" Al Gore? I don¹t think so."

Our favorite presidential handicapper, Barry Casselman, sizes up the presidential field, at RealClearPolitics.  Will he live to eat that one-liner? 

It all depends on the condition of the track.

Comments

[Randy (Internet Ronin)]

Will he live to eat that one-liner?

I planned to say, "I hope not!," and leave it at that but then decided I ought to make it perfectly clear that I sincerely hope that Barry Casselman has a long and healthful life.

[m. takhallus]

I think he's too glib about Gore. The Greens and the War Weenies are Gore's if he wants them. He has good fundraising potential. He won the popular vote in 2000.

I think Obama is a media creation. He has no organization. I think he's already peaked. So it's Hillary in tier 1, Edwards, Obama and Gore in tier 2, everyone else in tier 3.

[david]

Gore and Obama.

It'll give Gore popularity. It'll also keep wackos from assassinating him because they won't want a Black president, the way they wouldn't have wanted to elevate the Jewish Veep candidate Liberman.

Obama's green. No matter. Gore's got enough experience for both of them. Obama could learn to be a meaningful veep, the way some thought Gore was.

It'll give Obama that hypothetical (and yet mostly mythical) leg up toward the Presidency. And it will scare a few more candidates out of the field.

[amba]

Then you could REALLY call it the Green ticket. Heh heh.

[nappy40]

And it wouldn't be a compliment either, Amba. I could see that running on Fox news.

[amba]

Nappy -- just in time for my new post!

[Rod]

Al Gore? I hope so. If Hillary stumbles, he is a natural substitute. He has the best resume in the pack, and more than 50% of the voters picked him in 2000. Obsessed with global warming? He was on the issue early, and a consensus seems to be developing. Precedent? Richard Nixon lost a close election in 1960 and came back in 1968 as an elder statesman. He is real.

[Icepick]

Rod, Gore did NOT receive more than 50% of the votes in 2000. No Democrat has achieved a straight majority of the vote in a Presidential election since at least Jimmy Carter in 1976, possibly not since Johnson in 1964. (I just don't remember which third parties ran in 1976, or how close the vote was between Ford and Carter, and I'm not inclinned to look it up at the moment.)

[Rod]

Icepick:
You are right. Mr. Gore received a plurality just under 50%. My point is that the voters did not reject him, for all the joking about his stiff demeanor. He is the least likely to run of prominently mentioned Democrats and, I believe, the one who could best appeal to the general voting public.

He was never perceived as an extreme partisan. In fact, many Democrats faulted him for not being nasty enough in the 2000 campaign. Al Gore is a decent, intelligent man with the ability to work with others, enough self awareness to be self deprecating, and more experience than the rest of the pack. These qualities will be at a premium in 2008 to a public exhausted by huge deficits, partisan bickering, and a failed war.