I knew something huge would happen if I took a day off. Note to self: no more days off…
OK, so everyone now knows that Al Gore has thrown his support behind Howard Dean. There are dozens of angles to this, but on the whole, it’s a significant development for Dean and will give his campaign a major boost. No question about it. Especially when it comes to the conventional wisdom, I think the “Dean is the inevitable nominee” theme will become even more dominant. I’m not happy about it, but that’s the reality.
The problem I have in wrapping my head around the impact of the Gore endorsement is that for nearly every point that comes to mind, there is an equally reasonable opposite.
* Gore’s endorsement shows that Dean is finally winning over the Democratic establishment, right? Well, sort of. Gore was certainly a central part of the Dems’ DC establishment for the last decade, but since the 2000 election, Gore has shifted away from his establishment ties. Indeed, the establishment has done the same to Gore. If Gore has been on the outs with party leaders in recent years, which certainly appears to be the case, endorsing Dean could very well be his way of making a clean break with the Dem establishment once and for all, instead of a sign of Dean’s new-found support from party leaders who have long viewed his campaign with suspicion.
* The endorsement proves that Dean’s support has expanded outside the party’s liberal wing, right? Not exactly. Gore ran a hyper-moderate campaign in 2000, clinging to his New Dem centrism like a baby to its mother. Gore was a chairman of the DLC, for goodness sakes. But after the 2000 race was over, Gore effectively shed his moderate clothes and came out as a liberal, working with progressive activist groups like MoveOn.org and even endorsing progressive ideals such as single-payer health care. What’s wrong with that? Not a damn thing, but Gore’s ideological positioning doesn’t make it easy to characterize his endorsement as a boost for Dean’s move to the middle.
* Gore’s endorsement will likely translate into an expanded base of support for Dean, right? Maybe. Gore received more popular votes than any Democrat in the history of the country, but does he really have a base? Millions of Dems, including me, have the utmost respect and admiration for Gore, and believe he would have made an excellent president. That said, there are also many in the party who are still frustrated by how Gore ran his campaign in 2000 and the Florida recount mess. How many rank-and-file Dems will base their support in the primaries on Gore’s recommendation? How many of Gore’s top donors who have resisted Dean so far will suddenly shift their support based on this endorsement? I’m really not sure.
The other angle you may be hearing about is the conspiratorial theory that this is all part of Gore’s grand scheme with an eye towards 2008. I’m not buying it.
The theory goes like this: Gore is backing Dean with a fresh run at the White House in ’08 in mind. Gore may believe that Dean will get the Dem nomination but fail in the general election, creating a wide-open field for 2008. Gore’s support for Dean in ’04 would position Gore as the natural beneficiary of Dean’s legions the next time around, giving Gore instant credibility with the very people he’d need in ’08 but who never really warmed up to him before — liberal grassroots activists.
And while this may be a popular belief among some, I discount it entirely. No one can reasonably think ahead five years in presidential politics. In this business, five months is a very long time in which many different and unexpected things can happen. Five years? That’s an eternity. I doubt very much that Gore has made definitive plans for 2008, and I’m equally skeptical that a cynical agenda motivated Gore to make today’s endorsement.
Ultimately, in the here and now, this endorsement is an undeniably big deal. And while it’s obvious that Dean is today’s big winner, it’s equally obvious that Joe Lieberman, Gore’s running mate three short years ago, is today’s big loser. To be sure, I’m not happy to see Dean get this boost, but if Gore’s support for Dean precipitates the end of Lieberman’s presidential efforts, then today’s announcement will have at least one silver lining.