Gore as consensus candidate.

Gore has been doing the rounds.  The Daily Show tonight, but also Leno, SNL, and a ton of other places.  He's usually asked, "Are you running in 08?", and he always says "I have no plans to run."  If there's a followup, he says "I'm running a different kind of campaign right now."  

His denials are so weak at this point, it makes me wonder why more isn't made of it.  "I have no plans to run" has always historically been equated with "Yes, I'm running, but not announcing yet."  Whatever the reason, it's a good thing.  Not just because it leaves Gore under the radar, but also because of the strange and interesting coalition of supporters he's accumulating.

Marty Peretz has been talking up Gore for a while now.  Even more, he talks about Gore as a principled human being, as the rare good man in politics.  Tonight, in a TNR web piece entitled "OK, I'm a Gore Flack", he says:

But what does Hillary's website tell you? "She has sponsored conferences and business development tours through [New York] state aimed at attracting new investment" ... blah, blah. "She is strongly committed to making sure that every American has the right to vote in fair, accessible, and credible elections--and that every vote must be counted." In this vein, she "introduced the Count Every Vote Act of 2005 to provide a verified paper ballot for every vote cast in electronic voting machines." She is white bread. The only problem for her is that those who eat only white bread probably detest her. Her only "brave" position is that she favors a law making burning the American flag a federal crime. My God!

Now, Gore is not all serious. Tonight he'll be on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on Comedy Central at 11 p.m. (Eastern). Tomorrow morning he'll be on ABC's "The View." Anyone who does these rounds is comfortable in his own skin, even if he once took some bad advice to wear "earth tones" from Naomi Wolf. And he is not thrown off by the difficult issues. And he knows what he really cares about, and knows about what he cares about.

When talking about Gore, there's always an implicit "what if?" comparison with Dubya's six years.  I never hear "Thank God Bush was in office on 9/11" anymore.  I used to hear it all the time.  That meme is over.  The war in Iraq has cured that delusion for most folks.  What's important to notice about the Gore resurgence, though, is that it's not just about Iraq.  Sure Gore was an early voice in the wilderness.  But his appeal extends beyond the anti-war crowd--most anybody who's wanting a return to sane, smart governance is thinking "what if?".

This is the point.  The netroots won't own Gore if he decides to run.  He won't necessarily need our money to compete against Hillary.  His base will be much larger than us.  It won't be Sleepless Summer II, and bloggers probably won't be the rockstars they were during the last primaries.  And is that bad?  If a candidate can bring TNR types, the dKos community, and the average dem primary voter together, that sounds like an election we're going to win.  And a president who comes into office with every faction of the party behind them can get a lot more accomplished.

Atrios said there'd be a blogwar when the primaries hit, and that's certainly true if Gore doesn't run.  But if he does?  What would we do with all that peace?  What if every element of the party was in agreement on our candidate moving into the 08 election?  It boggles the mind what fun we'd have directing ALL of our collective insider/outsider energy on the opposition party.