Did anyone else see both appearances by Gore last night? One thing I do know: he was hilarious on Letterman, for sure.
I’m not going to offer any opinions yet, I’m curious to see what others thought. Specifically folks who saw his appearances, this is not supposed to be a general Gore thread. These were his first TV appearances since the 2000 election, and our first chance to see if he’s changed.
So, any comments or opinions?
That is one of Gore’s attributes. The only sure thing is that he is going to change. 
Has he changed? Ask yourself this, Stoid - why did he appear on Letterman?
Probably answer…to show people he changed. This is him. Smart, funny, really personable. This is really him. No, really. I swear. This time he’s being real. No. Honestly. Just because the polls told him that people thought he was being fake, that isn’t the sole reason he went on the show the true side of him.
This is the problem with the Gore public perception now (justified or not, it’s what the perception is). He’s trapped. People said he should stop changing with the polls so much, so now he’s decided to stop changing with the polls. Except, that’s what he just did. It’s all very surreal.
And the worst part is, I can’t think of any Democrats who have a chance of beating him in the primary, even though I don’t think he should run. He certainly won’t get my vote (neither will Bush) so it looks like I may have to vote for myself again. Bah.
To answer the OP: Yes, Gore will run. He’s running right now. And yes, he can win the Democratic nomination. Among Democrats, 36% would vote for Gore today, and the next closest Democrats are Lieberman and Edwards, with 12% each.
Now, part of that is that none of the other guys have differentiated themselves yet. Right now, it’s sort of ‘Gore against the other Democrats’, meaning that they are splitting the anti-Gore vote amongst themselves. Once that side of things firms up, the numbers will no doubt change. But right now you’d have to call Gore the favorite.
But can he win the election? Not a chance. Bush Jr. is not his father, and isn’t going to squander a Republican majority in both houses and a 68% approval rating in two years. Unless something changes (and in these times, that’s always possible), I’d have to say that you’re looking at a Bush landslide in 2004.
If Gore was smart, he’d keep himself in the public eye but sidestep the 2004 election and run in 2008 against an outgoing president.
Gore could actually become a very attractive candidate in 2008. If he keeps himself out of Washington that long he’ll be able to run as an outsider, but one who is very experienced in Washington. And if he spends the next six years actually getting back in touch with the people and not the special interests that have surrounded him for 20 years, he could actually come back with something very valuable to offer.
Yeah, thats the problem with Gore. All those special interests. The trial lawyers. The NEA. Those guys.
Not like the Pubbies, who are straightforward guys, really, not like politicians at all, but really in touch with the people. Rich people, mostly, but still, people. Bush, he’s a rancher. OK, first he got the hat, then he got the cattle, but still… He knows a polled heiffer from a hole in the ground. Probably. Didn’t his Daddy used to sit around eating pork rinds and watching Hoo Ha? Or was it Yay Hoo? And listening to Tommy Wynette and Wally Nelson.
And its not like he really agrees with all the weird shit that Tom DeLay says all the time, its just he’s too busy being a leader to say anything about it. Plus, he doesn’t want to hurt Ol’ Tom’s feelings, Texans being so sensitive and all. Delicate, you know?
The trouble with Al is that the same qualities that might make him a good President make him a terrible candidate, and vice versa with Bush. Al is wooden and clumsy, but he’s smart as all get out and has been studying for the job since he was in his twentys. He’s probably written more books than Bush has read.
Bush, on the other hand, is photogenic and reads his lines with almost Reaganesque conviction, though he has the intellectual depth of cottage cheese. I think he really believes the crap he spews, because he doesn’t know any better. He doesn’t know what a gallon of milk costs. He’s never had to decide which kid needs shoes now, and which can wait till next paycheck.
Would anyone be interested in the outakes from the Babba Wawa interview? About how his kids felt when the Pubbies bussed in people to surround the VP house in Washington and scream at them? “Get out of Cheney’s house” Remember?
But this is all years away, an eternity in politics. There’s some pretty ugly shit coming round the corners, after Our Leader endears us to the world and practices some more of that voodoo economics. We may look back on this as the good times.
Lordy.
Nah, it’s just them pussies 'round Waco. 
As per the OP: Yes, Gore can run and can win, but only if he comes out swinging hard against Bush the Younger and with a positive agenda for the future. As you saw on Letterman, an energized Gore makes for a very compelling candidate. Run as if you have nothing to lose, Al.
Smile when you say that, pardner. Oh. You are. Well, what can I say. You are what you eat, I guess.
I’m pretty sure the Baptist church don’t approve of such activities.
As long as it doesn’t lead to dancing.
I thought that was the Methodists.
And it’s so dry the baptists are sprinklin’ converts and the methodists are towelin’ 'em off!
That’s David Brin, btw.
“If Gore was smart, he’d keep himself in the public eye but sidestep the 2004 election and run in 2008 against an outgoing president.”
Won’t happen. All Democrats remember 1992 when prominent Democrats made the same calculation allowing Bill Clinton to come in from nowhere and steal the big prize.
As to whether Bush is beatable I would say , yes, provided the Democrats can provide a popular economic platform, for instance promising bigger middle-class tax cuts than Bush while pushing to reverse the huge Bush cuts for the wealthy.
But then I think Gore would have won easily on such a platform in 2000. I think the Dems would have quite easily this year on such a platform. I don’t know why the Dems didn’t craft such a platform in 2000 and 2002 so I don’t know if they will do it in 2004.
Can’t see how that will be possible. BushCo is already deep into voodoo economics and the Laughable Curve. Barring a set of miracles (economic recovery with a bang, no war, no terrorism) the Fed deficit will be huge by 2004. The candidate who runs on a lower tax platform will be lying through his teeth. Not saying that won’t work, mind you. But it has risks. Look what happened to George the First when he said “No nude Texans!”.
“The candidate who runs on a lower tax platform will be lying through his teeth.”
No a middle-class tax cut is possible if the big cuts for the top 1% are largely reversed. You couldn’t have big cuts ,say, for the 90 to 99th percentile either, but you could definitely have cuts for the median household who didn’t get much from the Bush cut at all despite all the rhetoric.
Well, I don’t know about that. Economics bores me senseless, and you can always find a Respected Expert to say exactly what you want to hear. It isnt scrying with entrails, but it isnt physics either.
Whats wrong with a tax cut that favors the rich isnt the economics, its the injustice, the servile pandering. Even if we were to nationalize the rich, and divest them of every dime above a million dollars (pardon me while I swoon over my vision), they ain’t got that much money. They’ve got more than they can spend, so the rest of it is in the economy, its invested.
So an economic policy of “Eat the Rich!” wouldn’t accomplish all that much. Can’t say it wouldn’t be a load of laughs. Can’t say I wouldn’t roll around on the floor having giggling fits while they shriek in porcine agony. But it wouldn’t accompish much.
In this week’s issue of Time, Al Gore admits that, during the election, he got himself too obsessed with tactics and didn’t focus enough on strategy, on communication, on the key issues.
Well, yeah! And that’s why he shouldn’t be president!
Well just look at the figures:
http://www.taxplanet.com/prez/pctj/pctj.html
The top 1% get 42% of the cut. The bottom 80% get just 30% of the cut. If you reversed most of the cut for the top 1%( their taxes would still be lower than before Bush, mind you) you have about 35% to play with (roughly 40 billion a year). Give about 15% of that to additional tax cuts for the bottom 80%. Give the people from 80 to 99 the same tax cut as Bush. Allocate the rest of the money to plugging the deficit, SS etc.
Voila. You have given 80% of the voters a reason to vote for you compared Bush to and produced a sounder budget. If the Democrats can’t sell that and win they don’t deserve to be in politics.
Alternatively the Democrats could do what they have done in the last two elections; flounder around without an economic message,lose and see even bigger and more unfair tax cuts passed by the GOP.
CyberPundit—Senator John Edwards (D-NC) is already suggesting a tax policy along those lines. Edwards, for those who don’t know, is one of the Democratic presidential candidates who hasn’t yet said that he’s a candidate. This push for fair taxes will likely be the Democratic mantra in 2004, with lower-level tax cuts and upper-level tax hikes being sold to the voters.
The Democrats never ran with such promises before because it would have been a transparent lie. The economy hadn’t yet gone into the toilet while Clinton was president, so there was no need to cut taxes. Now that we’re in economic doldrums, in a recession that isn’t really a recession but rather a recession that’s either just ended or that we’re coming out of soon (as Paul O’Neill explains it,) tax cuts make sense. If the economy gets to booming again, it makes sense to raise them. Any Democrat who would run for president in 2004 without planning to cut taxes in 2005 is nuts (unless, of course, the economy miraculously takes off again over the next two years. That would take a great issue off the Democrats’ table.)
However, any Democratic candidate is going to run with a promise for a lower-income tax cut, while charging that the Republicans’ tax cuts are unfair and lopsided. During a time when no one has a whole lot of money and good jobs aren’t popping up right and left, this will work well for them. All they have to do is promise fair taxes and promise to do them right, and they’ll at least have the voters’ ears.
Bush could be quite vulnerable in 2004. Sure, people SAY he’s doing a good job right now. But a lot of that is whistling in the dark. What, you’re going to bad-mouth the president during this terrorism crisis? Sure, they’re going to say he’s doing all right. That doesn’t mean they’re going to vote for him in 2004, no matter what they say right now.
But I believe Gore would be a terrible mistake for the Democrats. What the Democrats need is to run a popular governor in 2004. Everybody talks about how the R’s took congress, but the Governorships are the real breeding ground for presidents. Make a list of Democratic governors. Toss out obvious losers like Gray Davis. You can also toss out the governor from my state. Uh, Gary Locke is not going to run for president. Sorry.
I’ve searched for a current list of governors, but can’t seem to find one. But any democratic governor, no matter how obscure, has a decent shot at the presidency in 2004.
Lemur866—If you’re looking for a list of governors, you might try here:
It lists everyone. I haven’t gone there yet to see if they’ve updated their list since the last election, but I haven’t had to, since I’ve made my own list of the 49 existing governors (Alabama still hasn’t been resolved.)
Vermont’s former governor, Howard Dean, is said to be planning a presidential campaign. So is Tom Vilsack, governor of Iowa. Georgia Governor Roy Barnes also planned a run, but since he lost reëlection this year, it’s a safe bet that he won’t be thinking about it.
The Democrats elected quite a few good governors this year—Kulongoski, Granholm, Napolitano, Rendell, Blagojevich, Bredesen, Baldacci… but they’ve just been elected, so I don’t think they’d be top picks for the 2004 campaign. Maybe in a future race, but not before they’ve had a chance to prove themselves.
Vilsack is the top sitting governor I can think of who could make a run in 2004. There’s also Frank O’Banion (Indiana), Bob Wise (West Virginia), Mike Easley (North Carolina), Ruth Ann Minner (Delaware), Bob Holden (Missouri) and, as you mentioned, Gary Locke (Washington). A couple of them would be workable vice presidential candidates, but I can’t think of any sitting governor who’d do well as a presidential candidate except Vilsack. I don’t think the voters would care for a someone who bolts from the state house just two years after election.
Future Democratic tickets could likely carry Rendell or Granholm, I imagine. I think they’d play well nationally, once they’ve had a chance to prove themselves in their own states.