[lbo-talk] The Economist: Gore for President. Please!

[Andy F]

<http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/305342_econ28.html>

Here's hoping it's Gore to the rescue

THE ECONOMIST

Enough already. The primaries are 11 months away and the race is
already growing stale. The citizens of Iowa and New Hampshire are
longing for the day when they can visit Denny's without having to meet
Hillary or Rudy.

And the media are busy recycling the same old stories. Can Barack
Obama run for president and give up smoking at the same time? Will
Hillary Clinton hand her Senate seat to Bill if she wins? Is the U.S.
ready for a Mormon president? Or a black? Or a woman? Or a man who
once dressed as Marilyn Monroe?

There is no shortage of money or ideas: The candidates' treasure
chests are overflowing and the think tanks churn out policy papers.
But there is a severe shortage of attention. People will not be able
to watch the same soap opera, endlessly repeated on 24-hour cable news
and pored over in the blogosphere, for months on end without getting
sick of the main characters.

Which means that there is a huge opportunity for somebody to arrive
late and steal the show. The late entrant will not only have the
advantage of being a fresh face. He or she could also change the whole
dynamic of the race, gaining enough momentum to storm through Iowa and
New Hampshire.

Step forward Al Gore. Gore has enough of a national profile to command
instant credibility. He has rich friends to finance him. He will also
command plenty of attention in his own right over the next few months:
His film "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Oscar for best documentary on
Sunday, and he may be up for the Nobel Peace Prize in the autumn.

Gore is the ideal candidate for the Democratic stalwarts who turn out
to vote in the primaries. He came out strongly against invading Iraq.
He has spent the past six years warning the world about global
warming. And he was robbed of victory in 2000 by the man whom the
Democrats loathe above all others.

What better way of wiping out the Bush era than replacing him with the
man who should have been president?

Gore is adamant that he does not want to run again. But will he be
able to resist? It would be one of the great dramas of U.S. political
history. And James Carville, keen observer of politicians, says that,
for them, running for president is rather like having sex for normal
people: It is not something that you do just once if you have any say
in the matter.

-- 
Andy