Inevitably there is always a cadre of people who complain every time kos puts up a straw poll that doesn't include Al Gore as a candidate. I have stopped complaining, I just always vote "other" and distribute copious 4s to those that do.
I fugure this is kos' blog and he can really be as obstinant as he wants. He has justified himself over and over. It is because Gore doesn't have a PAC or exploratory committee. But while this may be true, I think it is very short sighted of kos.
He, of all people, should recognize that we live in a changing world. Just because PACs and exploratory committees are the "traditional" route, it doesn't mean that that is the only route available today.
I realized it while reading this article. It is a shortened reprint of a New York Observer article by Ben Smith covering the premiere of An Inconvenient Truth at Sundance. Let's discuss it below, shall we?
First, an SAT question for you: Traditional news and media are to Dailykos as PACs and exploratory committees are to
___?
I don't know that it has a name, but I think that Gore is doing it. He is taking the high road. He isn't making this about politics. He is making this about morality. About what is right.
"You can quarrel with the current administration about this issue [global warming] -- and I do -- but this is not a political issue. It's a moral issue," Gore told the cameras
And I think that is what we need. Somebody to fight for what they believe in. To tell the truth, because the truth needs to be said.
Gore -- no longer Bill Clinton's straight man, no longer the wooden, cautious candidate of 2000 -- has been raising his profile through a series of impassioned speeches against the Bush administration. They began in September 2002, when he warned against the invasion of Iraq, which he said "has the potential to seriously damage our ability to win the war against terrorism and to weaken our ability to lead the world."
He dwelled, presciently, on the risk of post-invasion chaos. That speech and others like it, along with his once-mocked warnings about global warming, have transformed him for Democrats into a kind of Cassandra, always right and always ignored.
I don't think that we, as Democrats, have a clear leader. I think that Gore is ready to become that person. He is ready to fight for what is right. But he is not telling you he is the leader, he is just doing it. It is up to us to see that what he is fighting for, what he stands for, is the same thing that we want. Isn't that how we choose a nominee? Just becasue he isn't running doesn't mean he won't do it and fight like hell once he has it.
First things first: Gore has said that he's not running for president, although he said it in less-than-Shermanesque fashion. And he isn't touching the same political bases as the half-dozen other men -- oh, and that one woman -- thought to be considering a presidential campaign. He's not massaging donors' egos or stroking local pols in Iowa and New Hampshire.
...
And yet. And yet. Two prominent Democrats said that Gore didn't discourage them when they raised the prospect of another run. And in some circles, Gore suddenly appears not just possible but unavoidable. In the new mix of power, money and ideology organized around Laurie David and Arianna Huffington in Los Angeles, in the burgeoning liberal blogosphere and among some of Gore's old friends, he appears the only alternative to Hillary Clinton.
Do we only want people who are willing to massage egos and touch bases? Have we completely bought into the system? How well has that worked for us in the past? What kind of candidate doest that give us? Flip-flops, waffles, and calculated opinions.
And his clear anti-war stand is in sharp contrast to Hillary Clinton's obsessively monitored but hard-to-explain position on Iraq. Nobody in Gore's political circle suggests, on the record or off, that he is actively planning a run for president in 2008. But the film "falls into the 'we'll see if that gives anything legs' category," said a major Democratic donor who backed Gore in 2000 and is in touch with the former vice president's circle of friends and allies.
Isn't that exactly what we are looking for? What we crave? Here it is, kos! Let go of your preconceptions. Embrace the possibility that we, as free thinking humans, can support somebody without a PAC.
"If we get to a situation where it's Hillary Clinton and nobody has really filled the space [Gore] is currently forging, it'll be hard for him not to run," said David Sirota, a Democratic strategist and blogger who has worked with Gore since he left office.
...
"If there is a groundswell, he would be able to get back in the game," he said. "There certainly is no groundswell for what's-his-name Vilsack or Evan Bayh. There's no groundswell for the Madam. This group depresses people."
Here at Dailykos, I know there has been a groundswell for Gore. I really don't understand why kos has this almighty respect for the PACs and exploratory committes. It seems that he is content to perpetuate them as the be all and end all of how somebody becomes a nominee. His steadfast refusal to include Gore in the straw polls seems to me a synical abandonment of the principles of the community he created here. This blog isn't about money or influence, it is about speaking the truth and fighting for what is right. This community supports a Gore candidacy more than some of the others that have PACs.
So here is a plea: kos, please turn away from the dark side. Diebold can't choose who we can and can't vote for, and neither should you.
"There's a dramatic rediscovery, or a renewed appreciation, of who Al Gore is," he said. "Democrats in the donor community, both nationally and in New York City, are really rediscovering him and reconnecting with him."
What the hell. It's your blog. Thank you for giving me the forum to say my piece. I think you are wrong to run your poll this way, dictating who we can vote for. Let us gauge where the true support lies here. Let's get the money out of the decision and bring it into the 21st century.
