Category: Al Gore

Kerry Nation and Shoeless Joe.

Seven states across the nation up for grabs last night, and five go to John Kerry. On the flip side, Joe Lieberman finally faced the music and bowed out of the race (So much for that “three-way tie” in NH.)

Well, call me an establishment sellout, but I’m close to putting this one in the fridge. I was glad to see Edwards take my and his home big, but I think Clark’s ekeing out of Oklahoma will hurt Carolina’s Finest on the momentum front. (That being said, Edwards is looking like a grand Veep.) And Dean, well, his 0-7 strategy was a gamble anyway, but I personally don’t believe he’s hitting the right notes to make a comeback anymore. Kerry a Republican? That’s just plain goofy. I’m all for running on campaign finance reform, of course, and I agree with Mark Shields that Dean’s made an enormous contribution in that regard…but I think spinning the “outsider” rhetoric just for the sake of it is lame. (Might as well say “Vote for me! I won’t know what the hell I’m doing for the first two years of my administration!”) Besides, it’s hard to run as the outsider who’ll change the insidious culture of Washington once you’ve nestled the likes of Al Gore to your breast. I’ll still put up Gore’s primary performance last cycle as an order of magnitude more shady than anything that’s gone down this time around.

So, if Kerry’s our horse, I’m ready to circle the wagons. He’s already up ten on Bush according to Gallup. And, having just seen California freak-show Darrell Issa on late-night CNN frantically go the “Dukakis Dukakis Dukakis” route, I’d say we have a real chance to win this thing. Between this and the atrocious State of the Union, I’m starting to get the sense we’ve been grossly overestimating Karl Rove’s political savvy. And, if the Big 47 holds up…it means trouble for the GOP that even Rehnquist, Scalia et al can’t solve this time. Bring it on.

Log Cabin to Blog Cabin.

“Perhaps that’s why former vice president Al Gore’s endorsement of Dean last week felt so strange — less like the traditional benediction of a fellow member of the party “club” than a senior executive welcoming the successful leveraged buyout specialist.” Everett Ehrlich pens an intriguing article on Dean, Ronald Coase, and “virtual parties.”

The Doctor pages Al.

Whoa. Word is Al Gore will endorse Howard Dean tomorrow. I must say, I’m quite surprised by this announcement, particularly given all the water Gephardt and Kerry carried for Al last election cycle (to say nothing of Joe Lieberman, of course.) I guess Gore has either decided the Dems need to rally around a candidate immediately, or he’s recently experienced what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity. Either way, it’s obviously now even harder to envision anyone else but Dean winning the nod, barring a nuclear gaffe by the good Doctor. Update: It’s official.

Iowa Stubborn.

Oh, there’s nothing halfway about the Iowa way to treat you when they treat you which they may not do at all. Wesley Clark and Joe Lieberman plan to skip the Iowa caucus in 2004…I’d say that’s a smart call for Clark (my thoughts on Lieberman are below), given how Iowa treated Bradley and McCain respectively last time around — Bradley came in second after Gore’s debate lie (actually penned by my roommate at the time), while McCain had the sense to stay out in the first place.

Let Slip the Bikes of War.

In the last week before the General makes his anticipated move, Dean courts Clark for a final time. Nevertheless, it looks like Clark is a go (provided he finds time away from his advocacy of military bicycles.) In other Dem election news, Dean (who’s now pulling ahead in Iowa and everywhere else) got in a spot of trouble the other night in the third debate. Regarding the furor over Israel, I thought Dean successfully parried Lieberman’s attack by invoking Clinton, and made Joe (and Gephardt’s flunkies) seem as desperately aggressive as they in fact are. Yet, while he generally avoided the Mean Dr. Dean schtick this time, his comments on race — “I’m the only white politician that ever talks about race in front of white audiences.” — smacks of Gore-like hyperbole. Overblown, self-aggrandizing, and flagrantly ridiculous remarks like those cost Mediscare Al dearly in 2000…I would hope Dean knows better to repeat that mistake. At any rate, I thought Kerry and Kucinich also did quite well, although these two — especially the latter – might soon have to face the music when the General unleashes his cyclists on Sept. 19.

Self-Immolation.

Along with an Anti-Dean cover story (“Must he be stopped?” asks the Jonathan Chait piece), the New Republic evaluates the political consequences of Dean’s rise for the rest of the field. Given how absurdly in the tank for Gore TNR was during the last Dem primary, their endorsement holds very little weight with me. In related news, the Greens start planning for their own 2004 campaign, for which we can once again thank the DLC. So long as Republicratic Dems continue to attack their own left flank in the early going, the Greens will continue to ignore the Democrat in the general election. It’s not rocket science, y’all. You don’t see the GOP declaring war on their own true believers.

Resurgent Left Flank.

The Washington Post surveys the revival of the Left. No new ground is broken in this article, and as I’ve said numerous times before, progressives and liberals are not the same creature (Pt. II), but it’s nice to see lefties back in the Democratic equation for the time being…let’s hope it lasts beyond the primaries. The protective camouflage Republican-lite strategy of the DLC may seem like a good battle plan at first, until one realizes that, by embracing the tenets of the right — even as diluted Third Way “centrism” — the Democratic party will be forever fighting on the GOP’s turf.

Moreover, what the DLC consistently fails to understand is that swing voters care more about vision and integrity than they do about the left-right axis…hence McCain’s “Straight Talk” popularity last Presidential cycle. Many voters perceived in 2000 that Gore didn’t stand for much of anything (particularly after his schizophrenic debate performances), and soured on him – Thus, what should have been a Democratic cakewalk instead became close enough to create the conditions for the Bush-Harris-Scalia junta’s coup.

Many people aren’t flocking to Howard Dean right now because he’s a hardcore lefty, because by his own admission, he’s not. They’re flocking to him because, unlike most other Dems right now, he has a clear, consistent vision, and without vision, the people – and the Democratic Party – perish. Whether it be progressive, liberal, libertarian, communitarian, what have you — the vision animating the Democratic party should come from the left, not from the poisoned well of the bigoted, money-gluttonous right.

In sum, the left should not be browbeaten into right-lite submission by pandering DLC political careerists constantly invoking the spectre of George McGovern and 1972 – it’s time to be the party of Franklin Roosevelt and Robert Kennedy again.

Update: Not two hours after I wrote this post, John Judis compares Dean to McGovern in Salon. I agree that Dean’s got some serious problems in the South, but, c’mon, y’all. It’s getting so that George McGovern has become the new Godwin’s Law among Democratic circles.

“New” Dems, Old Insults.

If you can judge a man by his enemies, then Howard Dean picked up a key endorsement last week. Via Scully by e-mail, Al From’s Democratic Leadership Council – one of Al Gore‘s main water-carriers in 2000 and an organization which counts Joe Lieberman and Bob Graham among its members – decides to attack Howard Dean as an “elitist.” What garbage…The DLC is going to have find a better way of dealing with their left flank than simply casting old GOP insults their way. It’s exactly this type of Republican-lite thinking endlessly promoted by From’s organization that made Ralph Nader the spoiler in 2000. Don’t think it couldn’t happen again. Update: Perhaps Clinton will straighten ’em out, although it sounds like he’s just reading from the Lieberman-Graham playbook instead. Update 2: Independent James Jeffords criticizes the DLC remarks, calling it “incredible to hear such charges coming from Democrats.” Not as incredible as it once was, I’m afraid.

Bradley WetWorks.

One of the many nice things about living in New York rather than DC these days is not having to listen to ex-Gore flunkies gleefully recite war stories from the 2000 primary. But, I must admit, the admission in this article sent to me by a friend brought all the Gore fear and loathing of 2000 (lI’m sure many long-time readers remember it well) roaring back like a mouthful of bile. Seeing that Bill Bradley was up in the New Hampshire polls, Gore ops created a traffic jam on I-93 to discourage Bradley supporters from voting. So, next time you hear some Dem flak blaming Nader voters for the results of 2000, remember it might just have been those same flaks purposely clogging traffic to give us Mediscare Al as our choice of candidate. Grrr…