The Come-Back Kid. This is a great article on Al Gore’s potential for the presidency in 2008. The author interviewed Gore for the piece.
Al Gore has long fascinated me. I loathed John Kerry in 2004, but I took Gore’s mistakes in 2000 personally, almost as if I myself were making them. For some reason, I identify with some aspects of him, and I’d love to see him as President.
From the article:
I tell him that all of his allies are telling me that everyone they know is telling them that he ought to run. He knows. I tell him about people in Hollywood and Silicon Valley, New York and Washington who say that the country needs him to run. He knows. So what does he say to those people?
“I don’t want to give them any false signal,†Gore replies. “I don’t want to be responsible for anyone feeling that I’m inching toward running again when I’m not. You won’t find a single person in Iowa, New Hampshire, or anywhere who has had the slightest signal that originated with me or anyone speaking for me.â€
So let’s clear this up: Why don’t you say right now, unequivocally, that you will not run? Then no one will have the impression that you’re leaving the door ajar.
Gore puts his left elbow on the table, cups his cheek in his hand, and audibly exhales.
“It’s really more a function of my own internal shifting of gears, not an outward coyness. It’s just honest. I was in elected politics for 24 years. I ran four national campaigns. I was first elected to Congress in my twenties. I was around it for all my life before that. And when I say I’m not at a point where I’m willing to say, ‘Never, never, never again under any circumstances,’ I’m just not at the point where I want to say that.â€
There’s also a companion piece, The Trouble With Hillary Clinton. I guess we know where New York Magazine stands.
There is so much wishful thinking in all of this, of course. As someone says in the first article, “Americans love a comeback. We’re a comeback-crazed country. And this would be a comeback beyond all comebacks.â€
Among those Americans who love a comeback, of course, is a large chunk of the media.
I’ve been intrigued with Al Gore since the FIRST time he ran for President in 1988. He’s his own worst enemy on the campaign trail with the stiffness and the lack of humor and if he can possibly run AND relax and have some fun (as he’s been doing since 2001), he might actually stand a chance.
The media love a comeback almost as much as they love a really spectacular fall from grace. Wonder how many times Gore can go from one to the other?
(off-topic, but you’ll see why *this* post made me think of it)
Do you know what I love? That we can read tinmanic’s lovely post, and then check what thoughtful comments have been left by his readers, and no longer do we have to hear from that hateful troll (both definitions!) who once lurked here and lectured us that we were all sellouts and remember Stonewall and Andrew Sullivan=Uncle Tom and complain complain complain and gay gay gay.
It’s like you’ve had a pulled muscle or a sore neck- you wake up one morning, all better! You can breathe again! And you don’t remember just when exactly the pain left… but durned if you don’t feel so much better!