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2008: Hillary vs. Gore?

By Jeralyn, Section Hillary Clinton
Posted on Wed Oct 12, 2005 at 05:21:49 AM EST
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Arianna has news of Democrats searching for the "Anti-Hillary" candidate in 2008. In Hollywood, Al Gore is a hot topic.

"He's been strongly against the war since the beginning," a big Dem donor who is hoping to convince Gore to run told me, "and with gas prices going through the roof and killer hurricanes wreaking havoc, he's the gold standard on global warming, alternative energy, and the environment. What's not to like?"

And Lawrence Bender, who after producing "Kill Bill" is now producing what I hear is a killer documentary featuring Gore and his fight to get our country to take action on global warming, told me that the former VP "would be a hell of a candidate. Unlike 2000, he's now clearly very comfortable in his own shoes. Bold, passionate, committed, and very funny. It's been amazing working with him."

I can see it. While I wasn't crazy about Gore's centrism in 2000, I agree he's had a major turnaround. I appreciate especially his outspokenness about Iraq. The important thing is for Dems to be united in 2008 and to have a clear message. Gore seems to have found his message. Hillary seems to be playing both sides.

Neither one is great on criminal justice issues, both support the death penalty, but Gore seems to have radiated left while Hillary is remains stuck in the middle, so I think there's hope with Gore.

The major plus for Gore, I think, is that so many people view him as being screwed out of the Presidency in 2000 - many might vote for him just to right the wrong.

Update: Gore, in Sweden, says he has no plans to run again. But he doesn't rule it out.

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    2008: Hillary vs. Gore? | 33 comments (33 topical)
    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#1)
    by scarshapedstar on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:54 PM EST
    At least Daily Howler is a little more well known this time around.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:55 PM EST
    I'm still a firm believer that the reason 200 was even a close election was because we had a talking corpse for a candidate. If Gore's finally found a voice, I'll take another look at him. But he's going to have to prove it in a clear way. Gore and Kerry each proved that the American center would rather vote for a jocular charismatic moron than a blowhard monotone Senator. And Gore is going to have to explain why he was willing to take money from Fred Phelps on at least two occasions long after it was known what a freak Phelps was.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:55 PM EST
    I hope Al Gore does run again. He does seem more comfortable “in his skin”. I liked what he did with reinventing the government as Vice President.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:55 PM EST
    Michael Ditto wrote:
    And Gore is going to have to explain why he was willing to take money from Fred Phelps on at least two occasions long after it was known what a freak Phelps was.
    I have never heard that accusation before. Can you point our browsers to a source for the Gore/Phelps information?

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#5)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:55 PM EST
    Gore can't win. Hillary might. She's tough, smart, quick and has been re-inventing herself for a year. Debbie - When Gore got through re-inventing, the government was larger than before he started. You heard it here first: Rudy G/Frist vs Hilary/A player to be named.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:55 PM EST
    OMG! Really?!?!!? A left-leaning blog hoping someone takes down Hillary...someone stop the presses!!!

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#7)
    by aw on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:55 PM EST
    If Gore can continue to display the passion he actually feels, I think he could be a winner. Even though I've become rather fond of Wesley Clark, I could go for Gore again.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:55 PM EST
    Excuse me jim. Are you saying we didn't have a balanced budget and end up with a surplus under Clinton/Gore? Gore's re-inventing helped get wasteful spending under control. They got rid of the $100 hammer. Bush/Cheney brought the $100 hammer back and it's now a $10,000 Halliburton hammer.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#9)
    by roy on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:55 PM EST
    Will 2000 count against his Constitutional limit of being elected twice?

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:55 PM EST
    I wouldn't mind seeing Gore come back for another try, just so that Hillary would have to play back to her base and be a little more honest about who she is and what she believes. Not that I think Al's standard stump speech about global warming is going to win him any converts he hasn't already won years ago. The science isn't solid enough to convince those who reasonably question how it is that the planet was warmer long before mankind existed if it's mankind that is responsible for global warming (or is mankind also responsible for global cooling?). Re-inventing government was a great slogan, but very little ever got done in actually changing how things are done except for cuts to defense spending and the changes in welfare that were forced on the administration. Still, if he came up with a plan and laid it out as part of a campaign, I'd pay attention. And for anyone who like to think that it's simply not possible for Gore to stage a comeback at this point, I would offer the words "Richard Nixon"; it's been done before.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#11)
    by cpinva on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:55 PM EST
    hmmmmm......... correct me if i'm mistaken, but the last "comeback" by nixon was when he, well, died. if that qualifies, i believe i'll pass. the daily howler is a great site, except..............it isn't read by those who actually need to read it. this would include all the staff of the ny times & wp, and those who still believe that gore claimed to have invented the internet. the problem gore faces, in any attempt to run, is that he's still, um, gore. nice guy, intelligent, thoughtful, combat veteran, etc., and completely incapable of timely response to the nonsense that passed for republican talking points during the 2000 campaign. just replace gore with kerry for 2004. hillary is another, meaner cat, entirely. i'd enjoy watching that show. she'd shred whatever pompous republican twit unfortunate enough to run against her. she'd do it with a smile on her face. i'll bet she's actually read "the wealth of nations", and understands it, more than can be said for the so-called "free market" conservatives. as for her so-called newly arrived at centrist positions, they aren't. for the most part, these are stands staked out years ago, for anyone actually listening. since she never ran for office, before her senate campaign, no one really cared what they were. suddenly, now that she holds elected office, it's "hillary, we hardly knew ye!" that, i think, says more about the mental and visual accuity of her observers, than of her.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#12)
    by MikeDitto on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:55 PM EST
    Labyrinth13: I'm surprised you haven't heard about it. The Log Cabin Republicans tried to make it an October surprise in 2000, but they ran it a bit too late in October for it to hit the media (other than Drudge) before the election.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#13)
    by swingvote on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:55 PM EST
    correct me if i'm mistaken Okay, CP, you're mistaken. Nixon went from being a VP who lost his bid for the Presidency (under strangely similar accounts of fabricated votes in certain Democratic districts) and being written off by his own party and the vast majority of the public to winning the presidency (not once but twice) 8 years later. And now you're corrected. What do they teach in the schools these days? It's certainly not history.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#14)
    by desertswine on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:55 PM EST
    Not that I think Al's standard stump speech about global warming is going to win him any converts he hasn't already won years ago. The science isn't solid enough to convince those who reasonably question how it is that the planet was warmer long before mankind existed if it's mankind that is responsible for global warming (or is mankind also responsible for global cooling?).
    And it certainly isn't science, either.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#15)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:55 PM EST
    Too bad our electoral process has been turned into a beauty contest. After our current Adderal/Ambien addict, they should all be required to piss in a cup first.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#16)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:55 PM EST
    Posted by Michael Ditto at October 12, 2005 09:30 AM Labyrinth13: I'm surprised you haven't heard about it. The Log Cabin Republicans tried to make it an October surprise in 2000, but they ran it a bit too late in October for it to hit the media (other than Drudge) before the election.
    No, that one is completely news to me, but then again, I don't ever read anything from the Log Cabin Republicans or Drudge. I don’t know the whole history of Phelps’ church and his anti-gay campaign, but I would be willing to bet that at time that those photographs were taken, Al Gore was not endorsing the more virulent parts of Phelps’ beliefs or that of his “church” or if he (Phelps) had gone that far off the deep end at the time. After all, there is a photograph of Rosalynn Carter standing next to John Wayne Gacy and I don’t think one could claim that Rosalynn was aware of Gacy hidden secrets. For the record, I'm not a huge Al Gore fan, either. Thanks for your post.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#17)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:56 PM EST
    justpaul writes:
    Nixon went from being a VP who lost his bid for the Presidency (under strangely similar accounts of fabricated votes in certain Democratic districts) and being written off by his own party and the vast majority of the public to winning the presidency (not once but twice) 8 years later.
    Quite so. In fact, the parellels between Nixon and Gore (should Gore actually run again) are frighteningly similar. Both in congress, both veeps for 8 years, both run in two of the closest presidential elections in history and lose, and (maybe) both resurrect themselves from the dead 8 years later and run again. Personally, I hope he does run. Let Gore and Hillary split the Clintonista loyalist wing of the party, so John Kerry sneaks back in with another nomination. Cue: groans, gnashing of teeth.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#18)
    by cpinva on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:56 PM EST
    And now you're corrected.
    i think not. he then went out and nearly got himself impeached, suffering the ignominy of being the only president ever forced to resign from office. hardly a "comeback". i didn't have to learn about his "checkers" speech, i was old enough to have seen it, live, in person. i was also old enough to watch his departure from the wh, by helicoptor, with his family. nixon was a slimeball in the 50's, 60's and 70's. he was just a retired slimeball after that. go back, try again, thank you for your time.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#19)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:56 PM EST
    Posted by Michael Ditto: "I'm still a firm believer that the reason 200 was even a close election was because we had a talking corpse for a candidate." Wow, that's utterly unfair. Gore was emerging from the shadow of the rightwing pre-coup political assassination of Clinton. It was not an easy race to run, and the press TOTALLY REFUSED TO CONFRONT BUSH, for reasons we now know for a FACT. The American people, in a legal election (unlike any major election since the 1999 Diebolding of America, in which 30 states lost their recount rights), would happily vote in Gore, Kerry...on down the list well into the Dem bench, over the ruthless, destructive maniac who stole power in 2000, with the help of corporate press, and corporate SCOTUS. I would prefer to see a Gore/Kerry ticket, and will fight for both of these elected presidents to get their chance to sit in the chair they EARNED and with which the American people endowed them via the 2000 and 2004 ACTUAL intended vote.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#20)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:56 PM EST
    Btw, Jim, your lying claim about the Khmer Rouge is blown to stinking bits down in the 'Where's Cheney' thread. Another of your ugly attempts to revise history in order to attack Democrats, gone down in flames.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#21)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:56 PM EST
    Al Gore, 2003:
    ...the US pulled significant intelligence resources out of Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to get ready for the rushed invasion of Iraq and that disrupted the search for Osama at a critical time. And the indifference we showed to the rest of the world's opinion in the process undermined the global cooperation we need to win the war against terrorism. In the same way, the evidence now shows clearly that Saddam did not want to work with Osama Bin Laden at all, much less give him weapons of mass destruction. So our invasion of Iraq had no effect on Al Qaeda, other than to boost their recruiting efforts. And on the nuclear issue of course, it turned out that those documents were actually forged by somebody -- though we don't know who. As for the cheering Iraqi crowds we anticipated, unfortunately, that didn't pan out either, so now our troops are in an ugly and dangerous situation. Moreover, the rest of the world certainly isn't jumping in to help out very much the way we expected, so US taxpayers are now having to spend a billion dollars a week. (now 1.5 billion a week) In other words, when you put it all together, it was just one mistaken impression after another. Lots of them.
    Lots of them on view in this thread, from the usual enemies of rationality.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#22)
    by swingvote on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:56 PM EST
    CP, Your inability to understand even simple concepts never ceases to amaze. The point was that Nixon was written off by his own party, as Gore has been, and then came back 8 years later to win the presidency, which is precisely what I said in the comment. Nothing more. Why you find this so difficult to comprehend, or why you insist on "misinterpretating" every comment someone makes in order to give yourself an opening for yet another useless, and failed, attack is beyond me. Is it really that you just can't read? So what if Nixon then went on to "almost get himself impeached"? A future president Gore may well do the same, but doing so would in no way diminish the accomplishment of making the comeback in the first place. I'm sorry if that was too complicated for your small mind to understand.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#23)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:56 PM EST
    I'd take Gore over Hillary or Kerry simply based on his willingness to consistently speak out against the Iraq war since 2002/3. Of course, it depends on how he'd choose to frame a potential campaign too.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#24)
    by BigTex on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:56 PM EST
    Gore said he will not run for POTUS. Link It is doubtful he could win. Even if he could recover from the tree label, he still has the faults that haunted him in 2000 with trust issues. He is too succeptable to attack on trust. Swift boat wold seem like child's play with what Gore is succeptable to.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#25)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:56 PM EST
    Posted by Tampa Student: "I'd take Gore over Hillary or Kerry simply based on his willingness to consistently speak out against the Iraq war since 2002/3." Gee, what could be the difference between these two things, Tampa? Think your way through what you just said. You might realize the factor that H. Clinton and J. Kerry have in common, that A. Gore doesn't share with them at this time.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#26)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:56 PM EST
    Posted by BigTex: "Gore said he will not run for POTUS." Meaningless two years PLUS out. A lot depends on whether Bush and his WHIG crew go down in screaming flames in the next few months. "It is doubtful he could win." He won before, and given the total clusterfk of the Bush Years, it's a fair bet that Kucinich, espousing full support for the elimination of paper money or the establishment of a Free Beer on Friday perennial holiday, could win by a historical landslide running against ANY republican, including Sen. John 'Hug a Traitor, if he'll make you Veep' McCain.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#27)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:56 PM EST
    (WHIG=White House Iraq Group)(Aka Traitors R Us).

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#28)
    by peacrevol on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:57 PM EST
    a Gore/Kerry ticket? AH...wow...that's twice the monotone boredom as we saw the first two times. I dont think very many people want to hear anything from either of these two again. Hillary is just scary. Clark...maybe. But I've said it before and I'll keep saying it -- Michael Badnarik for pres in 2008

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#29)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:58 PM EST
    Oh, sure. Badnarik will get all of about five electoral votes.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#30)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:58 PM EST
    PIL: I do know that Gore - even still - is more Conservative than I would like, having been less Populist than a Centrist during his time in the Senate and in toting the Clinton line about NAFTA, etc. (Bill rather than Hillary). However, I have listened to one or two speeches since 2002/3 that were pretty honest about the immorality of what's going on in Iraq. Gore did risk his political collateral in endorsing Dean very early in the '04 process (with Democrats - I could care less if Conservatives trust him or not). Those are all positives in my mind. Paul, I know that the most important difference to you is that Gore is supposedly not "electable" - whatever the heck that means - and the inference that Kerry and Hillary are. You should know me well enough at this point that I really could care less what Polls say or what message resonates with Centrists aka in the MSM as the "key to winning POTUS". I don't forsee a day that Tex and I walk together to an election day rally. Not unless Hitler or Pol Pot is the other choice.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#31)
    by Aaron on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:58 PM EST
    Only deluded conservatives and idiot liberals would even consider this possibility, which is to say there is no possibility of Gore running for president in 2008. And if he did, the Democratic Party would rightly shun him like the plague. But I can understand why conservatives would be drooling over the prospect. Most conservatives live for a contest between opponents where the winner is a foregone conclusion, as long as that winner is their candidate. Al Gore is such a monumental loser that he took an election that was pretty much in the bag and somehow managed to give it away. He could have easily won the 2000 election, all he had to do was campaign with William Jefferson Clinton, the most popular president in recent history, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. If he had done so, 9/11 doesn't happen, there's no war in Iraq, Al Qaeda would be on its last leg, there'd be peace in the Middle East, Katrina would have turned and gone back out to see, peace and prosperity would rain throughout the land, and God would be smiling on America. Okay perhaps I'm getting a little carried away, but that's pretty close to the truth. Of course we see what's happened to America under George W. Bush (the Devil's concubine), which to my mind Al Gore bears ultimate responsibility for. Our current predicament is direct a result of Gore's ego and stubborn pride which he was all too willing to put before the good of the American people. Just imagine how different things would've been in this country over last five years (though it seems like 10) if we'd had a leader in the White House who could actually think for himself. The difference between these two men is perfectly illustrated by the fact that Al Gore writes books and George W. Bush can't get through one. Actually I'm beginning to doubt whether he's literate at all. Perhaps he was Laura's greatest failure. What a joke and telling commentary on the state of our country, only the American electorate would in two consecutive elections prefer a man who is reading challenged for their president. No, I'm sorry to disappoint all you righties (evil Satan's minions) and lefties (baby seals just waiting to be clubbed again) who think this is a real possibility. Even the Democrats aren't stupid enough to let this historically proven loser represent them again. But if a Democrat does wind up in the White House in 2008, you can thank George W. Bush, who has done more to help the cause of liberalism than anything the Democrats have done in the last 20 years. In fact George Bush may have single-handedly saved the Liberals and the Democrats from political extinction..

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#32)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:59 PM EST
    Tampa, you have a misconception about my views. I support VP Gore for president without hesitation. I favored him for 2004. As I thought I made clear with my view that the proper ticket should be Gore/Kerry. If they don't want it, if Kerry doesn't want to put in time as the VP as Gore did, then that's their decision, but I do believe that they were both cheated, and that should be made right. My view is congruent with US history; that when a candidate has been cheated out of a justly-won office, they have a right to be seated in the next possible election or thereafter. That's what happened to Jackson, and it's even the case with Nixon. But my previous point (which I should have just stated without the sarcasm, sorry), was that Kerry and H. Clinton are both still in the Senate, while Gore is not, and therefore he is freer to speak than they.

    Re: 2008: Hillary vs. Gore? (none / 0) (#33)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:04:59 PM EST
    Doth Speak the baby seal from high atop his Sedan Chair... Mighty Aaron, Centrist Warrior, preaching party discipline and fighting for an America brought back from the edge of Fascism back to tepid militarist Corporatism. My ego isn't invested in an at-all-costs Democratic victory -- but I agree wholeheartedly:
    "What a joke and telling commentary on the state of our country, only the American electorate would in two consecutive elections prefer a man who is reading challenged for their president."
    The American electorate -- you mean the 60% of the 60% of registered voters that bothered to vote in the 2004 election. That means that 50% of 60% of 60% of the American People think Conservatives are leading the country in the "right" direction Add election day shenanigans at the polls, political bias in our Supervisor of Elections offices, disinformation and propaganda from the Corporate Media, and rigged races from districts Gerrymandered into political monopoly zones --- then add the fact that a huge percentage de facto "abstaining" or "disenfranchised", I deduce that - while we can't assume America is a true majority Conservative nation - we have much to be concerned with that it's wealthiest ruling classes are Moderately to Excessively Conservative. For those slow to follow - the Wealthiest - the one's with the most to lose from a change in the Status Quo -- the ones statistically proven to disproportionately participate in our elections. That wonderful alliance - between the Wealthiest Pro-Corporate elements, religious bigots, racist bigots, and what another poster so eloquently characterized the "Ignoratzi" (what I have called "Lay-Conservatives" in the past), all under the "Big Tent" of the Republican Party floating on a pillow of Corporate dollars and blood money from the Middle East. We have a values crisis in this nation, but it isn't the one Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are telling you about. It's the heartless way in which powerful Americans wield power here and abroad. Gore is not a Progressive savior, but then neither is anyone else. I have no answers - but I see the problem quite clearly.

    2008: Hillary vs. Gore? | 33 comments (33 topical)