Coming hot off the heels of a poll showing that the plurality of Democrats want Gore to enter the race for president, another poll is showing that Gore may very well be the most electable Democrat in a general election.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll only polls Clinton v. Giuliani and Gore v. Giuliani, but the result is clear: Gore is the far more electable candidate, something many supporters have been saying for a long time now. With favorabilities on the rise and international acclaim to go along with his movie star status, its no wonder that the former vice president polls four points higher than Hillary; Clinton winds up edging out Giuliani 49-47% while Gore handily defeats Rudy 52-46%. And remember, Giuliani is supposed to be their most electable guy - imagine what Gore would do to the likes of Romney, McCain or Thompson! America is ready to repent for 2000 and is ready for a Gore administration - Al running in the general election is our best bet to win back the White House.
Likewise, after an initial wave of candidate staffers and Gore opponents - see Dan Gerstein and Mark Penn - came out and said that Gore had no chance of winning, some journalists are now hopping on board the Gore bandwagon and urging him to run. Not only does Dick Morris think Gore could still get in, but he thinks he would beat Hillary in the primary election:
Al Gore – the newly minted Nobel laureate – could steal the nomination from Hillary’s well-oiled machine.
Here’s why.
He immediately demolishes Hillary’s two main claims to the nomination: her electability and her White House experience.
Gore has a proven record of being a vote-getter. Gore won the national vote in 2000, outpolling George Bush by 500,000 votes.
Hillary’s claims of being a proven winner are tenuous. She did prevail in her 2000 Senate bid – but only after Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the race at the last minute, citing his battle with prostate cancer.
n 2006, Hillary won an almost a practically uncontested re-election in 2006. Her opponent was Republican John Spencer, a valiant but poorly funded candidate. And remember, winning in blue state New York does not immediately translate into being a national winner.
Gore also has proven executive experience. Unlike Hillary, Al Gore actually played a major role in the Clinton White House.
The First Lady had little or no impact on public policy in the years after her health care fiasco cost the Democrats control of Congress and before the Lewinsky impeachment.
Likewise, Kevin Hassett over at Bloomberg also urges Gore to enter the fray:
A careful look at the dynamics of the 2008 election, and of the current policy environment, suggests that the case for Gore to join the race is quite powerful, both from his own perspective and that of the Democratic Party.
From his vantage point, there are two main considerations. Gore, 59, needs to assess whether he can win and whether his policy differences with the other candidates are serious enough for that win to matter. Both considerations should push him heavily toward running.
Also, in case you needed any more evidence that a Gore candidacy would rock the electorate and create an excitement never before seen in politics, an advertisement in the New York Times managed to get more people to visit the DraftGore.com website than Hillary's campaign site:
The Web site of the national Draft Gore organization (draftgore.com) experienced an extraordinary spike in web traffic last weekend, pushing the number of signatures on its petition to more than 200,000 — a jump of 70,000 signatures in four days. The site received nearly 100,000 hits on Friday.
According to the Web tracking firm Alexa.com, traffic on Draftgore.com surpassed that of Hillary Clinton's official campaign Web site by more than two to one that day.
This spike in activity was triggered by Draft Gore's full-page ad in the New York Times on Wednesday followed two days later by the announcement that Al Gore was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
"Interest in a Gore candidacy is skyrocketing," said Draft Gore founder Monica Friedlander. "People are stirred to action in record numbers by the possibility of America's greatest statesman and global leader becoming the next president of the United States."
The online Draft Gore petition, currently at 208,000 signatures, calls on Al Gore to run for President in 2008. An additional 45,000 people signed a paper version of the petition, and these are not included in the online total. Both documents will be delivered to Vice President Gore's office in Nashville, Tenn.
If he's getting in, it's going to be within the next two weeks. Here's to hoping for an October surprise.
:)