I think Al is going to have to run whether he likes it or not.
Frank Rich: Gore Should Run in 2008
By E&P Staff
Published: May 27, 2006 9:00 PM ET
NEW YORK In is Sunday column for The New York Times, Frank Rich joined the chorus of those urging that former Vice President Al Gore run for president. Rich does not endorse him, but does suggest he is preferable to Hillary Clinton as a Democratic candidate.
The main reason: Unlike Hillary ("a weak candidate") he has shown leadership and not been afraid to stand out front on an issue. Where once Hillary "inspired passions pro and con, now she often induces apathy," Rich writes. "Her most excited constituency seems to be the right-wing pundits who still hope to make a killing with books excoriating her."
But Rich does not point to the global warming issue to hail Gore's toughness -- in fact, he finds the new Gore movie about that subject a little too much of a campaign ad. What he really finds most positive about Gore is that he raised an alarm about an Iraq invasion six months before it took place -- and then was early to criticize the White House's handling of the war later. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has acted paralyzed.
Rich recalls: "An anti-Hussein hawk who was among the rare Senate Democrats to vote for the first gulf war, Mr. Gore forecast the disasters lying in wait for the second when he spoke out at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Sept. 23, 2002. He saw that the administration was jumping 'from one unfinished task to another' and risked letting Afghanistan destabilize and Osama bin Laden flee. ...
"Most important, he noticed then that the administration had not said much of anything about 'what would follow regime change.' He imagined how 'chaos in the aftermath of a military victory in Iraq could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam.'"
At the time, Democratic leaders in Congress "blew off Mr. Gore for fear that talk of Iraq might distract the electorate from all those compelling domestic issues that would guarantee victory in the midterms. (That brilliant strategy cost Democrats the Senate.) On CNN, a representative from The New Republic, a frequent Gore cheerleader, reported that 'the vast majority of the staff' condemned his speech as 'the bitter rantings of a guy who is being politically motivated and disingenuous in his arguments.'
"But in truth, as with global warming, Mr. Gore's stands on Iraq (both in 1991 and 2002) were manifestations of leadership -- the single attribute most missing from the current Democrats with presidential ambitions. "
After citing some of Gore's flaws exhibited in the past, and in the new film, Rich concludes, "let's hope Mr. Gore runs. He may not be able to pull off the Nixon-style comeback of some bloggers' fantasies, but by pounding away on his best issues, he could at the very least play the role of an Adlai Stevenson or Wendell Willkie, patriotically goading the national debate onto higher ground."
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