Flipping through Phoenix radio last night, I came across a local program in which they were discussing the odds of Gore as a third-party candidate, specifically the Green Party. The claim was made that Nader and the party have approached Gore, and that he was seriously considering it. They claimed that Gore doesn’t think he can beat the Clinton machine when it comes to the Democratic Primaries, but he believes he could in the general election.
It was speculation and a lot of “insiders close to Gore say” with little specifics, but it was interesting.
Could a Gore Green Party candidacy win? Or would it cripple the Democrats? Would it even be something he would do?
The Dems’ hopes for 2008, although admittingly quite early, look pretty bleak right now. Gore running for the Green Party would be the nail in the coffin. It’d also be very sweet revenge I imagine. It’s funny to think that, in their own way, the Green Party helped prevent the greenest presidential candidate to ever run from being elected.
I think that if he runs as a third-party candidate, he will actually pull enough votes from the democratic nominee that whoever the republicans nominate will win, even if he admits to being an atheistic, aborted-fetus-eating, gay-man-loving, transvestite.
This is nonsense. The only reason Gore would consider a run on the Green ticket is if he wants to torpedo the Democratic candidate and elect the Republican candidate. Why would Gore want to do that? Even if he dislikes (say) Hillary intensely, why would he imagine a Hillary presidency would be worse that Guliani or McCain? And that’s not Gore’s style, he’s not an out of control maverick, he might have a bit of an ego but nothing out of the ordinary for national politics, he wouldn’t run out of egomania.
So he’s not going to run as a spoiler, and if Gore wanted to actually have a shot at the presidency he is perfectly free to run as a Democrat. I don’t think he’s got a very good chance, but if he really wants to be President someday this would be his only chance. Running as a Green guarantees he’d be a spoiler, running as a Democrat means he’s got a slim chance of winning the nomination. But Gore isn’t going to be running against George Bush again and I am pretty sure he’s given up on the Presidency. And this is a mark of maturity on his part. I’d be disappointed in him if he tried to run and there’s absolutely no indication he is.
A politician of Gore’s experience cannot possibly be naive enough to think he can win the presidency on a third-party ticket. Besides, why would he want to fight Hillary? Aren’t they friends? Wouldn’t she, as POTUS, be sure to listen to him?
What makes you say that? Nobody running on the Pub side yet looks exciting. There isn’t even a single candidate who can reliably appeal to the whole party base. The religious right hates Giuliani (social liberal) and Romney (Mormon), anybody sick of the war hates McCain, and “brownback” is the new santorum. They’ve got nobody who could beat Clinton, or Obama, or a Clinton/Obama ticket.
So, the person who ran against Al Gore, and is arguably the single person most responsible for Gore not winning Florida and the Presidency in 2000, Ralph Nader, is going to humble himself and ask Gore to run as a Green Party candidate in 2008?
Whoever thinks this scenario is realistic must be high.
I think that it would be great to have a major figure like Mr. Gore to run as a presidential candidate for the Green Party. IMHO it is highly desirable to have a multi-party democracy, and having just two parties in a country as populous and divers as the United States forces each of the two major parties to extend the umbrella coverage too wide, meaning that two Democrats (or Republicans) can be disagreeing on one half or more of the important issues.
For other parties to attain national prominence in the USA, it will be necessary for known candidates like Al Gore to join those other parties.
In the short term, people to the left of the Republican party will think this is a bad thing. But in the long term, I believe that having 3 or 4 major parties in the USA will be a good thing. Seeing as how the USA is the most “right-wing” of the Western industrialized nations, it seems clear that there is more room for a new party on the left of the political spectrum. The Democrats would eventually become centrists and the Green Party (or whatever the name of the new “leftist” party is) would become the “liberals”.
But shooting for the presidency is a huge mistake. If the Green party can’t elect people mayor, to state legislatures, to Governorships, to the House and the Senate, how can the expect to elect someone president? If Gore (or some other major figure) joined the Green party with the hope of getting elected president that would simply be a stunt.
No national figure is going to join the Green party and run for office with the hope of winning office, because if they really wanted to win office they would remain in their current party, which has a gigantic support apparatus behind it. The Green party can’t hope to seduce successful politicians, because those successful politicians are successful in their current party. They can only hope to recruit UNSUCCESSFUL politicians, those who couldn’t win office in the Democratic (or Republican) party. And if they couldn’t win office as a Democrat, why would they think they could win office without the backing of a major party?
Gore COULD join the Green party and promote it, but NOT by running for office himself, running for office (at least for the presidency) would be counterproductive. If he really wanted to promote the Green party he’d join it and endorse and campaign for other Green party candidates. But that could freeze him out of the Democratic party, which is where the real political power is. If he wanted to promote green candidates he’d have 20 times the success if he picked green Democratic candidates and endorsed and campaigned for them.
Ralph Nader has said nothing about running in '08; and, as he once told me himself at a public event, he is not a leader of the Green Party, he is not even a member. He was simply drafted by them in 2000 and 2004. IOW, he has no say in who will be the Green candidate in '08. He does not have to “humble himself.” He has no part to play.
I won’t pretend I know much about Gore’s character, but I can’t imagine him doing this. It’s a really bizarre theory and it doesn’t make sense from any angle. If he thinks he could be elected President under any circumstance, he’d run as a Democrat - you know, the party where he was a multiple-term Senator, two-term Vice President, and former Presidential nominee. And he’s arguably more popular than he was in 2000. If he just wanted to draw more attention to climate change issues, he doesn’t have to run as a Green - he could just keep doing what he’s doing. At this point, I think Gore would be the last person in the world to say there wasn’t enough difference between the parties on climate issues or anything else.
I agree earnestly, except that until we change the electoral system, it is impossible for any candidate to run on a third-party ticket without playing a “spoiler” role. As Ross Perot and Ralph Nader taught us well within living memory. (I would add Pat Buchanan, but he never got enough votes to make a difference.)
Lemur866: I agree that a Green Party presidential candidate has no practical chance of winning in 2008. The party has to be built from the ground up. I was arguing that the publicity value of this would do a lot to promote the Green Party, with the unstated assumption that Mr. Gore would actually become a member of the Green Party for his candidacy, which as we all know from past examples (Nader) is not necessarily the case.
The OP says that the media report in question said that Nader and the Green Party approached Gore. I’m responding to that allegation, whatever its veracity.
But let’s get real: Ralph Nader has an ego that is equal to or perhaps greater than any luminary you can name in Washington. He’s also leveled pretty harsh attacks on Gore (like this) and has called him on many occasions, in various ways, a traitor to the environmental movement. For a “principled individual” (read: zealot) like Nader to ask Gore to run for President would, IMHO, require Nader to eat some crow on the subject of Gore being a corporate lackey. That’s something which I think Nader is incapable of doing.
Something else just occurred to me: why would Green Party members want Gore as their candidate if they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for him in 2000? Wouldn’t this be like Democrats nominating George HW Bush to run for president again?
As for Gore helping build the Green party, I honestly can’t imagine him seeing that as an important goal. Gore has worked within the Democratic party for decades, he as a Senator, Vice President, Presidential candidate. If he thought the Democratic party was flawed beyond saving, he sure has a funny way of sticking with it.
To the extent that Gore wants to promote green ideas, he will do so electorally within the Democratic party. Thing is, while his joining the Green party might be good for the Green party, it certainly wouldn’t do a thing for Al Gore. And it would have a very good chance of ruining Al Gore’s reputation among people who matter, people who now hold office as Democrats and will continue to hold office as Democrats. If Al Gore wants to promote environmentalism he has to preserve his reputation with these people, not throw it away on a publicity stunt he doesn’t need.
Yeah, that’s why I couched the OP with a lot of “they claimed” and “speculation” and pointed out there was very little specificity. It seemed like wishful thinking on *somebody’s * part, and some online searching didn’t turn anything up. I was just curious.
However, I will say that I don’t believe that Gore and Hillary Clinton are friends, as someone mentioned earlier.
What makes you say that? Nobody running on the Pub side yet looks exciting. There isn’t even a single candidate who can reliably appeal to the whole party base. The religious right hates Giuliani (social liberal) and Romney (Mormon), anybody sick of the war hates McCain, and “brownback” is the new santorum. They’ve got nobody who could beat Clinton, or Obama, or a Clinton/Obama ticket.