill and Hillary, who endorsed John Kerry for president. Gore instead endorsed none other than DNC outsider Howard Dean for president in 2004, and almost immediately after that endorsement, the Dean campaign imploded, making even a Gore endorsement seem like the kiss of death for any Democrat presidential candidate.
However, the Dean endorsement might have cemented a loyalty between Gore and Dean, who has since been elected Chairman of the Democrat Party. As a result, the question of whether or not Gore should make one more run for the White House remains a very reasonable question.
If Gore runs?
It’s no secret that all Democrats including Hillary, are currently in HUGE trouble with their new base, the Democratic Socialists of America. Democrats were handed control of both houses of congress in 2006, for the sole purpose of advancing the DSoA agenda. But already in 2007, the Democrat congress has achieved the new historic low public approval rating of only 11 percent. Not exactly how Democrats wish to make history. It makes the President with only a 30 percent approval rating, look three times as popular as any congressional Democrat.
The problem for Democrats is they have proven themselves to be all about campaign rhetoric and nothing else. They say all the things the leftist base of their party wants to hear, but their official votes say something quite different and the anti-security, anti-sovereignty base of the DNC is disenchanted, to put it lightly. I believe they call it “disenfranchised,” or “defrauded.”
The hardcore anti-war base of the DNC is better aligned with Republican/Libertarian Ron Paul, at least as regards their strong opposition to the war against international terrorism, the war on drugs and the opposition to federal intelligence gathering powers. Ron Paul is becoming the poster-child of the hard left, not Hillary, whose senate voting record is almost perfectly aligned with George W. Bush, even though her rhetoric isn’t.
Today, a better question might be, if Gore does run again, should he run under the Democrat Party banner that has stabbed him in the back a number of times over the years, or should he run under the banner that really says who he really is today, the Green Party candidate who could actually put the Green Party on the map?
A Winning Green Candidate?
In the past, the Green Party and Ralph Nader have played spoiler to the Democrat Party. But that was before the world and the nation was going “green” and before Al Gore became the international king of green.
Gore has spent every waking moment since his loss in 2000, making himself the international face of environmentalism. He has also been the lone Ron Paul of the Democrat Party, staying true to his anti-war, anti-free market, anti-American supremacy, pro-abortion, pro-gay rights, pro-global appeasement and anti-American sovereignty belief system.
Though the Democrat Party has used these ideas to win elections, they have not governed by these ideas after the elections. That’s why they have an 11 percent approval rating. A Green Party Gore might just be the ticket for real political change in America circa 2008, when the Republican Party is divided and behaving like the liberal Democrat Party of old, and the Democrat Party is failing to live up to it’s leftist campaign rhetoric.
The many Democrats now considering jumping parties to support Libertarian Ron Paul would have an even better alternative to fork-tongued Hillary Clinton, with Green Party candidate Al Gore who firmly represents all of their beliefs.
Has the time for a viable third party arrived?
Candidate Gore could do something that Hillary Clinton won’t be able to do. He can successfully unite the traditionally Democratic voting blocs currently left out in the cold by mainstream Democrat candidates and members of congress who ran on Gore-like rhetoric, but lead with Bush-like chamber votes.
With an 11 percent approval rating, all Democrat candidates are very vulnerable in ‘08. The leftist base is searching so far and wide for real leftist candidates that they are even considering Libertarian Ron Paul in 2008, just to support a real anti-war candidate. Code Pink and MoveOn.org have shifted funding away from Hillary, towards both Obama and Paul already, neither of which have any chance of winning anything. Gore would have a very real chance, and he is of the same belief system as the new base of the DNC.
Can Gore win?
Without the base of the new Democrat Party, no other Democrat can win in the general election. Hillary can win the party nomination with the largest party minority, in the 40’s somewhere, opposed by more than half of all Democrat voters. But Gore could in fact do much better, under a Green ticket.
Gore is firmly green, anti-war, anti-free market, anti-trade, anti-gun, pro-abortion, pro-gay rights and pro-global community. He is the former Vice President to America’s first Black President, Bill Clinton. So he can win the Black vote as well.
This is the base of today’s Democrat Party, not so well represented by congressional Democrat’s or Hillary, beyond campaign rhetoric. He can unite these voting blocs whereas Hillary can’t. He can unite them from within the DNC or as a Green Party candidate. He can put the Green Party on the map. He can win…
Should Gore Run?
Nothing is more certain than his ability to raise campaign funds through unlimited international sources, just as he did in 2000. If anything, his stock just shot up in the community of international power-brokers behind the endless list of 527 organizations now responsible for most of the money behind all Democrat candidates.
Gore need not be a Democrat to access these political investors. In fact, since they are largely disenchanted with today’s Democrats, he might have an even better chance under the third party Green banner that all international socialists hold dear.
Bottom line… Right now is Al Gore’s time. He can win and he can make American history doing it, under the Green Party banner.
Can Al Gore resist such a golden opportunity to realize all of his life long dreams in one last shot? Only time will tell… But he’s the man to watch over the next few months.
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