I am in the middle of reading Drew Westin's The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, which offers a necessary contrast to Al Gore's The Assault on Reason. Gore discusses the importance of reason to achieving sensible policy and what must be done to move us away from the politics of fear and toward a politics of reason. This mostly entails the rebuilding of political communities with two- or multi-way discussions that create a true "marketplace of ideas" rather than the mostly one-way flow of information we get from television (and political TV ads).
Westin's book looks at the reality that emotional appeals work, and they work especially well in our current TV-dominated political landscape. Politicians whose rhetoric fails to make emotional connections lose elections. Just telling people what programs you will enact (the typical Democratic "laundry list") is ineffective.
I think most here would agree that Al Gore's prescience on the issues and long history in government, from which he knows how to get things done, makes him the person most qualified to be President. What many (including, apparently, Gore himself) question is whether he has the skills to be the best candidate for President.
While many Gore supporters may disagree with me, I'd say that if Gore were to run another campaign like the one he did in 2000, people's concerns about him would be justified. However, the section of Westin's book that I just finished reading solidifies my opinion that Al Gore understands how to make the election-winning emotional connections he failed to achieve in 2000 (even though he did win).
In the part I just read, Westin highlights some of Gore's bloodless rhetoric in the 2000 debates: for example, responding to Bush's direct attack on his honesty and integrity by talking about legislation and his desire to achieve "results," even saying "Governor Bush, you have attacked my character and credibility and I am not going to respond in kind."
Westin analyses:
From the standpoint of primate politics, this interchange reflected a classic display of aggression aimed at establishing dominance, and Bush clearly won. Each time he attacked, Gore backed away, hissed a little, but refused to fight.
In other words, voters took the same message from Gore's unwillingness to stand up for himself in the face of Bush's attacks that they did from Kerry's refusal to fight back against the Swift Boat ads.
Westin contrasts this with the kind of rhetoric Gore began to unleash in 2002, criticizing Bush's rush to war with Iraq:
I believe we should focus our efforts first and foremost against those who attacked us on September 11 and who have thus far gotten away with it. The vast majority of those who sponsored, planned, and implemented the cold-blooded murder of more than 3,000 Americans are still at large, still neither located nor apprehended, much less punished and neutralized. I do not believe that we should allow ourselves to be distracted from this urgent task simply because it is proving to be more difficult and lengthy than was predicted. Great nations persevere and then prevail. They do not jump from one unfinished task to another. We should remain focused on the war against terrorism.
In this passage, Gore contrasted the Bush policy with what "great nations do," and made it clear that Iraq had nothing to do with the war against Al Qaeda. This is the kind of wedding of reason and emotion that both stirs and intellectually engages the political brain.
Westin goes on to quote Gore's comments about the need to build a real case and a true coalition before worrying about Saddam Hussein:
If you're going after Jesse James, you ought to organize the posse first. Especially if you're in the middle of a gunfight with somebody who's out after you.
Westin concludes:
This was an old-fashioned, rabble-rousing speech to America's gutland. Gore was talking straight, he was talking tough, and he was using the kind of metaphors he virtually never used in 2000 and never, to my knowledge, used in the 2000 debates. He was beating George Bush at his own game.
This was the Al Gore who should have run for president.
Of course, I think this IS the Al Gore who would run this time, should he enter the race. Including with impassioned rhetoric about what will happen to our planet if we don't confront the climate crisis immediately. No other candidate will speak with the kind of passion needed to wake America up to the danger we face.
So I thought I'd kick off this Blog for Al Gore day by opening up the discussion: what kind of candidate would Al Gore be this time around?
The poll below assumes a Gore run. Please don't insist on answering "he's not running." If you think he's definitely not (despite his being extremely careful not to rule out the possibility in every interview and public statement) consider it a hypothetical.