...Which brings us back to Al Gore. Pish-tosh, you say, and you’re probably right. But let’s play a little. Let’s say the elders of the Democratic Party decide, when the primaries end, that neither Obama nor Clinton is viable. Let’s also assume—and this may be a real stretch—that such elders are strong and smart enough to act. All they’d have to do would be to convince a significant fraction of their superdelegate friends, maybe fewer than 100, to announce that they were taking a pass on the first ballot at the Denver convention, which would deny the 2,025 votes necessary to Obama or Clinton. What if they then approached Gore and asked him to be the nominee, for the good of the party—and suggested that he take Obama as his running mate? Of course, Obama would have to be a party to the deal and bring his 1,900 or so delegates along.
I played out that scenario with about a dozen prominent Democrats recently, from various sectors of the party, including both Obama and Clinton partisans. Most said it was extremely unlikely ... and a pretty interesting idea. A prominent fund raiser told me, “Gore-Obama is the ticket a lot of people wanted in the first place.” A congressional Democrat told me, “This could be our way out of a mess.” Others suggested Gore was painfully aware of his limitations as a candidate. “I don’t know that he’d be interested, even if you handed it to him,” said a Gore friend. Chances are, no one will hand it to him. The Democratic Party would have to be monumentally desperate come June. And yet ... is this scenario any more preposterous than the one that gave John McCain the Republican nomination? Yes, it’s silly season. But this has been an exceptionally “silly” year.
John Derbyshire over on National Review Online has been having some fun with this notion on the site’s blog spot, The Corner.
Every time one of these Algore balloons is floated, Derbyshire likes to remind his compatriots that he predicted this outcome over a year ago.
I wouldn’t say I predicted the outcome, but I also have been opining on the possibilities for about a year.
The Derb hadn’t really predicted it either, but he had thrown it out as a possibility during a flight of fancy. It was nothing more than a lark at the time, though he enjoys gloating over his self-named role of prognostigator.
John Derbyshire over on National Review Online has been having some fun with this notion on the site’s blog spot, The Corner.
Every time one of these Algore balloons is floated, Derbyshire likes to remind his compatriots that he predicted this outcome over a year ago.
I wouldn’t say I predicted the outcome, but I also have been opining on the possibilities for about a year.
The Derb hadn’t really predicted it either, but he had thrown it out as a possibility during a flight of fancy. It was nothing more than a lark at the time, though he enjoys gloating over his self-named role of prognostigator.
Well, if it indeed does play out in reality, I’d be hard-pressed not to revive my old Algore prognostication threads from last year.
Mayhaps even earn a steak from Raptavio in retrospect. He might be so giddy with delight over a Gore/Obama ticket, he’d forget I didn’t take his wager.
Mayhaps even earn a steak from Raptavio in retrospect. He might be so giddy with delight over a Gore/Obama ticket, he’d forget I didn’t take his wager.
Heh. Don’t bet on it, my good fellow.
Actually I would not at all like a brokered convention to come out with Gore at the top of the ticket. It would be anti-democratic (small and big D) to allow a candidate who didn’t run to suddenly be ‘anointed.’
I would have been perfectly happy with a Gore/Obama ticket if it happened through the normal primary process, of course.
Mayhaps even earn a steak from Raptavio in retrospect. He might be so giddy with delight over a Gore/Obama ticket, he’d forget I didn’t take his wager.
Heh. Don’t bet on it, my good fellow.
Actually I would not at all like a brokered convention to come out with Gore at the top of the ticket. It would be anti-democratic (small and big D) to allow a candidate who didn’t run to suddenly be ‘anointed.’
I would have been perfectly happy with a Gore/Obama ticket if it happened through the normal primary process, of course.
Big D, little d, doesn’t appear to matter much.
Your party big-money donors and high-profile players are making it known that they aren’t much interested in the appearance of “democracy” in your primary selection process.
Hillary Clinton wants what she wants, and she may just froce the issue, especially if Obama is weakened enough to convolute the situation even more.
Committed Dems may not prefer a brokered convention, and may not prefer a Gore/Obama result, but they’ll be just peachy with Gore/Obama should it come to that.
Your party big-money donors and high-profile players are making it known that they aren’t much interested in the appearance of “democracy” in your primary selection process.
Hillary Clinton wants what she wants, and she may just froce the issue, especially if Obama is weakened enough to convolute the situation even more.
Committed Dems may not prefer a brokered convention, and may not prefer a Gore/Obama result, but they’ll be just peachy with Gore/Obama should it come to that.
Well, see, the little flaw in your prediction here is that the big-money donors and high-profile players are not dominant in our party the way they are in yours. Check out the average donation to Obama’s campaign, for example.
There will be thousands of delegates in Denver this summer and the party elders will not be able to break their will quite so easily as you think.
Having Mister “Know it all” as the nominee would make every post 911 Myth a new opportunity to treat he, Sandy Pants Burglar and President B.J. Clinton like Pinatas on Cinco de Mayo.
The party of perpetual fraud is desperate and falling apart. Yet they still throw out these shameless phonies names in hopes of exciting their zombified sheep.
The party of criminal democrats is a joke and a disgrace to this Country. They belong on top the list of President Bush’s axis of evil. There is no doubt Bush , concervatives , republicans or any American who loves his Country are the only ones on the democrats list of enemies.
We can ridicule the buffoonery and vapid 2000 candidacy of Al Gore all we want guys. The reality is, he won the nationwide popular vote, and lost the electoral vote because of a few-hundred vote swing in Florida.
Since that time, the Left has elevated him to something more than a mere politician - he is now a pop-culture icon. The meme of the “stolen” 2000 election is now a mythological belief among the committed Left.
IF the Dem convention is brokered, AND neither Hillary or Barack will step aside, AND the power elite deem it politically possible and wise to select Gore as an alternative to the infighting, the Democrats will be in turmoil for a nanosecond, and they will rally around Gore in a heartbeat, patting themselves on the back for coming up with such an equitable solution to such an insurmountable problem.
At that point, it would simply be John McCain against his good friend Al Gore, and the fight would ensue as it would. We would be wise, if such a thing were to occur, not to take Gore’s candidacy lightly. There would be great momentum and a sense of entitlement propelling him forward, not to mention the whole Global Warming meme.
And I believe that Al Gore is a dangerous man. As in malevolent. I believe he is the kind of individual who believes the end justifies the means, and I believe he conflates his hatred of conservatism with conservatives, and cannot tell the difference.
I agree with IDP. Gore is a much more formidable foe for McCain than are either of Obama/Hillary, considering the tribal divisions that each of those two bring to the fray.
Of course, McCain ought to worry deeply about beating any of the three of them. But Gore would be the strongest, IMHO.
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