I wasn’t a Howard Dean supporter in 2003-4, although I greatly respected the movement he built and what he was trying to do. But a good friend of mine was a Dean supporter and he hosted a very large house party for Dean in Philadelphia. I remember it mostly because they phoned in to hear Al Gore talk about why he was endorsing Howard and I made a wisecrack about Gore being the guy who invented the internet which elicited loud groans of annoyance.
Gore’s decision to hitch his wagon to the insurgent campaign annoyed both John Kerry and his 2000 running mate Joe Lieberman, and I think it caused some problems Gore wasn’t eager to replicate in the 2008 cycle. He didn’t make an endorsement in that race, and he has no intention of making an endorsement in this one. I suppose his distant relationship with Hillary has contributed to his decision not to endorse her, but he hasn’t and won’t be endorsing any of her rivals either, so I don’t see it as much of a story.
But Politico has “stirring the pot” as a business model, so we get this:
“Some of the stuff that’s been plaguing the Clinton campaign … is the stuff he doesn’t like about serving with the Clintons,” said a veteran Democratic operative who worked for Gore. “My guess is he’ll endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton [over the Republican nominee]. But if he were to close his eyes and wish for a leader who he would want to lead the world it’s not where he would land.”
…About the only scenario anyone close to the former vice president would entertain — and even here it’s preceded by laughs, dismissals and catastrophic caveats — involves an epic collapse on Clinton’s part followed by the Democratic establishment scrambling at the last minute for an experienced replacement.
With a bit of alternative reality yearning in the voice, one of Gore’s former aides posited: “The guy who’s been the victim of Clinton scandals over the years — maybe it is his turn to be a beneficiary.”
Can you see how hard they had to work to create the appearance of a fight here?
Gore was a far greater victim of 5 conservative Repubs masquerading as justices than any “Clinton scandals”…
Five idle comments by people who at some remote point in the past worked on a Gore campaign….and voila…bytes to fill webpage space.
About as lazy a piece as I’ve seen in a while…So lazy they had to work hard at being lazy.
It’s been 15 years since Gore ran for anything. Like a hit piece on Goldwater in 1980.
Meanwhile the weather is making a point that Gore made when he was first running for office…when Jimmy Carter was President. A decade before “global warming” was big. Maybe the 21st Conference of Parties (first was in 1995) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will start getting real at this meeting.
Why worry about Politico wienie circuit gossip.
In gentlemanly terms, Gore has already publicly said everything he’s going to say about the Clintons as long as their gang is running the DNC.
Gore’s endorsement of Dean may have simply been that among the leading candidates, he was the only one that had opposed the IWR. Has everyone forgotten that Gore publicly opposed it even earlier than Dean did? Wasn’t he also mocked for his position by the VS DC DEMs and media? Which also effectively reiterated the official message to Gore: go away.
The all IWR 2004 DEM ticket, half IWR* 2008 ticket, and prospective muscular IRW top of the 2016 ticket are message to pro-peace voters: suck it up because Republicans are worse.
*(Can’t be known what Obama would have done on that had he been in the Senate in 2002. His real time public statements left room to go either way based on future events.)
I had forgotten that Gore had made any statement about W’s Iraq War. But given how Gore carried 41’s water for the First Gulf War and witnessed the Clinton policy against Iraq, that is a historically significant point.
As of he learned something over the years? No?
I’ve always thought that his father’s Senate seat loss hit him hard. Don’t know how far he strayed from acknowledging that his father had been correct and was overcompensating or “evolved” into a pro-war pol. His position on the GWB’s Iraq war suggests the former, but he could have devolved to a more rational perspective by 2002. Then again, he was more free to express an authentic position in 2002.
If the elites in the Democratic Party weren’t controlled by the Clintons from 1992 on, Gore would have been the sane choice for 2004. He was the highest profile DEM that did have a chance to beat GWB. Everything that could have been thrown at him had already been done and he still won the popular voter. No “Swift Boat,” no “reporting for duty,” and no shirking of Abu Ghraib as a non-issue. But he didn’t know how to get around the DEM Party elites and raise enough money. That small donor internet thingy came a bit too late for him.
If a paper wants to publish material this fanciful about politics, they should include pictures and call it a “cartoon” so we understand that nothing is actually being reported, it’s just an agenda being served.
This is 2015 . This is the best that they have for stories?