Wow. What a difference a little time and distance makes. Al Gore, long dismissed (not by me!) as a candidate of the past, appears to have a future. If he wants it.
Rather than continue to mine the [GOP candidate] vs. Hillary polling, this week CNN decided to check in on Obama trends while testing the strength of yet another non-candidate, Al Gore.
Gore vs. Giuliani. Gore vs. Romney. Gore vs. McCain.
Gore doesn't lose a single matchup.
That's right. The guy who is still showing anemic numbers in the Democratic nominee polling can win it all, according to a CNN poll taken Dec. 15-17.
There is a lot of good news in this poll.
First of all, the largely unknown Obama comes up with some impressive numbers for a new phenom. He beats Romney 51:35, otherwise runs in the low 40s and loses to Giuliani or McCain. I'm not sure about Obama -- who could be so early in the season, and so early in his career? -- but I really, really like the sound of this. The much more widely known and "admired" (ugh) McCain and Giuliani are only a few points ahead of the junior Senator from Illinois. He continues to impress, and the GOP leaders do not have a lock on anything!
But the big news, to me, is this: In the same one-on-one matchups, Gore wins. He smacks Romney, of course, 53:37. And he ties Giuliani 46:46, and beats McCain 47:46. Close races, those last two. But this is 1) someone who's not even running, so far, and 2) the guy who conventional wisdom keeps telling us is reviled for "losing" 2000.
Uh, no. Think again. According to this poll, the voters are as ready for Gore as anyone, and I think the Al Gore we'd see in a 2008 campaign would be a winner.