NY Observer: Gore Is Bigger Than Ever!

Gore Is Bigger Than Ever!

By Ben Smith


A crowd of nearly 500 in the Library Theater in Park City, Utah, stayed on through a standing ovation and into the question-and-answer session as Al Gore—one Kentucky reporter actually addressed him as “Mr. President,” to laughs and cheers—restated his warnings about the “planetary emergency,” global warming.

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Mr. 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 warning, have transformed him for Democrats into a kind of Cassandra, always right and always ignored. 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 Mr. 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 Mr. Gore in 2000 and is in touch with the former Vice President’s circle of friends and allies.

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And yet. And yet. Two prominent Democrats said that Mr. Gore didn’t discourage them when they raised the prospect of another run. And in some circles, Mr. Gore suddenly appears not just possible but unavoidable. In the new mix of power, money and ideology organized around Ms. David and Arianna Huffington in Los Angeles, in the burgeoning liberal blogosphere and among some of the former Vice President’s old friends, Mr. Gore appears the only alternative to Hillary Clinton. That is rich with irony—more than a decade ago, Mrs. Clinton was Mr. Gore’s foil in the internal squabbles of the Clinton White House.

“What has happened in Hollywood and around the country is, everybody who sees his presentation on global warming is just blown away—and it isn’t a real reach to think that he represents real vision and leadership in the White House, as opposed to what we have now,” said Roy Neel, a longtime senior aide to Mr. Gore who is still close to the former Vice President. Mr. Neel added that Mr. Gore has told him he isn’t running for President now—though Mr. Neel also said that “he would certainly be my candidate if he ran, and I think he’d make a hell of a President.
“It’s no surprise that people spend a little time with him, get enthusiastic and say, ‘Damn! He’d make one fine President.’”

http://www.observer.com/20060130/20060130_Ben_Smith_pageone_coverstory1.asp

Writing in Mr. Peretz’s magazine recently, Ryan Lizza argued that only Mr. Gore can beat Mrs. Clinton in a Democratic primary, coming at her from the anti-war left and the hawkish right of his past at the same time. There will be, he wrote, a moment for Mr. Gore to jump in:
“Every primary season goes through … a period of boredom, a time when voters and pundits scour the country for fresh blood. That could be Gore’s moment.”

In a small way, that’s already happening among those Democrats who view Mrs. Clinton as too conservative on the issues and too calculating in her stances, but who see no other Democrat who can rally liberal Democrats while reaching out to, in particular, African-Americans.

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If we get to a situation where it’s Hillary Clinton and nobody has really filled the space is currently forging, it’ll be hard for him not to run,” said David Sirota, a Democratic strategist and blogger who has worked with Mr. Gore since he left office.

Mr. Peretz said he didn’t think Mr. Gore has decided whether or not to run for President again, though he could see The New Republic—despite its differences on the war—becoming a “Gore Democrat” organ again.
“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.”