Will Al Gore run for prez in 2008?
I’ve speculated a few times (see here, here, and here) on the possibility of Al Gore running for president again in 2008. He’s claimed he won’t, but nevertheless the belief is out there that he will.
Mark Noonan over at at GOP Bloggers has a good post up on why he thinks Al will go for it again in ’08. A sneak peek:
First off, on Gore running: conventional wisdom, which happens to be correct in this instance, has it that Hillary is weakening as the potential Democratic standard-bearer in 2008. What conventional wisdom won’t talk about is precisely why Hillary is weakening: because she won’t become forthrightly anti-war. Hillary’s rousing reception at Mrs. King’s funeral only shows that for black Democrats, the name “Clinton” still has magic – for the rest of the Democratic base, the magic is gone…and unfortunately for Hillary, most of the early primary States have Democratic populations mostly white, and mostly very far left. Hillary is weakening because the far left – which is gaining full control of the Democratic nominating process – doesn’t want anything other than a far-leftist as candidate. The political scene in the Democratic Party is becoming picture-perfect for the far left, anti-Bush…and Al Gore, the man who “beat” President Bush but had the election “stolen” by Evil Bush is the sine qua non of anti-Bushism. If Al Gore isn’t thinking of running – and I think he is – then the enticement to jump into the race will become irresistible by late 2007.
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As for why Al Gore will lose by the largest margin in American history, that is quite simple: the collection of leftwing lunatics who support Al Gore and who will give him the Democratic nomination will sink him like a stone in the general election. Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore will seem like reasonable dissenters compared to the leftwing looney bin that’ll gather ’round Gore.
I’m not so sure that Gore would win the nomination, even though I think Mark is right on regarding the support the unmedicated one would get from the far-left flank of the Democratic party. If Gore were to run in 2008, I’d see him as the Howard Dean of that presidential campaign season: someone who would be adored by the hardline Democrats, but who wouldn’t go over well with the more mainstream wing of the party who would realize early on that it would take more than a show of raging anger and bitterness towards the Republican party to win the big prize.
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