Excessive Gore

Al Gore in '08? I've just been assuming it will be Big Hil in the Presidential finals myself, but Matthew Yglesias makes a pretty strong case for a Gore candidacy in 2008.

At the heart of his analysis is an astute observation about Gore - he could be the most convincing anti-war candidate imaginable. Gore voted for the First Gulf War under President Bush I when most Democrats did not, and he was more militaristic in nature than most of the other members of the Clinton Administration. So he has credentials as something of a "liberal hawk."

But he has also been staunchly against the Iraq War from the beginning, and has strongly made his case since before the conflict began.

So he's not a Howard Dean type candidate, who kind of seems like a Johnny-Come-Lately, using an anti-war stance to launch himself on to the national scene. Don't get me wrong...I like Howard Dean. But I recognize that he's vulnerable as a candidate in many ways that Gore is not.

I'm not sure Yglesias really deals with the fact that Gore never really successfully countered any of the Republican smears against him. If he were to run again, we'd get the same bullshit tropes that have been floating around forever - he's boring, he's a hippie environmentalist, he exaggerates and lies about stuff, um did we mention he's really boring.

Also, I have to say, I'm not terrifically thrilled with the idea of Democrats running a previously failed candidate in '08. I realize that Hillary is kind of a Blast from the Past candidate herself, and that troubles me, but at least she has won some recent elections. Gore hasn't been elected to shit on his own merits in well over a decade.

Still, I kind of like the guy, and he certainly seems to me a more patriotic, resolute and intelligent man than the mutant we have running the show right now. Seriously, if you are reading this thinking in your head that George Bush seems a better, more stable leader than Al Gore, I would highly recommend you make an appointment for a CAT Scan.