I really didn’t plan on saying anything about this, but all manner of scribes in print and online are toasting Al Gore for co-winning the Nobel Prize along with the International Panel on Climate Change and also hinting that he should run for president next year (there are many columns out there in a related vein, but this one by Paul Krugman today may be the best, partly because he doesn’t even bring up the issue, but focuses instead on Gore and the reflexive freeper outcry).I probably said this about Gore awhile back, but I’ll repeat it again here.
In the spring of 2000, I watched Al Gore speak to a group of students at Arcadia University (formerly Beaver College) in Pennsylvania about politics, environmental issues, and other matters (the program was broadcast on a local cable network). He interacted well with the class, and they had a lively exchange of ideas with him also. And as I watched the half-hour-or-so broadcast, I had a bit of a George Tenet moment and thought his win over Dubya in November would be a “slam dunk.”
Well, it was, in terms of the popular vote anyway. But back then, many of us (including your humble narrator) weren’t wise to how our dear corporate media cousins were creating narratives of the individuals in the races that ended up having much more to do with the eventual outcomes than any serious reporting during the election, of which there was precious little. And this kept the election close enough (along with the mystifying decision by Gore not to campaign with Bill Clinton in the key swing states, particularly Florida of course) to the point where it could be stolen in the manner that has been recorded for all time.
My point is that Gore is a man of big themes and visions who once existed in a political universe full of only-vaguely-consequential approval ratings and other polling data, sound bites, gossipy tidbits for the print and electronic media, including blogs (mea culpa), and public appearances intended to appease key constituencies. In such an environment where glad-handlers and “on-message” happy talkers usually triumph over anyone communicating ideas of substance, Gore would appear today to be every bit as “stiff” and “wooden” as he was accused of being about eight years ago when running against George W. Bush, that guy you wanted to “have a beer with” if you were a true “red state” American.
If this country were composed entirely of college students, in other words, then Gore would be the perfect president now as he would have been in 2000 (I’m not saying he would have been perfect back then had the people’s wishes been truly honored, but he would have served with intelligence and integrity, and the wingers would have bitched regardless as they always will – he would certainly have been good enough to build upon the foundation of the prior administration of which he was an important part and then some).
But even assuming that Gore could overcome the huge hurdle of somehow setting up some kind of an on-the-ground political presence in the early primary states to the point where he could generate some momentum, he would then become fodder for the media-industrial complex, resurrecting the same old themes, creating even more division for a party that needs it about as much as this country needs another tax cut.
And somehow, along with his professed desire not to get in the way of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, I think he knows that.
So congratulations once more, Al. Choose whichever new cause you feel is appropriate for your sizeable talents on the public stage, as long as they don’t involve another run for the presidency.
And if anyone tries to encourage another attempt anyway, tell them to drop dead.
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