In every presidential election I can remember, the era always carried an adjective like "perilous" or some such equivalent. But with the now clear exigencies of climate change, these times truly are perilous. The Bush regime has once again played bull in the china shop at Bali, just as it has in Iraq, the rest of the Middle East, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, New Orleans, Walter Reed Army Hospital, Kyoto, the World Criminal Court, stem cell research, alternative energy, conservation, etc., etc., etc.
We desperately need to elect someone who has proven to be a real leader; someone who would likely become one of our very best presidents; someone who could redeem so much that has been shattered by our unquestionably worst president. We need someone who can make things happen, intelligently communicate ideas, and lead people the way that Democrats should have been making things happen, communicating, and leading for the last seven years. We need someone with demonstrated leadership, vision, intelligence, knowledge, experience, and spine. We need someone who can lay claim to the legacy of FDR.
We need someone--the only one--who has been correct on all the issues for the past seven years. We need Al Gore! Imagine such a Christmas present to America....
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and throughout the land
Al Gore was now running, and all was so grand!
The voters were watching the White House with care,
In hopes that Al's leadership soon would be there.
Only Al Gore can rise high above the trivial, wasteful, and destructive nonsense that has come to define American presidential campaigns. Only Al carries sufficient stature and credibility to absorb and neutralize all the character assassination, lies, and filthy tricks that will come in a cruel crescendo of rising waves from the Republicans.
Hillary is not the answer. She has horribly high negative ratings among the general public. She would be a huge lightning rod target for the Raging Right in the election "campaign," which would most likely resemble a mud-wrestling match. She's been shown to have allowed planted questions in her audience (inspired by Bush plants in his press conferences and campaign appearances?). She's voted on the wrong side of many important issues. She has been complacent, compliant, and complicit in her triangulated empowering of the Bush regime in Iraq. And she continues to excuse American imperialism in Iraq.
Perhaps worst of all, she would simply continue the ongoing destruction of American politics through dynastic succession ("Don’t cry for us, Argentina!"). Imagine if she were to win the White House and then win again. Then Jeb Bush runs, wins, and reigns another eight years. That would make 36 years of dynastic rule by two families. Then would come who? Chelsea?
There are different concerns about Barack Obama. He's simply too inexperienced (compare his resumé, for example, with Jack Kennedy's). He does not have sufficiently good national or international connections. He has admitted to past cocaine use. He will be another huge lightning rod target--the Raging Right will fill the airwaves with trash about electing a cocaine-sniffing "Black Muslim" who went to school in a madrassah and can only be "sympathetic to terrorists." Of course, he is neither "Black" nor "Muslim" nor any of the other, but since when does reality matter to the current Republican crowd?
I have long been fascinated (as a golfer) by the person and character of Tiger Woods, who is generally regarded by the public as being "Black." But he, like Obama, is less than half so. Both Tiger and Barack are today what most of us will be in another century or two--a motley mix of heritages. Tiger's dominant position in the golf world today owes to more than a quarter of a century of dedication and hard work. It is no diminution of Barack's rising star to suggest that he add another 1 + 8 years to his three years of national experience before becoming the Dems' standard bearer, and thus roughly match the experience that Jack Kennedy brought to the White House.
John Edwards would be an acceptable candidate....if Al Gore does not enter the race. John has staked out good positions on most important issues. As he's a Southern white male, it will be a bit more difficult for the Raging Right to tar-and-feather him. He even seems to have something of the Bill magic with people. His negatives are his limited experience and his pretty boy image. But he's clearly more electable and carries fewer high negatives than either Hillary or Obama, against either of whom the Republicans most want to run.
Crucially, John is the only declared Dem candidate who beats all four likely Republican nominees in head-to-head match-ups in a recent CNN/Opinion Research national survey (in which Gore was not included). John’s margins in that survey greatly exceed both the Clinton and Obama margins in every match-up.
But, but, but....Al Gore is the key to real victory.
The Democrats nestled in blues, whites and reds,
While visions of climate change danced in their heads;
And Tipper with her cell phone, and Al with his map,
Had just focused their minds for the campaign on tap.
Successful governance and the reclaiming of some measure of American moral principle and influence require a landslide electoral victory that carries the longest and broadest coat tails possible. We need a strongly Democratic House and (particularly) Senate if we are to succeed in reducing climate change, ending the war on Iraq, establishing universal health care coverage, and curtailing the power of the military-industrial-energy complex that inhales most of the federal fiscal oxygen. Unless we elect a Democratic president with a filibuster-proof Democratic congress, we won’t recover from the Bush junta for decades.
Democratic, national, and global redemption depends on Al Gore. There is simply no one else in the party with his experience, his connections, his influence, his global respect, and his now above-the-fray political status. He has the best chance of leading the US and the world to meaningful reforms to reduce climate change, easily the top priority for the rest of our lives.
Al’s been correct on all the issues during the Bush regime period. He won the 2000 election, not only in the popular national vote by over a half-million, but also in Florida according to all the reliable post-fiasco research. After Al declares, many of these facts would re-emerge in some of the mainstream media. Republican election fraudsters would have less cover (think Florida 2000, Georgia & Max Cleland 2002, Ohio 2004), and a desire for ultimate justice would be prominent in the minds of many voters next November. One can envision a simple, powerful, single-word campaign slogan: "Imagine."
If anyone has a chance to break the American electoral descent into triviality, it is Al. He has been responsible for one of the largest and fastest opinion shifts in American history as documented by a New York Time/CBS News poll this April: A crashing majority of those surveyed—90% of Democrats, 80% of independents, and 60% of Republicans said they favor "immediate action" to address the climate crisis.
Al (as his father aptly pointed out in 1992) was bred for the White House. Al could bide his time and accept a draft at the convention, especially as it now seems more likely that no declared candidate will emerge from the primaries with a majority of first-ballot delegates. Or Al could enter the race soon and likely sweep the remaining primary and caucus states for which he can still register. If he enters the race, large portions of staffers from the other Democratic candidates will gravitate to his campaign. He would have tens of millions of internet dollars in his campaign chest less than 24 hours after declaring. Hundreds of millions would be available to sustain the election charge.
The campaign would not be what we are used to seeing. It would reflect tough lessons learned and give effective voice to the principles laid out in Al’s latest book, "The Assault on Reason." Imagine the depth of a candidate who can knowledgably discuss not only the principles of climate change and the Enlightenment, but also the perspectives of Jürgen Habermas, Hannah Arendt, Winston Churchill, George Orwell, and Noam Chomsky!
The foundation of Al’s campaign would, of course, be the climate change mission he has led so well. His Bali role is a profound example of leading by action as well as by words. It demonstrates to all who the real leader is and who the triangulating followers are--one of whom does not want you to know that her polling chief and policy chief are the same person!
Al spoke but few words and went straight to his work,
Giving hope to hearts where despair once did lurk.
Then sharing the visions and slides that he shows,
In leading his team, up the ramparts he rose.
Clearly, Al has already given up the chance of winning first-ballot delegates in some 20 state primaries, including California, New York, Illinois, delegate-less Florida, and delegate-less Michigan. But other good-sized state primaries remain open, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Smaller state primaries and many state caucuses also remain open.
Imagine that Al, returning from Bali, declares in the next few days. Everyone feverishly discusses his candidacy around the hearth during the holidays. We see the Gore swell rise to tsunami levels by the New Year. Then imagine a candidate or two publicly withdrawing in favor of Al. Much popular support and part of the staff for the remaining candidates--and most of the support, staff and money of the retiring candidates--would surely gravitate to Al.
In any case, it looks increasingly likely that no declared Dem candidate will go to the convention with a majority of delegates. Remember also that John Kerry's support four years ago at this time was about 4%. A late Gore draft looms ever larger as another feasible outcome.
So much of the world that is now turned against the America of Bush would like nothing better than to respect, admire, and follow an America of Gore. Al himself has said, "I am under no illusions that any position has as much ability to influence change as the presidency does. If the President made climate change the organizing principle, the filter through which everything else had to flow, then that could really make a huge difference."
Al, we couldn’t agree more! So declare now. Or you might wait (as did Bobby Kennedy, and even Hubert Humphrey, in the ancient era of 1968). Or you might let the convention come to you. But it seems to me..., all things considered..., the earlier, the better. The hourglass drains. Tempus fugit.
So please, Al, give the whole world the best Christmas present imaginable.
Declare now!
He sprang to his task, to his Dems gave a whistle,
And on they advanced with the roar of a missile.
Then I heard him exclaim as he sundered the Right,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good fight!"
(with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore)