Don't any of you kid yourselves about former vice president Gore's presently-masked political intentions.
If Hilary Clinton were to drop her plans for a presidential run, and go for the senate minority leadership job (or senate majority leadership job, if the Democrats pull enough seats away from the Republicans), then Algore could well be in contention for the US presidency in 2008.
And whats so strange about such a ploy? Isn't that exactly a mirror image of what Richard Nixon did in 1968, eight years after losing an election to John Kennedy by margins not much larger than the Florida squeaker that put George Bush in the White House in 2000?
What was Nixon in 1968, other than a former vice president whose term of office had ended eight years earlier? And what is Algore today if other than just another former vice president whose term of office ended in 2000? And are the surface issues of the Iraq war that much different in type from those of the Viet Nam war?
I've been preaching the likelihood of a presidential race in 2008 between Hilary Clinton and Rudi Giuliani. But I have based this squarely on an appreciation of who all the players are and what the score is in this never ending game.
And one thing I've given thought to about former vice president Gore, is that he is one of the shrewder characters on the american political scene. This is not the kind of man who takes on major jeremiads without some political outcome in mind.
And the outcome that he has in mind, I think, goes like this.
Possibility number one is that he can use global warming -- which he probably believes in with all the intensity of any usual convert to some cause that he was not specifically educated for, but picked up in a latter part of his life, to euchre himself into the oval office of the White House.
Possbility number two is that, if he loses his run for the presidency again, he will have cut out for himself a major role in attracting avidly tuned audiences, and this will be an audience of true believers who will never leave him until he dies. In other words, nationwide political immortality without either having to balance a budget, fight with congressmen for primacy, or bring peace and stability to places like the Middle East.
But for the big question mark that underlies all the above suppositions. Why would Hilary Clinton stand down from her present front runner slot for the Democratic Party nomination for the presidency in 2008? Sure, like the rest of western civilization, I read every word of Sarah Baxter article on just this topic yesterday in the Sunday Times of London.
According to Ms Baxter, it seems that some key leadership people in her party consider senator Clinton her the one contender most likely to win the primaries, to be followed by a general election she is sure to lose. These assumptions are based on polls that show Hilary is viewed favorably by 53% of the electorate, but that an equal 53% of independent voters would not vote for her.
Chew on all that for a while. (You too, Mary Janelle. I wrote it just for you.)
Is it just me, or is Al Gore about 15 pounds away from being the second coming of the late-years Orson Welles? If Gore grew his grey beard back, he would be the spitting image of Welles as a guest on the old Merv Griffin show.
He is so much more effective campaigning for his environmental causes than he ever was for office, partly because when he has to say political things, he gets very boring. He's not very good at playing that game, you can tell he closes up inside when he does that.
Too bad he's such a wrongheaded moron power tripping on environmental scare mongering.
If Hilary Clinton were to drop her plans for a presidential run, and go for the senate minority leadership job (or senate majority leadership job, if the Democrats pull enough seats away from the Republicans), then Algore could well be in contention for the US presidency in 2008.
And whats so strange about such a ploy? Isn't that exactly a mirror image of what Richard Nixon did in 1968, eight years after losing an election to John Kennedy by margins not much larger than the Florida squeaker that put George Bush in the White House in 2000?
What was Nixon in 1968, other than a former vice president whose term of office had ended eight years earlier? And what is Algore today if other than just another former vice president whose term of office ended in 2000? And are the surface issues of the Iraq war that much different in type from those of the Viet Nam war?
I've been preaching the likelihood of a presidential race in 2008 between Hilary Clinton and Rudi Giuliani. But I have based this squarely on an appreciation of who all the players are and what the score is in this never ending game.
And one thing I've given thought to about former vice president Gore, is that he is one of the shrewder characters on the american political scene. This is not the kind of man who takes on major jeremiads without some political outcome in mind.
And the outcome that he has in mind, I think, goes like this.
Possibility number one is that he can use global warming -- which he probably believes in with all the intensity of any usual convert to some cause that he was not specifically educated for, but picked up in a latter part of his life, to euchre himself into the oval office of the White House.
Possbility number two is that, if he loses his run for the presidency again, he will have cut out for himself a major role in attracting avidly tuned audiences, and this will be an audience of true believers who will never leave him until he dies. In other words, nationwide political immortality without either having to balance a budget, fight with congressmen for primacy, or bring peace and stability to places like the Middle East.
But for the big question mark that underlies all the above suppositions. Why would Hilary Clinton stand down from her present front runner slot for the Democratic Party nomination for the presidency in 2008? Sure, like the rest of western civilization, I read every word of Sarah Baxter article on just this topic yesterday in the Sunday Times of London.
According to Ms Baxter, it seems that some key leadership people in her party consider senator Clinton her the one contender most likely to win the primaries, to be followed by a general election she is sure to lose. These assumptions are based on polls that show Hilary is viewed favorably by 53% of the electorate, but that an equal 53% of independent voters would not vote for her.
Chew on all that for a while. (You too, Mary Janelle. I wrote it just for you.)
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI