If Al Gore wants to run for president he probably will want to compete in the New Hampshire primary. If he doesn’t file with the New Hampshire Secretary of State by the end of the day, he will be off the ballot. Come tonight, I hope I will never have to read another comment about Al Gore as a presidential candidate. He was one of the few human beings capable of losing an election to a chimpanzee.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
OUCH!
You too can vote FOR Al Gore in the Democracy for America Presidential Pulse Poll. Click on “Other” and write in Al Gore.
http://democracyforamerica.com/pulsepoll?s=1
Here is an incredible video that shows so well why we need Al Gore making policy in the Oval Office.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARoNENPSIGw
I’m just glad Al is doing such a great job of making people aware of climate change. After winning a Nobel prize for something that he’s passionate about, why would he ever want to run for the job of cleaning up W’s mess?
yeah, he should stick to doing things he is good at.
Gore good a lot of things. You just don’t seem capable of giving him due credit.
Actually he won the election. He lost in the Supreme Court.
he didn’t become president, so he lost.
So the actual election part, that bit where the people voted, doesn’t matter…interesting perspective and one I find appalling.
I find it appalling, too. Incredibly appalling.
But, that doesn’t change that Al Gore somehow managed to lose an election to the most transparently unqualified candidate I can think of in any head of state election in any country, in all of history. There was no 9/11 excuse then. A decent candidate would have won in a Reagan/Mondale landslide.
I know all the excuses…a hostile media, a lot of purged voters, a butterfly ballot, a supreme court intervention…
None of that changes the fact that Al Gore had a singular and almost unprecedented ability to make people dislike him. And, that, and that alone was enough to make the election close enough to steal.
When we add to this that he selected Joe Lieberman as his running mate, we have to become enormously concerned about his much touted judgment.
I’m sorry, but I knew Gore was a disaster and I did all I could for Bradley. And, given the consequences, I am not quick to forgive, let alone ask that he make a reprise.
“There was no 9/11 excuse then. A decent candidate would have won in a Reagan/Mondale landslide.”
Either you’re misinformed or are spinning. On this point, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Your remark doesn’t factor in facts on the ground.
Gore started 18 points down (vs Bush) in 3/99 and suffered double digit deficits all of 1999. The reason? Clinton’s blowjob and the impeachment circus. This graph of NBC/WSJ polls form 1999 shows the handicap Gore started with:
data here
Please see here to find out more about the various factors that played a role in the 2000 election:
“When we add to this that he selected Joe Lieberman as his running mate, we have to become enormously concerned about his much touted judgment.”
Lieberman was a moderate Democrat in 2000 (to the left of moderate Republicans like Specter, Collins and Snowe). He had a decent environmental, abortion and civil rights record. He also pledged to stand by Gore’s progressive populist platform.
Lieberman became a full-fledged weasel when he hawked the war. But, Gore opposed the war, and endorsed Dean over Lieberman partly because of the war.
“I’m sorry, but I knew Gore was a disaster and I did all I could for Bradley.”
I don’t mind Bradley and like him in many ways, but he ran a shrill campaign, possibly egged on by Hillary Clinton’s close friends Koch and Moynihan, who later endorsed him over Gore. What does the neocon Koch, (whose war-mongering is as bad or worse than post-2000 Lieberman’s) endorsing Bradley tell you? If I am not mistaken, Bradley himself had DLC ties during his career, and I am quite sure his record was “centrist.”
Since Bradley endorsed Gore for the general, all is forgiven, but the fact remains that Bradley weakened Gore with his shrill attacks, leaving Gore badly wounded for the general election (eventhough Gore came back to beat the shit out of Bradley and won a 50 state primary victory), and for Nader to resume where Bradley left off and attack away at Gore.
I am pretty sure that you voted for Nader in the general. No, I will not buy “I held my nose and voted for Gore”, because of the continued animosity you have shown towards over the last 2.5 years that I have observed you over. And, Gore ran on solid progressive populist platform in 2000.
“And, given the consequences, I am not quick to forgive, let alone ask that he make a reprise.”
Your knowledge of the 2000 election is piss poor. Please see my DK link above.
I held my nose and voted for Gore.
I doubt that you did. For someone that has a blog, your misinformed comments here and in the past show bitter and irrational animosity towards Gore, which is the reason I doubt you voted for him.
you can doubt all you want but I wouldn’t admit voting for him if I didn’t.
I actually like Al Gore as a citizen, as a person, and as an advocate for environmentalism. I just don’t like him as a politician.
I could say the same things about Dean, who I admired and agreed with, but who I never could entrust with my interests because he was a lousy politician. It’s doesn’t make him a bad person.
The answer to my argument about Al Gore is not that I just have animosity. You think he’s redeemed himself. I don’t think he needs to redeem himself. I just think people are wrong if they think he has suddenly become a good politician.
Lieberman had every fault in 1999-2000 that he has today, it’s just that few people were paying close attention. Need I remind you of the co-sponsors of the original Iraq Liberation Act of 1998?
The act specified:
A weakened Clinton felt he had no choice but to support it. The day before Lieberman co-sponsored the Act, Robert Kagan wrote the following:
In spite of this record of consorting with lunatics, Gore had no compunction about placing Lieberman within a heartbeat of the most deadly arsenal known to man.
anal retentive animosity towards Gore.
Some of your remarks in comments section are even stupider (I’ll try to address them as time permits).
After defending you when Kos dropped BT off DK’s FP blogroll, and having it in my blogroll since then, I’ve just dropped it because of this post.
my synopsis about the 2000 election at Daily Kos:
I’ll try to respond to Booman’s other spins and false characterizations, as time permits.
In summary, Gore started with a 15-18 point handicap vs Bush (which shows that in this country, people don’t mind electing a moron as their President. Given that Bush got 60 million votes in 2004, that fact is cemented solidly forever), thanks to Clinton’s reckless conduct in the whitehouse and the impeachment circus. He came under intense smear, lie, and spin attacks form every possible angle out there (RWNM pre-netroots, media smears, “radical” “leftist” groups, Bradley’s over the top smears, etc).
Despite:
Gore, won the popular vote, and likely FL as well (and hence the election).
Please see my synopsis linked above for a ton of details. Thanks.
he didnt lose
he didnt stay and fight either….which is worse in my book…but its not like the american people would have backed him up…..we got what we all deserved.
he wont fight this time either…he doesnt have that in him…..i dont see a warrioir in him at all….even in his global warming work…he is more an academic….we need a warrior….a gandhi….a washington….an mlk….a stanton…..someone who will get us in the streets….not for a puppet parade…for real protests where things get burned down, and peoples lawns get peed on.
He ran a terrible campaign. The Chimp ran a campaign that consisted of vacuous platitudes (see e.g., “Uniter, not a divider”, “compassionate conservative”, “CEO prsident”, etc.). The main emotional pull that Bush ran on was that he would be the anti-Clinton and restore “honor and integrity” to the White House. This was his main appeal and he would get hoots and hollers from audiences with this line. Instead of taking this ridiculous argument head on, Gore ran away from it and tried to avoid it–thus looking weak and guilty. Gore should have said,
“Chimpy is making a ridiculous argument that demeans the intelligence of everyday Americans. I did not get a blow job in the Oval Office. I wasn’t there. You can’t blame me for that. But I was in the White House for all the good things, like the booming economy, etc., and I will take responsibility for that. So ignore Chimpy’s cheap shots at me for something Bill Clinton did. If you are mad at Bill Clinton–fine–I don’t blame you for being mad–I’m mad at Bill too–just don’t blame me for something I didn’t do and don’t trust someone like Chimpy who is trying to fleece you with this nonesense.”
actually, he should have said that Bill Clinton was the best president in several generations and he was proud of him. Whether it was true or not, cowering in fear of the Clenis made our nation’s nightmare possible.
How Al Gore could manage to lose three debates to George W. Bush will always confound me. Gore just couldn’t stop making people despise him.
Running away from Bill was a terrible tactical move. Didn’t he refuse to appear with Bill during any campaing events?
Like I noted . . . it just made Gore look weak and justified Bush’s charges that Gore had something to be ashamed about.
Not only did he not appear with Clinton but he made his VP pick based entirely on the fact that Lieberman had criticized Clinton on the Senate floor. I’ll never forgive Gore for that. Do you realize that if it were not for a butterfly ballot we would all be gearing up right now to elect Joe Lieberman president of the United States?
If you keep that idea in the front of you mind you’ll quickly lose your enthusiasm for Mr. Gore.
window.(sic)
You can try to play gotcha games…but the facts have a habit of popping up.
One, the Lieberman of 7 years ago is not the Lieberman of today….Just ask the many other former supporters of Jihad Joe.
ANd, the “Conscience (gag) of the Senate” Lieberman was a strong environmentalist back then and MR. Gore specifically mentioned that in his Senate testimony in March as one of the key reasons he chose Lieberman.
He also spoke out clearly on him not agreeing with the Joe of today when he endorsed Howard Dean and not Joe Lieberman in the 04 race.
And….maybe things just happen for a reason. Maybe this is the time we get a great Statesman, Al Gore in to the White House, with out a sheep in wolfes clothing Lieberman as a running mate.
Time for a COOL change,
Gore
2008
Lieberman hasn’t changed at all, where do you get that idea?
“Lieberman hasn’t changed at all, where do you get that idea?”
In terms of actions, he has. For example, his Iraq war resolution, which I note was supported by Hillary Clinton and Edwards (who even went on to cosponsor).
Gore stood up 20 days before the vote on that resolution and voices his opposition to the preemptive and unnecessary war, the first major Democrat to do so. Gore’s oppositing probably fueled the degree of opposition from Democrats that we did see (b/w 50-55% of Dems in congress voted agains the IWR). The other 45-50% caved in and used crass political calculation to support that war, since they were all smart enough to know that no case for an imminent threat was made to justify an invasion and hence to justify the blank check authorization they gave to Bush.
Gore took major bruising from many pro-war media punks for opposing the war. Yet, he continued his opposition to the war, endorsed Dean, continued to oppose the Bus administration on whole range of things such as: illegal wiretaps and the gutting of the constitution, torture, gutting the economy.
You just seem incapable of recognizing anything good in/from Gore. I feel sorry for you.
“he didnt stay and fight either”
If you’re talking about FL’00, Gore fought hard for 35 days, until no recourse was left following the USSC verdict.
Gore has been fighting relentlessly since his anti-Iraq-war speech against the abuse of the Bush administration. He has been fighint tooth and nail against considerable opposition around the world to taking action on global warming. Please see Linda’a diary: http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2007/11/2/1581/42455
If I find the time, I’ll post some more information later.
“we need a warrior….a gandhi….a washington….an mlk”
People are who they are. Gandhi, Washington and MLK were great in their ways, and Gore has done a good deal to help the society in his own way. We need to take the good they give to the society and add out feet and voices to the fight to make it a people’s fight. Gandhi wouldn’t have been Gandhi if people didn’t rise to occasion and fight as well.
Unfortunately, the Democratic establishment hasn’t learned its lesson from the Gore campaign. They are scared of the next chimp beating his chest and making “ugg, me stomp terrarist” noises so they will run another Gore style campaign. This will be the 3rd moderate (read conservative) Democratic candidate in a row (actually, the 4th, couniting Bill). Get ready for President Chimpiani.
There is still a write in campaign.
The Gore diaries won’t stop until someone else has enough delegates to secure the nomination.
Get used to it.
oh god…no.
the fact that people keep bringing up al gore as a presidential candidate really confounds me. is there any evidence that al wants to run for president? a little while ago i saw an interview in which he explained, rather eloquently i thought, why he didn’t want to run for the office anymore.
while i think booman is being a little hard on al gore here (he was robbed in 2000. while there is more he could have done, he still was robbed. he didn’t really lose in the conventional sense), i am also completely sick of hearing “gore for prez” being brought up all the time. al doesn’t want to run. if you really are a fan of the gore, you would at least respect his own wishes and come to terms with the actual field of candidates in the race.
Gore didn’t lose in the conventional sense. Granted. Why that matters is something I will never understand. Okay…it matters from a historical perspective. From any fair assessment of Al Gore’s political skills and acuity, it doesn’t matter.
And, I remind you, if Al Gore were president, we would all be getting geared up to elect Joe Lieberman over Jeb Bush. That’s alternate reality has, thankfully, been spared us.
“And, I remind you, if Al Gore were president, we would all be getting geared up to elect Joe Lieberman over Jeb Bush. That’s alternate reality has, thankfully, been spared us.”
Gore endorsed Dean over Lieberman in 2004 as things played out. How do you know would not have dropped Lieberman off the ticket, if the latter were to act funny and draw Gore’s displeasure?
I can’t understand why other candidate’s supporters go just a bit too far with their lies, smears and attacks on Al Gore in an effort to try to get more support for their candidate. I couldn’t understand why they constantly felt the need to resort to such tactics on a fellow Democrat, let alone Mr. Gore, with his incredible record, that they resort to the same lies we complain of from the reich wing and special interests. Why can’t thy try stating why THEY support their preferred candidate, or maybe that is the problem.
My advice is to try educate themselves about the facts, instead of being lead by lies or propaganda put out by opposition, Lobbyists or Corporate Special Interests that have ulterior motives, and they would probably be much happier learning how to deal with realities and be less angry smearing good people.
Why do I want Al Gore to serve as President of the United States, where he once already won the popular vote, but didn’t have the chance to serve the American People in the position he was elected? Because Al Gore has a tremendous record of accomplishments and experience with a priority of doing good for the people and our world-from his years of public service and beyond in to private life, from when he volunteered to serve in Vietnam (even though he was against the war), becoming a reporter for the Tennessean for 5 years upon his return, serving in the US House, serving in the US Senate, serving as US Vice President and now spending his time in private life working tirelessly getting attention to recognize and solve the Climate Crisis. Al Gore is a proven leader with stature, vision and unmatchable experience and has been proven to be correct on some of the most important issues we still face, like the Iraq war, the deficit, health care, over-reaching powers, trampling of our Constitution, the environment and Global Warming. We deserve him to be our president. He is asking us to rebuild our democracy and for citizen activism to bring about the change we need. Please add your voice and show we know we deserve the best to be in the Oval Office to make the agenda and policy to solve the many crisis we face.
And……..MR GORE HAS THE BEST NUMBERS AND CAN WIN
This is just in October, not to mention him winning in New Hampshire, Michigan and Idaho in primary polls.
Starting here in New Mexico:
Data Collected: 10/12/2007 – 10/14/2007
Release Date: 10/22/2007 9:15 AM ET
48% Giuliani
47% Clinton
6% Undecided
50% McCain
43% Clinton
6% Undecided
45% Giuliani
49% Gore
6% Undecided
IOWA
43% Giuliani
48% Clinton
9% Undecided
42% Giuliani
51% Gore
7% Undecided
CBS Natonal Poll-just released, and THIS IS INCREDIBLE. Not yet being a
candidate,
In a hypothetical three-way contest, 51 percent of Democratic primary
voters choose Clinton as the nominee. That’s the highest percentage since
CBS News started asking the question in the spring and an increase of
seven points from September. Twenty-three percent back Sen. Barack Obama,
while 13 percent support former Sen. John Edwards.
When former Vice President Al Gore, who has not entered the race, is added
as a choice for the Democratic nomination, he emerges as a serious
contender. Gore garners support of 32 percent of Democratic primary
voters, while Clinton gets 37 percent, Obama 16 percent, and Edwards 7
percent. Gore is viewed favorably by 46 percent of registered voters, his
highest favorability rating since October, 2000.
As Donna Brazile, former Campaign Manager, said just the other day in an
article:
“Should Gore wake up one sunny morning and find himself ready to make an
electoral comeback, there will be plenty of people ready to pack their
bags and campaign for him 24-7 in the early states. We would have the
contest some of us hunger for rather than the coronation most expect.”
If you haven’t yet voted, or wish to change your vote in DFA’s online
pulse poll to show support for Al Gore as President, please go here, click
on “Other” and WRITE IN “Al Gore”.
http://democracyforamerica.com/pulsepoll?s=1
Ref:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/25/opinion/polls/main3411229.shtml
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReportEmail.aspx?g=2dbaa9be-dfa7-499e-9aa6-e748067ea7ca
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReportEmail.aspx?g=a0a4a697-5434-4b4a-af49-b144eb929d80
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2007/oct/24/its-all-up-to-gore/
Al Gore wins, 11 pts above Hill.
Released: October 31, 2007
Zogby Poll: Al Gore Leads Top Tier Dems in ‘Blind Bio’ Poll
Survey finds most Democratic likely voters would consider a new candidate given the current field’s views on Iraq and global climate change
A Zogby International “blind bio” telephone poll shows that former Vice President Al Gore is favored over the current Democratic frontrunners by likely Democratic Party voters nationwide – particularly among liberal Democrats.
When Democratic likely voters were given brief biographical descriptions of the top three Democratic candidates – New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards – along with the biography of Gore, the former Vice President won 35% support, while Clinton won 24%, Obama won 22% and Edwards trailed with 10% support. Gore’s bio was the top choice of both men (39%) and women (31%), and also most favored by younger voters. Self-described liberal Democrats strongly favored Gore’s bio (43%) over Clinton (21%), Edwards (17%) and Obama (12%). The bio selections of moderate Democrats closely mirrors the choices of likely Democratic voters overall, with 36% giving the greatest preference to Gore’s bio.
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1383
First of all, New Hampshire is the first Primary and I’m sure you won’t mind if he doesn’t go by your timeline.
He has plenty of time to enter the race after the draft effort, in particular the Super Duper Tuesday elections.
So all your sarcasm aside, I recommend if it bothers you so much, just over look the coming great news on Al Gore.
OH, and a piece of history…..Mr. Gore won the election, but the Supreme Court intervened and placed your Chimp as your president.
And unlike some others who keep running, he fought a long fight for the people for a month…..unlike some others that couldn’t have concede any faster.
Don’t worry, we’re going strong, regardless of your demand and rudenes. OK?
i wasn’t being sarcastic.
“i wasn’t being sarcastic.”
You have a certain animosity, which you seem incapable of letting go of. The facts on the ground are overwhelming as to the positives that Gore has contributed to the country and the world at large.
You need to get over Bradley’s loss in the 2000 primary. It’s long past and is completely irrelevant to what the future needs. Bradley is OK in my books. He is a good guy.
But he did have a “centrist” record, apparently had DLC connections, was endorsed by neocon Koch, etc. He wasn’t the progressive knight in shining armor that you seem to think that he was.
As for how Bradley would have fared in the general, it is hard to say. He was also trailing Bush by double digits, but since he wasn’t linked as closely as Gore was to Clinton’s name (and hence his blowjob backlash, which was real), he would not have that impact him as much. But, he hardly had any serious credential for the job, compared to Gore. Also, people seem to like Gore (other than a few like yourself :)) when they get to hear him directly, without the media smear filters: the following are cases in point:
etc, etc.
A Gore/Obama ticket is what the progressive movement, the party, the country and the planet need. But, continued unfair and irrational animosity from people such as yourself is probably the main reason Gore may not run. We’ll see.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. by Mahatma Gandhi
Looks like the win is just around the corner!
Superman wears Al Gore pajamas