{"id":7407,"date":"2006-05-15T09:10:17","date_gmt":"2006-05-15T13:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7407"},"modified":"2006-05-15T09:10:17","modified_gmt":"2006-05-15T13:10:17","slug":"oh-what-might-have-been","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/oh-what-might-have-been\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh, what might have been…"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the third week in February, speculation about [tag]Al Gore[\/tag]’s future picked up considerably with high-profile columns from Roger J. Stone Jr.<\/a> and Dick Morris<\/a>. In the third week in March, a cover story<\/a> for The American Prospect renewed talk about another [tag]presidential[\/tag] [tag]campaign[\/tag] for Gore. The third week in April, it was once again the hot topic of conversation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And at the start of the third week in May, [tag]Gore[\/tag] is once again<\/a> on the political world’s mind, thanks to a very funny [tag]appearance[\/tag] on [tag]Saturday Night Live[\/tag].<\/p>\n

As the make-believe presidency of The West Wing came to a conclusion, Americans got a taste of another alternative political reality when Al Gore appeared on the comedy show Saturday Night Live to address the nation as “President Gore”.<\/p>\n

Basing his sketch on the premise that he had emerged triumphant, instead of defeated, from the presidential election acrimony in Florida in 2000, Mr Gore appeared in a mocked-up Oval Office and assumed a grave expression.<\/p>\n

After six years of his presidency, the country faced many problems, he admitted: the gigantic budget surplus was “down to a perilously low $11 trillion”, while the US was so popular worldwide “that American tourists can’t go to Europe any more without getting hugged”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you haven’t seen it, this is one of those must-watch clips. You Tube<\/a> has the [tag]video[\/tag], as does C&L<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Andrew Sullivan<\/a> and Josh Marshall<\/a> are talking up the possibility of another Gore campaign.<\/p>\n

On a related note, the latest Newsweek poll asked Americans whether they had a positive or negative impression of several leading Democrats. Gore had the second highest favorable rating (49%, trailing Hillary Clinton’s 53%), but also had the second highest unfavorable rating (43%, behind Ted Kennedy’s 45%).<\/p>\n

I get the feeling Gore’s growing popularity among the activists, bloggers, and the netroots has not yet spilled over into the general public. At least, that is, not yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the third week in February, speculation about [tag]Al Gore[\/tag]’s future picked up considerably with high-profile columns from Roger J. Stone Jr. and Dick Morris. In the third week in March, a cover story for The American Prospect renewed talk about another [tag]presidential[\/tag] [tag]campaign[\/tag] for Gore. The third week in April, it was once again […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}