The blogosphere was surprisingly abuzz yesterday with positive talk about Al Gore. Wittmann, Yglesias, Atrios, and Ezra — not all of whom, I might add, agree on everything — all had very positive things to say about the former Vice President, even in a 2008 context.
Ezra, who’s been on board with Gore for a long while, welcomed the newcomers to the party.
Gore, if anything, starts in a better position than Hillary. Already defined as a credible candidate, there’s nothing Republicans can do that’ll make him look unfit to lead (the country, indeed, already voted for him once). If he can keep his recent speaking style, boring won’t apply, at least not so much. His credibility with the left-wing of the party is massive and real. Unlike Hillary, who inspires a fair amount of distrust, Gore’s endorsement of Dean and his alliance with MoveOn have turned the ultimate establishment candidate into something of a left-wing insurgent. That should make him a fierce online fundraiser, with small donor rolls that’ll dwarf even Dean’s, a particularly important strength since that great sucking sound you’ve been hearing is Hillary hoovering all the early money.
Gore was perhaps better prepared for the presidency than any candidate in recent memory. He ran a poor campaign, jumping the shark when he announced his running mate, and handled the recount fiasco poorly. Gore, alas, would have made a better president than he did presidential candidate.
But it’s been interesting to see Gore since then. One of the problems during the 2000 race was Gore’s apparent concern to gamble on anything. He was overly cautious, seemingly walking on egg shells for a full year.
And yet, if you’ve seen Gore in the last year, you’ve seen a man who, once unencumbered by campaign concerns, is a progressive hero.
In November 2002, at the time still mulling another presidential campaign, Gore announced his support for a national single-payer health care system. He is, to my knowledge, the only mainstream national political figure in the country to do so.
After announcing he would not run in 2004, Gore really threw caution to the wind. In January, he teamed up with MoveOn for a blistering speech attacking the Bush administration’s environmental policies. A month later, Gore delivered a keynote address at the New School in New York on the “political uses and abuses” of fear. It was, not incidentally, one of the best speeches I’ve heard in quite a while.
A few months later, Gore was in Idaho for a speech to the state party.
His Boise speech offered vintage examples of his ramped-up rhetoric. “The right wing … has now intimidated the formerly moderate Republicans,” Gore told the crowd. “The right wing has taken over the Republican Party…. In order to win their victories, the right wing relies on the politics of fear … and the repetition of big lies.”
Around the same time, Gore packed a Nashville hotel ballroom and had a crowd on its feet when he shouted, “The truth shall rise again!”
This Al Gore was not the same Al Gore who picked Joe Lieberman to be his running mate and who chaired the DLC in the ’80s. This is a Gore of passion and progressive vision.
Is Gore going to run in 2008? No. Could we do a lot worse? You better believe it.