Al Gore won’t run for President. The discussion he had with Marty Peretz of The New Republic tells me why. Namely, it’s the media, stupid (via The Raw Story).
“Modern politics seems to require and reward some capacities that I don’t think I have in abundance … such as a tolerance for … spin rather than an honest discussion of substance. Apparently, it comes easily for some people, but not for me,” Gore says.
Peretz reports specifically on Gore’s coverage in The New York Times and in The Washington Post, each of which reported and/or referenced Gore’s supposed claims that he invented the Internet, that the two main characters in Love Story were based on him and Tipper, and that he discovered the toxic waste at Love Canal.
Asked about the debate coverage, Gore tells Peretz, “The sighs, the sighs, the sighs … Within 18 hours, they had turned perception around to where the entire story was about me sighing. And that’s scary. That’s scary.”
We have a “Gotcha!” media when it comes to Democrats, liberals and anyone left of center who becomes a public figure (just ask Cindy Sheehan). I suppose I don’t blame Gore for his reluctance to re-enter Presidential politics. Undoubtedly the same media mavens who slimed him last time would gleefully resume that task again should he run. They have already done a number on John Edwards haircuts and Barack Obama’s middle name in this election cycle. A Gore comeback would give them a field day to regurgitate all the lies and slanders from the past, and invent new ones.
Which makes it all the more vital to give progressive candidates alternatives to reach the public, whether blogs, YouTube or Progressive talk radio. Because the mainstream corporate media is not their friend. Or ours.
I love you, Steven, but I hope you are wrong and that Representative Mahoney is right.
Ditto, on both points…
statement for so long.
And if anything, I take the article to clearing the path.
Why didn’t you post the remark right under that in the article.
“Tipper says he has made zero moves that would suggest a run for the presidency, but adds that if he turned to her one night and said he had to run, she’d get on board, and they’d discuss how to approach it this time around, given what they’ve learned.”
And we all know that means he hasn’t been currently running, but should he decide to……..WOOOPS…should he decide “he had to run” WHAT YOU SAY…another POSSIBILITY? She will support it.
I am so excited. This sounds like the starting gate.
Run, Al, Run
Time for a COOL change,
Gore
2008
(Actually I meant ditto to “(1) I love you Steven, but (2) I hope you’re wrong…)
I am still hoping Gore will run — he would be the strongest possible candidate on so many fronts, and also the one with the best chance of healing some of the divisions that Bush and Co. have encouraged and acerbated in this country….
Well, I hope I’m wrong also. But it’s getting late in the day to mount a campaign. Only if the convention is deadlocked (unlikely) do I see a Gore nomination.
Traditionally, The Fall has always been the time to launch a Presidential Campaign. This earlier than usual campaign has done nothing but pit the current contenders against each other, and spend a lot of money in the Traditional Media. Al could raise the money, and people to catch up, right quick. Not to mention spreading a lot of money into the UN-traditional Media.
I would vote for ANY Democrat, and feel better about our future, but Al clinches this thing, the minute He announces. He knows it, We know it, and “They” know it.
Keep your fingers crossed.
If Gore doesn’t run for President, maybe he should lead that civil disobediance for Global Warming he was talking about.
Which in this situation here in America is ALSO largely the talent to govern.
You must be able to communicate on a certain low level in order to lead the American people today. The media has been used to thoroughly dumb down the American people and there is not a GODDAMNED thing that can be done about it at present.
It has been this way…increasingly…since JFK’s victory over Nixon. Which victory was largely based on his TV image. It has only gotten worse since.
Butch II does have this ability.
He LOOKS the part. That alone gives him about 33% of the electorate. Maybe more. Rove knew that the day he met Butch and successfully based both of their subsequent careers on this one attribute.
Rove on first meeting Butchie Boy:
DUH!!!
i just saw some news footage of him strutting around some highly fortified safe area of Iraq last night. He’s STILL got it. It’s bullshit…but it works.
There are only two Dem candidates who have an image that will work in this way.
Queen Hillary and Revolutionary Prince of Bel Air and Points Upwards Barack “I got the baraka” Obama.
Bet on it.
(Baraka. An Islamic/Arabic term for personal power. Charisma. You could look it up.)
So…here we jolly well are, aren’t we.
At least fat Al understands his own lacks. I can only that wish that Edwards did.
And here we go into the REAL campaign.
Gonna be interesting.
Obama + Hillary against Giuliani the Rat King. Which is another sort of usable image. Mean enough to lead, mean enough to win. Sorta the Leona Helmsley/Donald Trump approach.
It’s gong to be a limbo dance kind of campaign, I am afraid.
How low can we go?
Only time will tell.
And of course…who holds the dancing stick.
We shall see.
We shall soon see.
Bet on it.
Later…
AG
considering he won once already.
Most everyone seems to have forgotten that one wee, wee fact. That’s how strongly the media’s dislike of Gore has affected U.S. thinking: he’s no good, by golly, even if the majority of the voters said he was. It’s disgusting how the Democratic Party generally let down its supporters in 2000 by going along with the Supreme Court coup and how it specifically let John Kerry hang out to dry in public when being attacked by the right-wing noise machine. Of course both and Gore and Kerry could have been personally a bit more forceful in defense of themselves.
How do I know this?
He isn’t President now and he never has been.
He SQUEAKED out a miniscule majority against perhaps the least qualified man ever to run for President.
And then…when confronted with the fraudulent election, he folded his tents and quietly crept back to his mansion.
He lost TWICE.
Had he shown some real backbone and forced a constitutional confrontation, I would forgive him his lacakadaisical showing in the campaign. Even if he lost such an attempt, the real shit would have been on the table 5 years earlier than the way it happened after he ran his game.
But then…if he had possessed that kind of courage, he wouldn’t have lost the election in the first place.
Kerry followed right in his footsteps, too.
Cop-out motherfuckers, both of them.
So now..now that we actually have TWO politically talented Dems vying for the prize (Clinton and Obama, lest you misunderstand) , what do I hear from many of you fools?
Gimme an E!!!
Gimme a D!!!
And a W and an A and an R and a D and an S!!!
EDWARDS!!!
KerryGore III.
Only even LESS talented.
Jesus.
Dimnocrats.
Can’t win with ’em, can’t win without ’em.
Fucking Dimnocrats.
AG
Another lesson learned, don’t let these RepublcANTs, who can’t do anything right, stop you from talking about all the things you DO RIGHT!
Time for a COOL change,
Gore
2008
I want that intelligent, honest visionary that is a leader seen as he should be around the world to be our President. President Gore finally in the White House!!!
statement for so long.
And if anything, I take the article to clearing the path.
Why didn’t you post the remark right under that in the article.
“Tipper says he has made zero moves that would suggest a run for the presidency, but adds that if he turned to her one night and said he had to run, she’d get on board, and they’d discuss how to approach it this time around, given what they’ve learned.”
And we all know that means he hasn’t been currently running, but should he decide to……..WOOOPS…should he decide “he had to run” WHAT YOU SAY…another POSSIBILITY? She will support it.
I am so excited. This sounds like the starting gate.
Run, Al, Run
Time for a COOL change,
Gore
2008
I wish I could interpret this article the way you do. But for now I see it as a sign to his supporters to start looking for another candidate.
Still, I hope you are right and I am dead wrong. I’d vote for Gore in a heartbeat. If Hillary wins the nomination, I may just vote for the Green candidate.
supporters didn’t give up.
You have to work for a good thing, sometimes it can’t be handed to you on a silver platter. And we have shown we know he is the best person and we know he is the only one that can make the changes we need.
He is realizing it too, which is why he said last month that he may reenter politics and none of the candidates are addressing the threat as they should be.
Superman wears Al Gore pajamas.
🙂
Which is why Democrats should not spend large amounts of money placing campaign ads in said media. The money is wasted because the media undercuts the bought message and amplifies the bought message of Republicans.
It’s time to change the way campaigns work.
Problem is that all the campaigns have consultants who are thinking same-old, same-old. The sure definition of mental illness.
Very astute. They are fighting the battles of the 90’s all over again. It’s ridiculous. Our two parties are becoming the GOP and the GOP without the religious nutjobs (i.e., the Democrats). This will be especially true if the old time DLC hands and DC establishment have their way.
There is no future outside of the Two Party System in this Country for the perceivable future. I don’t give a rat’s ass whether it’s a Candidate perceived as DLC, or a Candidate who’s a Rock Star, Lawyer, Administrator, an Elf, or a Curmudgeon. I don’t care if they are Purist, Centrist, Peacenik, or Immoral.
I want the Republicans to lose all semblance of respectability. I want a future.
Without Democratic control there is none. Anything less than that equals World War III.
In Quantum Physics, an important factor is Perception. The very act of Perception changes that which is perceived. Elect any Democrat, and they will immediately be changed by the Country’s perception of them. Look at them in a bad light, and you’ll get just that. Perceive them as a Hope for the Future, and they will rise to the occassion. There is no choice. Either we leave this nightmare behind, or we are doomed.