Your 2008 Presidential Candidate Speculation Thread

But part of me looks at the wide-open-on-both-sides landscape and says candidates are only as good as how they stack up against a given opponent, i.e. some people will look better or worse depending on who is on the other side. I wonder if one party will end up picking their candidate with an opponent in mind, or if both parties will end up in a game of chicken. Perhaps this is an amateur's perspective - maybe you go with the best guy (ahem) and wait for the Veep selection to start making comparisons.

see also: George Allen. I think I'm ready to start taking him seriously as a potential, even if I think he's no Bush (W or J).

Dems:
Hillary
Bayh?
Kerry
?????

"He knows the players in Silicon Valley and Seattle and New York City -- and, more important, they know him. That matters."

Clearly a Prince of Darkness. Not where I want a leader coming from (so old-fashioned, I know).

aren't there lots of VCs who throw lots of money at Dems?

don't worry about allen. as someone who lived in va during his tenure (and who has met the man; he asked me if my family were "chicken farmers"), i can testify that he's a total douchebag and utterly charmless, even with the nfl pedigree.

Schweitzer is great. but you really need a certain minimum record to go to the top of the ticket that he won't have.

xpost - I don't think he will; if he does, I don't think he'd get very far

and the gop blog tracker dude added warner?

I guess it was already obvious where his life was going to lead. It is depressing how much more sucessful than me he is. Oh well, I made my bed, etc.

They certainly throw lots of money at Dems, but they also shower plenty of money upon Republicans, as do most savvy corporate and "investment types." It's that timeless capitalist strategy, the hedge, at work. The way I look at it, what's most important isn't how much money you amass in absolute terms, but rather how much money, and from what sources, you pile up versus your opponents. Using that yardstick, counting on VCs and other investment types to push any single candidate over the top doesn't seem wise. People who move money around for a living know better than to place all their chips on one bet, and most of them have a nose for following the money -- if they sense a position is weak, they'll bail out in droves.

Take a look at this data on giving by venture-capital political donations compiled by Open Secrets: http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/contrib.asp?Ind=F2500. Donations from the VC sector run 55% to 45% in favor of the Democrats. But the National Venture Capital Association -- the industry trade group that is presumably whispering in the ears of aspiring legislators, and the largest donor in the sector -- gave 66% of its money to Republicans. If you do some clicking around in the toolbars on the site's left nav you'll also notice that in the grand scheme of corporate campaign largess, the $10.6 million ponied up by the VCs is pretty small beer (the top three investment bank donors, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and UBS Americas, alone gave more than the whole VC sector).

The pattern of giving is similar elsewhere in the financial sector. Commercial banks gave $30.7 million to political candidates (64% of it to Republicans), insurance companies gave $36 million (68% to Republicans), and securities businesses and investment banks gave $89.9 million (53% to Republicans and 47% to Democrats).

>Norm Coleman...'s got that sort of Sen. Van Ackerman from Advise and Consent too-eager quality about him. <

Now Eric, who's that? Walter Pidgeon?

Anyway, the point was not about money, but about a community that would vouch for someone. Warner was a VC before he was Governor, and apparently a very good one.

As individuals, yes. But their industry PAC gave more to Republicans by 2 to 1. If their is a sectoral VC voice, the PAC is it.

there are far fewer VCs and I would think that the average individual VC has more to give than the scores of junior bankers whose contributions are included in these figures

Individual contributions are capped at $2,000. Both groups of individuals can probably swing that.

Anyway, the point was not about money, but about a community that would vouch for someone.

VCs "vouching" for someone (whatever that means) is substantive how?

I would friggin die if McCain ran as a third party candidate, just so long as the drunk on Jesus coalition of pro-business and whackjobs that is the modern Republican party fell apart.

Now Eric, who's that? Walter Pidgeon?

God no. Either party could use a Walter Pidgeon at this point. Van Ackerman (George Grizzard) was the guy who initiated the fag-baiting of Sen. Brig (Don Murray). I'm not saying that Coleman is going to out someone of his own party (well, he might from his former party), but something about his eagerness to show up to get his photo taken in the aftermath of the '04 elections is hard to ignore... or, at least, is hard for me to ignore as a Minnesotan.

That said, this week's City Pages put the chips down on Gov. Pawlenty.

The pro-choice thing, OK. But, in case no one noticed, Republicans only attack a lack of "family values" when the perps are Democrats.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/sector.asp?txt=F01&cycle=2004

Individual contributions are capped at $2,000.

to candidates, yes. to committees, it goes up to $25K.

VCs "vouching" for someone (whatever that means) is substantive how?

I don't know, necessarily. But Fineman seemed to think it important somehow.

That's because Fineman is an idiot.

The institutional breakouts display the same tendency. It's classic risk arbitrage.

It's probably a plus, since the longer the politician's career, the longer they've had to dabble in shady dealings.

I predict a newly high non-turnout for '08. Imagine something like Frist v Bayh ... zzzzzzzzzzzz!

McCain will never get the nomination. Bet everything you can on that. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if he didn't even make it to primary season. The guy has way too many political enemies--the gambit that Dems or some other shadow organization can conspiratorially get McCain deep into the race simply isn't realistic. McCain could pull a Perot but nobody thinks he has that kind of juice anymore.

George Allen has no prayer and would never make it to primary season. Same with Guiliani.

Frist is a very, very long shot--not really a compelling beauty pageant contestant, he's a Senator, his leadership of the Senate has been average.

Hillary is a very real candidate, now more than ever. She's charmed a lot of people with her little spells and voodoo dolls in the past five years.

however, I think it's all about risk-aversion. picking her brings great strengths, but great risks. and i see no reason to take those risks if we have equally good candidates who present fewer of them. and I think we have a few of those.

This is just not true at all. There isn't a woman out there on the political scene who has a large chance of winning the Presidency because the US is not prepared to make a woman the Commander in Cheif of the Armed Forces.

Knox College, Commencement Address - June 5, 2005

and even tho this doc is a hatchet job, i still believe mormonism to be batshit.

and as has been discussed many times before, it is far more likely that the first woman or minority president would be a republican.

I would be surprised too, but I was surprised she won the Senate seat and I am consistently surprised by her rising level of approval in nationwide polling. She's very high-profile and is heavily associated with a period in history that I think people are becoming to remember more and more fondly. I have no idea what the next four years will bring, but at this point I wouldn't say she has any less of a chance than anyone else I can think of at this point.

i have nothing against voting for a mormon -- or a woman -- for president. but i'm not the target demographic here.

you wouldn't be so surprised if you lived in or around NY and saw what a total PUTZ rick lazio (her 2000 GOP opponent) was.

I don't think Hillary will run in 2008 unless she thinks that the Dems require someone to fall on a sword to save the party from extinction. She has a prestigious senate seat she can safely keep and she will stick to it like glue. 2012 is a better bet for her than 2008. That's my sense of it anyway.

Second, the Senate in general is a horrible stepping-off point for a presidential run - about as bad as being vice president. Governors tend to capture the presidency. I'd look for a Democratic governor from the border south or lower midwest to get the Dem nomination.

General Clark's run is over. By 2008 the Iraq war will be a sick horrid ache, but the voters won't be clamoring for a military man to step in and win the war for us. It will be clear by then that all we can do is grit our teeth, dig in or clear out. As a political campaigner, Clark was not able to connect with the public. All he had was an impeccable resume to flash at them.

In the twentieth century, only one current senator was elected president. No congressmen at all were elected.

"CHEAPER OIL"

The oil price bugaboo is going to get worse.

Whoever can manage to convince most Americans that his/her election will result in oil prices decreasing will have a huge advantage, even if the U.S. becomes a theocracy in the process.

Most people will deal with the church invading their rights if it means they pay less at the pump when they make their double 90 minute commute from Pleasant Faraway Suburb Heights to city center and back every day.

heh. It's a lot easier noting those who don't. Plus, I'm pretty repulsed by the party as a whole so it's hard to get enthusiastic about even wondering who might be on the ticket.

As for Harry Reid, Yancey's right--many Christians have HUGE problems with the Mormons. I grew up in a small town that was very pious and I was indoctrinated that the Mormon Church is a cult. That's not an outside opinion of Christians at all. I realize that the Mormons have glossed their views with a mantra of "strong family" and "values" and all the other rhetorical niceness, but the soft underbelly of the Church is ripe for exposure. I mean, Reid's got some nice things on his resume, but he's not a force of personality, his religion is a zealous force, and he's a Senator whose ability to raise money is pretty much an unknown. So I'd say he's a long shot despite looking decent on paper.

i could see how different crowds could read that differently. say the moderate republicans like reid and put him in, then the typical conservative christina justification will ignore the second idea and concentrate on the political check boxes bein appropriately checked. but yeah, if it's down to a dead heat between him and some good ole baptist boy, well...
m.

>Both Powell and Obama have incredible integrity<

That's hilarious. You do remember the UN slideshow? And Obama's voting record has been fairly New Democrat-as-usual:

http://www.davidsirota.com/2005/05/whats-happened-to-barack-obama.html

"Obama's second vote as a U.S. Senator was in support of confirming Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. He also voted to confirm John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence, despite Negroponte's involvement in Iran-Contra and other situations that clearly raise questions about his ethics and discretion. Obama also voted for a bill to limit citizens rights to seek legal redress against abusive corporations. During the bankruptcy debate, he helped vote down a Democratic amendment to cap the abusive interest rates credit card companies could charge...Obama cast a key procedural vote in support of President Bush's right-wing judges."

I honestly don't see Hillary winning Arkansas away from a Republican male candidate. And trying to keep Buffalo's C-130's away from Little Rock Air Force Base certainly didn't help her any with Arkansas voters. (It did help with New York voters, though, and that's really all that she needs to worry about.)

maybe he meant cheney's daughter?

http://www.securityconference.de/konferenzen/2005/images/McCain.jpg

This Man Will Never Be President.

There's no way Warner would run for Prez a year into his Senate term. That would just look too shameless. And Allen is a total lightweight.

Joe Biden would run into a burning theatre if he thought he could get a campaign contribution out of it. Fuck him.

also: how many virginia voters think they're voting for the real george allen?

The "return of Gore" is, honestly, one of the funniest phrases I've heard in the past few days. That guy is radioactive.

who am i misleading? and who do you have in mind?

I don't have anyone in mind other than purely obvious long term speculation based on history.

i.e. Cheney (he's VP already and historically they run; I don't think he will), McCain (has run before, the press loves tossing his salad), Frist (he's the leader of the Senate and whomever holds that position always gets their name picked out of the speculation hat), Newt (has talked about it before, unelectable but a nice article in GQ fantasizing about it anyway), Jeb Bush (bloodline, major governor, has never ruled it out), Rudy (because his ambition is obvious and he's high profile), Santorum (he's pretty much talked about it.)

Really, speculating on a Republican candidate is going be much harder until after the midterms are over and candidates can start openly diverging from the adminstration's playbook and consider a run (i.e. run for political cover on Iraq and the economy, begin to make deceitful campaign promises, stop banging the help on Capital Hill, shred files, start going to church, etc.)

Sure, they could pick one of the little guys out of the woodwork. That's what they appeared to do with Bush. But that was a dynasty both familial and political, and several years in the making. I just don't see the same with Pawlenty or Owens or Sanford or what have you, though Huckabee's media trial balloon might be worth following.

Somebody please tell me what Obama has done, other than have the right demographic and not-make-waves as a rookie Sen.

Ultimately, we are talking about who actually gets the nomination, which is why we can eliminate a handful of dominant players immediately. The dominant political machine is not going to concern itself much with a successor until after the mid-terms--there's no need to distract from the current administration by foisting a candidate up who is either compelled to march in lockstep with Bush's Brain or create dissonance.

That's why even the longshot talk for the Republicans is a little early--yeah, there was that Chimp article in Esquire (or maybe it was GQ) a couple of years before the 2000 election (someone remind me of the date, but it was probably 97 or 98 or earlier.) Sure, there's not really a rising star a la Osama but that's kind of incidental at this juncture. Herr Rove has plenty of time to create one of those.

right, it's not like it was '93, in the wake of Daddy's loss to the big dog, that Rove, who had been handpicked by HW as far back as 1973, and run his first W campaign as far back as 78, convinced W to run for Governor

it reportedly was April 98 - a year and a half after "Dole's turn," and still 2.5 years out from election day (admittedly during an out term in the executive) - when Bush was set up to meet with major party and interest group leaders before even the end of his first term

the Esquire article appeared 10/1/98

even if he could, Scwarzenegger is such a monumental failure as governor he would never win.

Kyle, if Arnie is a such a monumental failure, what does that make Gray Davis?

Hi, meet our current president.

Kyle, if Arnie is a such a monumental failure, what does that make Gray Davis?

The victim of a fraud perpetuated by Enron and cronies Arnie/Bush/Cheney, etc.

OLIVER STONE TO THREAD, PLS.

"There is absolutely no sense that Democrats have a viable alternative vision that would truly promote broad economic growth or increased prosperity for working Americans."

and

"Furthermore, there was strong support for some specific progressive initiatives and a
belief among many that Democrats would be more willing to tackle these issues and to offer new ideas in the face of current policies that are clearly failing. However, as powerful as the concern over these issues is, the introduction of cultural themes – specifically gay marriage, abortion, the importance of the traditional family unit, and the role of religion in public life – quickly renders them almost irrelevant in terms of electoral politics at the national level. "

and

"Most referred to Democrats as ‘liberal’ on issues of morality, but some even go so far as to label them ‘immoral,’ ‘morally bankrupt,’ or even ‘anti-religious.’ "

I'm pretty sure Karl Rove is reading that report and beating off. I'm also pretty sure that several dozen diarists over at DailyKos have already spun the aforementioned results into something entirely different.

i'm searching for the punchline here... but can't find it. where's the cowbell?
m.

Maybe if he had grown a backbone instead of grown a tail, things might've worked out better for him, careerwise.

In fact, I really don't see tangential upside for Feingold...he strikes me as a consummate Washington dude, in that earnest but wonky way that seems to typify the congressional class. If you go with Bayh, then it'd be a lot more exciting for the base to hitch on someone with sparkle.

Ridge will never be nominated for president by the Republicans. Not only does he have beady eyes, he's pro choice. Fred Thompson is interesting, but I don't think he wants the job.

Bayh might not play veep to Feingold, but Feingold appears to find the reverse acceptable if Bayh would.

This is one reason (not the only reason) that I can't see Giuliani getting the Republican nomination. (Here's some nerdy trivia, btw: both Giuliani and Mark Warner ((d-va)) would be strong bets to win were they nominated, but neither would be a cinch to win his home state.)

Giulianni is radioactive on a multitude of issues.

I think Feingold (who was fantastic on Meet) would be plenty exciting for certain portions of the Dem base, and might quickly become appreciated by much of the rest. Hillary of course would be a base drum, but I don't think base-turnout is what the Dems need the next time. It's more about rural voters and Reagan dems.

they dont know this, here are her problems
1) she won her senate seat against a nobody and will probably face another nobody for reelection. If she had beat guliani I'd take her more seriously
2) She's gonna have to deal with moveon.org/deaniacs. Her stances on foreign policy/iraq war are like kerry's and they will want a shift to the left(unless the field is really slim and/or hillary's campaign convinces the dems that she is their only hope). Her success might depend on whether she can placate the anti-war people and not look weak on security/foreign policy.
3)she might have less charisma than kerry
4)and unlike kerry she will be the most effective mobilizer of republicans since ronald regan. People (democrats) like to talk about how everyone loved bill, well more people hated bill since he only had 43percent of the popular vote in 92 and 49 in 96. She's gonna inherit that part of his legacy along with her own 90's legacy of healthcare failure and pissing off housewives.

I wish she would face a serious contender in ny for her senate seat (weld comes to mind) to see how she handles an actual political test as opposed to the cake walk she's had

speaking of ny politicians, is there any serious thought to pataki getting the nomination?

HI DERE

well, at least the ceausescu/duvalier ticket wouldn't lie about their positions on torture and cronyism ...

the Times-Dispatch may become required reading for me over the next few months

So will Feingold run or not?

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20051121&s=crowley112105

http://images.forbes.com/images/2002/10/28/politician_warner.jpg

He looks like Willem Dafoe.

GWB doesn't have a presidential look either. but gravitas is clearly out these days. Warner has that Bushesque self-confident vibe while clearly being more accomplished, more ready to listen, and a much nicer guy.

jw only looks like bush when he's doing shots out of a watermelon.

Do not worry about the Straight Talk Express. His enemies are legion in the Party and elsewhere.

bye Hillary???? Muahahahahhahahahahahhaahhahahahhahhahahahahahh.

http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/06_23_2004/images/header_3_image_1.jpg http://www.gosap.governor.virginia.gov/images/warnerandkids.jpg http://www.ferrum.edu/news/ArchivePreMay02/warner.jpg

on tv, he comes off sometimes as awkward, but often as self-confident with an understanding of his limitations. the overal demeanor is a mix of a youthful green side with a real executive quality and an unusual sort of honesty.

http://loper.org/~george/rogue/democrats/mark/pictures/mrk&doug.jpg http://www.kidscommonwealth.virginia.gov/images/WarnerFamily.jpg http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/HyblaValleyES/images/warner.jpg http://mirrorimageorigin.collegepublisher.com/media/paper332/stills/kvyiw1v9.jpg

I always thought Bill Clinton looked like a mutated cross between Robert Redford hair and eyes with W.C. Fields. nose and jowl line.

no guarantee he wouldn't piuck Biden as Veep, of course. tho if he picked a Northeastern Senator, I think it would be someone a little more off the radar screen. John McLaughlin knows who it is, but when he had his guests play guessing game a few weeks ago, none of them were aware enough of his bio to figure it out.

WHY BARACK OBAMA SHOULD RUN FOR PRESIDENT IN 2008.
Run On
by Ryan Lizza

By my count, twelve United States senators are considering a run for president in 2008: six Democrats (Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd, Russ Feingold, and John Kerry) and six Republicans (George Allen, Sam Brownback, Bill Frist, Chuck Hagel, John McCain, and Rick Santorum). For Biden, Kerry, and McCain it would be their second presidential campaign.

Elsewhere in that august body, another eight senators have already run for president, failing to reach the White House but contributing mightily to the craft of colorful campaign coverage. Four Republicans who have run left behind campaign innovations such as iconic outerwear (Lamar Alexander), daring speech choreography (Elizabeth Dole), the chiropractor vote (Orrin Hatch), and the idea that voters should care about foreign policy (Richard Lugar), but they never won a primary. On the Democratic side, Robert Byrd, Tom Harkin, Ted Kennedy, and Joe Lieberman have left us with two versions of the "favorite son" strategy, as well as Bob Shrum and Joementum, but they didn't become president.

Several other current senators have at some point been mentioned seriously as potential presidential candidates, and just about every senator at least considers running. In short, the Senate operates as both America's incubator of presidential ambitions and the retirement home of its failed candidates. The well-known curse of the Senate is that it both elevates politicians to within striking distance of the White House and burdens them with the baggage of a complicated voting record and the stench of the Beltway.

This is why Barack Obama must run for president in 2008.

Obama, you may remember, is the lanky 44-year-old from Illinois elected to the Senate last year. He is the most promising politician in America, and eventually he is going to run for president. The case for running now is not that it is the perfect moment for him to run. It's not. It is just that it may be the best chance he will ever get.

The main objection to an Obama run is his obvious lack of experience. He needs at least a full Senate term before he is taken seriously, the argument goes. On the one hand, each day spent in the Senate gives Obama more experience and stature for his inevitable presidential campaign. But each day also brings with it an accumulation of tough votes, the temptations of bad compromises, potentially perilous interactions with lobbyists, and all the other behaviors necessary to operate as a successful senator. At some unknowable date in the future, remaining in the Senate will reach a point of diminishing returns for Obama. The experience gained by being a good senator will start to be outweighed by the staleness acquired by staying in Washington.

There's no way for Obama to know when he will reach this point. That uncertainty makes 2008 look like his best opportunity. He can be certain that 2008 will be a year with a wide open primary on both the Republican and Democratic sides in which neither a sitting president nor vice president will be running, a rare event in presidential politics that lowers the bar of entry for all candidates. He can have a high degree of confidence that if he waits until 2012, he will face the historically impossible task of unseating the incumbent president of his own party, or the historically difficult task of unseating the incumbent president of the opposition party. The 2016 race would probably be his final chance. But by waiting until then he would have to bet that the Senate has not destroyed his career, or, if he has moved to the safer confines of the Illinois governor's mansion--his next chance would be in 2010--that he has not already passed his political peak.

The kind of political star power Obama has doesn't last. My favorite law of American politics is that candidates have only 14 years to become president. That is their expiration date. The idea was conceived by a very smart political junkie who happens to be a senior aide to Vice President Cheney (don't hold that against him), and the law was popularized in a column by Jonathan Rauch of National Journal. As Rauch put it, "With only one exception [Lyndon Johnson] since the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, no one has been elected president who took more than 14 years to climb from his first major elective office to election as either president or vice president." As Rauch showed, the majority of presidents since 1900 have fallen on the low end of this zero-to-fourteen-year spectrum: zero (Dwight Eisenhower, Herbert Hoover, William Howard Taft), two years (Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt), four years (Franklin Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge), and six years (George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Warren Harding). The lesson is that Obama must strike while he is hot or risk fading into obscurity.

The biggest objection to Obama running for president just four years after being elected to national office is his lack of experience on national security. But experience is an overrated asset in presidential politics. It is conventional wisdom now that only during the interregnum between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the onset of the war on terror could candidates lacking foreign-policy credentials win the presidency (i.e., Bill Clinton and George W. Bush). But John Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan all won during the cold war without significant experience in world affairs.

And besides, Obama is already making a name for himself as one of the Democratic Party's national-security leaders. He recently visited Ukraine to inspect aging stockpiles of unsecured conventional weapons and is co-sponsoring legislation with Lugar to safeguard the munitions. The program is modeled on the famous Nunn-Lugar initiative to secure loose nukes. On Iraq, Obama, who opposed the war, has also staked out one of the more mature positions within his party. "Having waged a war that has unleashed daily carnage and uncertainty in Iraq," he said in a recent speech, "we have to manage our exit in a responsible way--with the hope of leaving a stable foundation for the future, but at the very least taking care not to plunge the country into an even deeper and, perhaps, irreparable crisis." At home, he has become the Senate leader on preparing for an outbreak of avian flu.

In fact, with these recent policy moves, Obama, who will be 47 in 2008--one year older than Bill Clinton was in 1992--sounds increasingly like someone who is considering a run. And if he isn't, he should.

Okay, this isn't what I was looking for, but I can't stop laughing at Robert Ehrlich's haircut/scalp-coverage thing coupled with his steely look of determination.

(governor of maryland, shown on left)

A little.

Believe it or not Gabbneb, I don't try to yank your chain with everything I post.

haha

and doing it in Norm Macdonald's style would be awesome.

Bloomberg/Hagel doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

the non-name recognition Dems have tiny showings but are beginning to creep up. Romney's just-bigger-than-tiny showing is a bit of a surprise.

I think there's a reason that it seems easier to rank the Repubs than the Dems, other than the fact that I think a lot more about the latter. Even if both fields are ostensibly wide-open, the GOP is much more the top-down, orders-following party. The Dems' more multiplicitous nature should be represented by bubble-sizes rather than a rank order.

Meanwhile, the Republicans have a Warner and his name is Huckabee.

I thought that the Magazine went online on Thursday nights.

Also, that's a creepy little pop-up Warner that appears on his website.

Money quote:

In contrast, Warner argues that there is a universe of moderate Republicans out there who would be comfortable in crossing party lines to vote for him.

But this part, I think was the most intriguing:

As a former United Nations ambassador and energy secretary, Bill Richardson, now New Mexico's governor, has as wide a range of experience as anyone in the race, but his aggressively extroverted personality makes party insiders uncomfortable — and that was true even before his female lieutenant governor, a Democrat, publicly complained in
December that he wouldn't stop poking her at official functions.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA who was editing this, Nick Sylvester?

the article was also rich for these two unintentional (but predictable) comedic bits:

Joe Trippi, the highly-caffeinated Internet genius

and

The question is, Who? "This sounds absolutely strange coming from me, because I never in life thought I would utter these words again," Brazile says, "but Al Gore."

the key passage is this one...

Warner's constant theme, which a lot of Washington politicians talk about but few seem to actually understand, was the need to modernize for a global economy. The days when you could walk down the street and get a job at the mill were over, Warner would say, and new jobs — the state gained more than 150,000 of them on his watch — would require new skills and infrastructure. So Warner, working with Nascar, pushed through an accelerated program that enabled 35,000 more Virginians to get high-school equivalency degrees, and he introduced a program to deliver broadband capacity to 20 Southern counties. "In the 1800's, if the railroad didn't come through your small town, the town shriveled up and went away," he told me once, explaining his rural program. "And if the broadband Internet doesn't come through your town in the next few years, the same thing will happen."

If he ultimately decides to run for president, Warner will try to build a national campaign around this same technology-driven approach. When I asked Warner to name the issues that would be most important to him, the four domestic issues he ticked off, before he got to terrorism and national security, were fairly standard for a Democratic candidate in the era after Bill Clinton: slashing the federal deficit, improving schools, working with business to reform the health-care system and devising a new energy strategy. What makes Warner, the former entrepreneur, sound more credible than your average Democrat is that he comes at these issues primarily from an economic, rather than a social, standpoint. On health care, for instance, most Washington Democrats will, as a matter of both habit and perspective, talk about the moral imperative of covering workers and the uninsured — and only then might they add, as an afterthought, that the current morass is an impediment to business too. Warner, on the other hand, begins with the idea that if American businesses can't keep up with spiraling health-care costs, the nation will lose the competition with India and China for jobs. The same principle applies with education and the deficit. His fixation on the global economy brings a coherent framework to issues that otherwise seem disparate and abstract.

Bai fails to mention the family-values tie-in here - Warner likes to say that when you shore up the jobs in these rural areas, it makes it easier for your kids to stay home rather than moving off to the city. i don't think we're going to win south dakota, but this is going to make him more popular in places like that.

This emphasis on reforming government, however, is part of a larger argument about electability that Warner is just now beginning to sharpen. Essentially, if he and Clinton ultimately run, he will campaign against her in much the same way that her husband campaigned against the Democratic establishment as a governor in 1992. Like Warner, Bill Clinton leapt into a race that was supposed to be dominated by a bigger name from the liberal Northeast. (That Mario Cuomo decided not to run was one of several lucky breaks that helped propel Clinton from anonymity to the White House.)

Bai ultimately says that Warner can't really be Bill, because Hillary won't be Cuomo - she's definitely going to run.

Speaking of "rigging" though, it seems that Bai's article is only partially about Warner, the other half of his article is about how hard it has become for a challenger to upset the "insider" nominee in the Democratic primaries. As the presumed "insider", Hilary is made to seem well-nigh unbeatable. Do people here agree that the process of selecting the Democratic nominee is really that sewn up? Bai's fatalism seems a bit exaggerated to me.

The fact is, Hillary still harbors very strong polling negatives, and it's not going to be long before that becomes part of the Campaign Narrative.

For the same reason, I don't think the efficiency/Dukakis comparison works. It's not just rationality but feeling for people. (At least let's hope that's what he conveys.)

"...In Washington the last couple of years, we've seen lots of talk, but few results. And we're heading in the wrong direction.
The last time we had a Democratic President, America saw the first budget surpluses in a generation.
Just three years later, the Republicans' own numbers show a future filled with deficits as far as the eye can see.
The last time we had a Democratic President, unemployment fell to record lows. But today it climbs a little higher every month.
The last time we had a Democratic President, the stock market soared. Today, it just sputters.
In 2000, America was promised something called "compassionate conservatism." And you know - that sounded familiar to a lot of us in the South. We had been saying for a long time - balance the budget, but not on the backs of working people.
But they meant something else - and all we got was more of the same....
Virginia hasn't voted for a Democratic President since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. When I ran for Governor, the Republicans controlled both houses in the legislature and every statewide office - and the White House picked our Governor to run the Republican National Committee.
And despite those odds, we won because we built a new coalition of Virginians.
We did that by laying out a message that focused on meeting the needs of an information age economy - a message that stressed economic opportunity, educational opportunities, and fiscal responsibility.
We started with the most loyal Democrats. We said to African Americans and to working people - We know that you have been taken for granted in the past. Those days are over. You will help lead this team.
We said, we're going to bring people together - just like Governor Winter showed us how to do here in Mississippi.
And then we reached out to Virginians in rural communities - to people who hadn't voted for a Democrat in a long, long time. And we asked them to give us a chance.
In a 21st century economy, you can be successful anywhere - if you have a good education and job skills.
We talked about giving young people the chance to get a good job in the place they grew up. Because you shouldn't have to leave your family or your hometown to get ahead.
We said, Virginia will never prosper if all the good jobs are in one area, and other places get left behind.
And then we said something that a lot of people had never thought of - you can like NASCAR - you can like hunting - you can like bluegrass music - and you can still vote for a Democrat.
We did all this because we recognized that if you're going to offer people economic hope, you can't spend all your time talking about the same old social issues that have divided us for too long.
You can't move forward if every discussion is about abortion and guns.
Those are all important issues, and we can't ignore them. But they create passion that often distracts us from more fundamental issues.
And let me say it again - if we can do it in Virginia, we can do it for America.
We have to do it for America. Because America deserves better than failed fiscal policy. America deserves better than an economy that leaves millions of people and whole communities behind.
And Democrats offer better. We offer optimism, and we offer hope for the future.
Now as you might guess, a lot of Republicans and Independents supported us. And since then, a lot of them have asked me, Mark - Why exactly are you a Democrat?
And I just smile. Because if you have to ask, you wouldn't understand.
I am a Democrat because since Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence - and since Jackson spoke for the common man - our party has never been the party of the status quo.
Instead, we have been the ones to see a challenge - and do something about it. Let's be honest - it hasn't always worked perfectly. Sometimes it has gotten us in trouble. Sometimes it has split us apart. But sometimes, those are the wages of progress.
And yet, I am a Democrat because the greatest and most noble political experiments of our time had their birth in our party.
I am a Democrat because the New Deal literally saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
I am a Democrat because a generation after a Democratic president started the Peace Corps, you can still find faded photographs of John F. Kennedy on the walls of homes from South Africa to South America.
I am a Democrat because fighting for working men and women is always the right fight.
I am a Democrat because our party led the struggle for civil rights and because we recognize that discrimination and bigotry are not dead - and that we must continue to seek equal opportunity for all.
I am a Democrat because despite our failures, our missteps, and our excesses - we know that waging a war on poverty does not mean fighting the individuals who are poor.
I am a Democrat because we know that today's battle is about the future versus the past - and it's time to put aside yesterday's battles of us versus them.
I am a Democrat because we know that criticizing success won't create a single job.
And most of all, I am a Democrat because when my three daughters go out into the world to make their lives, I want them to find a world where there's less hopelessness - less selfishness - and less violence.
I want them to find a world where there is more opportunity - more understanding - and more hope.
That is the mission of this party.
That is what we work for.
That is why we get up every morning.
That is why we're here tonight.
And our work is not done."

"Democratic insiders take seriously a possible new try for the presidency by Al Gore and say he is capable of raising more money than the presumptive front-runner, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton...."

interestingly, Mudcat Saunders appears to rate Edwards over Warner, and Chuck Todd changes his rankings in the same direction, also elevating Feingold above Richardson. Todd also raises to second place Mitt Romney, whose campaign, it has been rumored, may be joined by one Andrew H. Card, Jr.

I don't see Edwards holding a national consciousness (he has that shit-eating Dan Quayle grin and an equal amount of gravitas), and Clinton's still a wildcard.

I really don't understand the appeal of Feingold; is he kind of a red meat Dem? I seriously doubt his ability to raise the money but whatever.

I didn't know that McCain locked up Barbour, which I find incredulous even though Barbour doesn't maybe have the juice he once did.

Uh, he sure hasn't been sounding like that lately.

If only Edwards could develop the presidential gravitas and shit-eating grin of the Current Occupant.

Feingold is admittedly the sole entrant for whom integrity is more than an annual accident, so yeah, doomed.

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/20/brownback.corzine/vert.sam.brownback.jpg

and how often does he look like this?

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/law/0510/quotes.reax.miers/images/gal.brownback.jpg

Has either side got a Hispanic candidate to throw up? Are the hispanics demonstrating in the street over immigration going to disappear after this issue is played out or are they going to be a key constituency in 2008?

http://www.jedinet.com/references/assets/images/mccain.jpg

This man will never be president.

There's theorizing that the Repugs can lose right-leaning Hispanics over the immigration issue. We'll see.

Surely Nixon is the start of the continuum that Reagan was part of.

I don't think it will be so easy as you think for the GOP to beat Hillary. In fact, I think she could win.. not that I believe she'll get the nomination but she does have a good chance. And lots of $$$$. And Bill Clinton and his best people, who all actually know how to win elections.

http://www.gravel2008.us/

Could happen to anybody.

DAMMIT GABBNEB, WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME?

1) Not always, 2) Who cares? Nothing matters less anymore than whether a pol believes in what he does.

I'm pretty certain every prez election henceforth will produce the ugliest campaign in history.

Saw Gore Vidal on PBS at 2 a.m. telling some media drone, "You folks really have to give up the idea that the individual who is president matters at all." Yeah, so fuck every potential candidate on this thread except Feingold.

Nixon: "It was the best conversation with ap resident I'v ehad since I was president. Better than with Bush, because Baker was always looming around, and I NEVER had a such a conversation with Reagan. Clinton wanted to be reassured. It was never a dialogue with the others. I used to have to force things into the conversation with Reagan and Bush. This was a different cup of tea. This guy Clinton does a lot of thinking."

I'll spare you Nixon's thoughts on Hegel and Tocqueville.

CAN SOMEONE PLZ STAY ON TOPIC

Haven't presidential elections always been nasty, though? Maybe it's just that as mass media has grown more dominant and campaign handlers have grown more adept at manipulating it, the impact of the ugliness has felt more pervasive.

Genuinely curious: what are the least ugly campaigns in US history?

Main shred of non-suckage of the Dem field's side: if Edwards pushes social and economic fairness harder than in '04, with something resembling a plan.

Feingold is kind of a stubborn SOB isn't he?

1. Chuck Schumer

you'll find these for any remotely conceivable candidate

interesting note in the, uh, note yesterday - Bloomie's girlfriend attended a Warner fundraiser

I'd probably be more excited to vote for him than any other prospective Democrat, but that says more about the playing field than about him, specifically.

That may be true (I couldn't find one for Chet Edwards, but anyway...) but Dean's grassroots support is larger than that gives him credit for. Lots of "Deaniacs" from '08 are still networked in his Democracy For America group. They haven't gone anywhere, he has an organization already ready to go.

i'm picking people who aren't conceived of as potential candidates

Dean isn't out of the box. He's out of his mind. Totally unelectable.

well, he's not really, but smart, nice but not totally soft, family-oriented, moderate/pragmatic, works hard, and good with people/on tv have gotta count for something. and though very New York Jewish, he has a sort of I-can-do-it ingenuous Americanism about him.

6. John Lewis

During the red-baiting 50s Eisenhower vs. Stevenson was mostly conducted at a pretty sedate level. This, even though the deadly character assassin Nixon was on the ticket. Pretty amazing.

I dunno about the hardcore Dems who "plan" not to vote for the nominee. That always happens, lots of anecdotes about this during the primaries & then most of them turn around and realize the other guy is waaaaaaayyyyy worse.

ps Also, no senators thanks!

Romney's from Michigan, of course

http://cgi.liveauctions.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6618632294

Romney/Bloomberg are candidates that old Reagan Democrats vote for - see also Norm Coleman and Tim Pawlenty (who lived next door to my dad 15 years ago, ew, dad says 'what an asshole').

My no votes for Hillary scenario comes out of a hardcore political family but my friend who says this said also that she has NEVER voted for a winning presidential candidate ;-). I know that my mom - who considers herself 'independent' but mostly votes for Republicans - is smoking the 'HC killed her lover' crack and thusly has limited access to reason but she's like a lot of women who just simply fucking hate Hillary to an irrational level.

(i've got beef w/ him for saddling us w/ bob "i've got the stink of hudson county corruption all over me" menendez and bob "i would've voted for alito" casey. and his not-so-secret feud w/ elliot spitzer. he's OK as a senator, but he is strictly a NY act.)

seriously re schumer: i'm not very impressed by what i've been seeing wr2 the choices that he's been making for the senate races. but i could be wrong.

Truly, but one candidate could lead The Democracy to victory in the '08 election, although modesty forbids me from saying who that is.

(Hotline does Biden in SC - dude was pretty Kerry-esque, at first. Then he downshifted into the red meat. Which was pretty abrupt and weird for a while. But then it started to work, at least with the crowd in front of him. What really impressed was the retail politics that followed. Dude really does the people thing well in a way Kerry (or Clinton) could never hope to. Maybe he's looking to get hitched to someone with an excitement deficit?)

It was a good October 2008 speech. Will Sen. Biden’s fellow Democrats let him get that far? I don’t know. But he got a warm welcome by the banks of the Pee Dee last week. It took him an hour after his speech to tear away from all the well-wishers.

Of course, these were South Carolina Democrats, and he was the guest of honor, and it was the sweetest weather I’ve yet seen at a Stump, and some of the Styrofoam cups in the hands of Inner Party members contained something that smelled a lot stronger than RC Cola, and I couldn’t head back to Columbia until I’d stood for a moment with hostess Russell Holliday doing nothing more active than frankly admiring the way the razor-cut sliver of moon rose over the piney bottomland in a sky so deep-ocean blue...

I’ve also been in Iowa in January. It’s different. We’ll see.

Wow, as long as we can keep fucking hillary clinton out of it this whole thing looks pretty good! I hope Bill Richardson runs.

http://www.slate.com/id/2141424/

Yes it could well be Gore in '08. There are many reasons but the most powerful is his statesman's status. He has a unique, unassailable position in having won 2000 but lost in the Supreme Court, and his wilderness years have strengthened and matured him, allowed him to speak his mind forthrightly and without calculation. After all, what further could anyone do politically to Al Gore that he has not already suffered?

Personally, I found his recent speeches absolutely electrifying; I was truly stunned by his transformation. He has become America's conscience, and is warm, articulate and impassioned. He has gone through the valley of tears and what did not break him has strengthened and transformed him - I will use that word again. In comparison, Hillary's politcal calculations look tawdry and obvious.

In 2000 when you overwhelmingly made the decision to elect me as your 43rd president, I knew the road ahead would be difficult. We have accomplished so much yet challenges lie ahead.

In the last 6 years we have been able to stop global warming. No one could have predicted the negative results of this. Glaciers that once were melting are now on the attack.

As you know, these renegade glaciers have already captured parts of upper Michigan and northern Maine, but I assure you: we will not let the glaciers win.

Right now, in the 2nd week of May 2006, we are facing perhaps the worst gas crisis in history.

We have way too much gasoline. Gas is down to $0.19 a gallon and the oil companies are hurting.

I know that I am partly to blame by insisting that cars run on trash.

I am therefore proposing a federal bailout to our oil companies because - hey if it were the other way around, you know the oil companies would help us.

On a positive note, we worked hard to save Welfare, fix Social Security and of course provide the free universal health care we all enjoy today.

But all this came at a high cost. As I speak, the gigantic national budget surplus is down to a perilously low $11 trillion dollars.

And don't get any ideas. That money is staying in the very successful lockbox. We're not touching it.

Of course, we could give economic aid to China, or lend money to the Saudis... again.

But right now we're already so loved by everyone in the world that American tourists can't even go over to Europe anymore... without getting hugged.

There are some of you that want to spend our money on some made-up war. To you I say: what part of "lockbox" don't you understand?

What if there's a hurricane or a tornado? Unlikely I know because of the Anti-Hurricane and Tornado Machine I was instrumental in helping to develop.

But... what if? What if the scientists are right and one of those giant glaciers hits Boston? That's why we have the lockbox!

As for immigration, solving that came at a heavy cost, and I personally regret the loss of California. However, the new Mexifornian economy is strong and el Presidente Schwarznegger is doing a great job.

There have been some setbacks. Unfortunately, the confirmation process for Supreme Court Justice Michael Moore was bitter and devisive. However, I could not be more proud of how the House and Senate pulled together to confirm the nomination of Chief Justice George Clooney.

Baseball, our national passtime, still lies under the shadow of steroid accusations. But I have faith in baseball commissioner George W. Bush when he says, "We will find the steroid users if we have to tap every phone in America!"

In 2001 when I came into office, our national security was the most important issue. The threat of terrorism was real.

Who knew that six years later, Afghanistan would be the most popular Spring Break destination? Or that Six Flags Tehran is the fastest growing amusement park in the Middle East?

And the scariest thing we Americans have to fear is ... Live From New York, its Saturday Night!

I should investigate Gore probably. Note of the the "front-runners" are doing much for me.

Ha, somehow I think Zappa might have been against a Gore presidency for different reasons.

http://wiki.killuglyradio.com/index.php/Main_Page

Also:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=F272-2A2FDo

No wait, my top 3 are Mark Warner, Mark Warner and some guy named Mark Warner.

I could easily see taking Schweitzer or Obama or Biden over Gore. I'm not a big fan, but Bayh would likely be a safer choice. Gore would be safer on paper than Hillary, but I'm not certain he'd be better. He's much safer on paper than Feingold, but even there I could see him arguably being the lesser of the two when it comes to political skills (Feingold strikes me as lesser in other respects, Rhodes and all). Still not sure where to place Edwards - strikes me as a lightweight, but people seem to like him - or Richardson - on paper a good mix of resume and novelty, but seems like a big risk.

I mean, if you asked me who I really want to BE President, I'd probably say Hart Babbitt Gore in a heartbeat, but that's not the question here.

At the end of the evening, according to people who were there, as some of the guests walked Warner to his car, one woman vowed to educate him on abortion rights. That was all he could take. "This is why America hates Democrats," a frustrated Warner blurted out before driving away.

- which basically means warner will probly run as some mccain type enemy/"reformer" of his own party, which gore has never been

you drew the wrong conclusion from what he was saying, which was spot-on. and I don't see anyone else running as much towards the "Democrat" brand as Warner. you also misunderstand what McCain is doing. he's not running as a reformer of his party. he's running very much from within his party while nominally urging everyone to embrace civility and the 'sensible center'. the undifferentiating public eats that stuff up, which is why McCain is so dangerous an opponent and why the Democrats would be morons not to take the same approach.

Indeed.

uh, it worked just fine in 92 and 96, and eked it out in 2000, despite having a socially awkward candidatebot (with a dollop of populism, admittedly, but populism can be pretty centrist). we certainly didn't try very hard in 88 or 04, when we ran on competence instead of ideology, while doing nothing to challenge the notion that we were weak on defense (or, in 04, going to set about "promoting" gay marriage). and you remember the last time we ran as liberals, right? very successful, that '84 vintage.

For the 94th (and probably not the last time), if you let the Republicans get close enough to cheat their way home, you DIDN'T DO ENOUGH TO WIN.

and don't make me bring up the Clinton-would-have-won-without-Perot thing again. always conveniently forgotten if you want to deny reality.

I find the whole mindgame of trying to pick a candidate based on how they'll appeal to the ill-informed and mercurial 29 months from now both depressing and fruitless.

by grab the attention of the center, I mean from outside, i.e. scare them out of the center, like Bush did after 9/11, and Gore is trying to do with his movie

I'd rather be depressed about the process than the result

All this talk about Gore is because of his movie; this "reconsideration" is a momentary lapse of reason that will be forgotten as soon as it began.

The point about Perot is that he changed the tone of the 1992 campaign significantly, and that change of tone played into Clinton's hands. Suddenly, there were two people who were throwing gas on the fire of economic lies: Clinton, who wanted to raise taxes and Perot who came in on a pledge to reduce the debt and restore the power to the people. Adding up the votes Perot got in 1992 isn't a serious intellectual explanation for the effect he had over the last months of the campaign. Perot was almost certainly the primary catalyst in Clinton's victory and denying it doesn't pass the laugh test.

I admit to liking Warner a fair amount; I don't see a lot of evidence that he could get his way with a Republican Congress, but he seems pretty sensible in his message.

I've been warning that Huckabee is dangerous for reasons similar to McCain (and Warner). Whether he goes anywhere, I dunno.

so so so so OTM

Words from Feingold

whatever gabbneb (yr centrist hero Clinton didn't sign the Kyoto Protocol btw) - I haven't heard a single prominent Democrat decry the recent focus on immigration as being blatantly racist (which it is), nor do they seem to really be doing anything about the NSA's recently revealed shenanigans...

Good luck, dems.

No matter who runs it will go down party lines based on how much Bush will be distanced from the Repub party itself, if he's even still disliked then. I don't see a Dem winning until 2012 at the earliest.

I think for Hilary to say that young people are lazy and then to apologize for it - whether she planned the whole thing that way or not - is not necessarily a bad thing for her. It's kind of like the inspired mistake that Coke made when they introduced New Coke back in the '80s and were "forced" to reintroduce Classic Coke in the face of widespread protests and thereby in the process reaped untold riches of free publicity.

Young people, who are more liberal than their elders, are unlikely to hold this slight against Hilary, especially now that she's apologized. But their elders, who might suspect Hilary of being the kind of latte-sipping liberal who would be weak on "family values" might see in her statement evidence that at heart Hilary is more conservative about the old-fashioned values of hard work than she has been portrayed by her enemies. This might help her with the socially conservative independent voters she needs to reach.

her ability to raise assloads of money

haha yeah right.

I'm really liking the broadening of the field. I think part of the reason we were weak in 04 was that the field was weak (in a political sense), which helped make Kerry the default candidate. This year we're going to have an all-star team that I would imagine/hope makes the ultimate winner seem that much bigger a figure (especially if it's a younger, lesser-known guy).

Gephardt was hardly politically weak.

plz explain.

I'd also imagined that one bonus of Gore coming in (part of that broadening-field thing) is he could take her out. But maybe he couldn't really?

Nate's right--it would be a stunning political comeback for Gore to get the nomination. It's not gonna happen, either.

Hmmm... sounds like someone didn't get the memo.

there's a lot of that in there.

Isn't it a case that the right are just more organised at getting the vote out through their social institutions.

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20060523/capt.d6915a27744c444495693e7cc795a79c.dodd_presidency_dclb111.jpg

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20060523/capt.ce247cbf281f47608166e144d1ed0667.dodd_presidency_dclb108.jpg

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20060520/capt.43693ac44fdd4345b4f2e56d0cb0b69f.connecticut_senate_ctfb104.jpg

Not so sure about this. The meme of him as candidate has been growing for some time now and I was convinced well before the movie. Take a look at any of his speaches over the last 2 years. He's converting people left and right and I think people are responding to him. The only real question that his supporters have to answer is if he runs, will he still kick as much ass as he has been the last few years, or will be revert back?

For what it's worth, his speech about the lack of a real media ruining democracy sold me.

well that's rather different, isn't it?

Who are they pushing? Hillary? Eternal also-rans? Obama is too young.

I have to think that if enough grass roots support got behind Gore, and he were willing to do it, that same "electable" gene we complain about in the party would gradually come around to him.

The Cannes Landslide for Al Gore
By FRANK RICH
Published: May 28, 2006

LET it never be said that the Democrats don't believe in anything. They still believe in Hollywood and they still believe in miracles. Witness the magical mystery comeback tour of Al Gore.

Like Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" before it, Mr. Gore's new documentary about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," has wowed the liberal caucus at Cannes (who needs landlocked Iowa?) and fueled fantasies of political victory back home. "Al Gore Takes Cannes by Storm — Will the Oval Office Be Next?" Arianna Huffington asks on her blog, reporting that the former vice president was hotter on the Croisette than Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis and Penelope Cruz. In a "fantasy" presidential poll on the liberal Web site Daily Kos, Mr. Gore racks up a landslide 68 percent, with the closest also-ran, Russ Feingold, at 15. Liberal Washington pundits wonder whether the wonkishness that seemed off-putting in 2000 may actually be a virtue. In choosing a president, Margaret Carlson writes on Bloomberg.com, maybe "we should give a rest to that old saw about likeability."

Still, the unexpected rebirth of Al Gore says more about the desperation of the Democrats than it does about him. He is most of all the beneficiary of a perfect storm of events, the right man in the right place at the right time. It was just after Mr. Gore appeared on "Saturday Night Live" to kick off his movie's publicity campaign that long-rumbling discontent with the party's presumptive (if unannounced) presidential front-runner, Hillary Clinton, boiled over. Last week both New York magazine and The New Yorker ran lead articles quoting party insiders who described a Clinton candidacy in 2008 as a pox tantamount to avian flu. The Times jumped in with a front-page remembrance of headlines past: a dissection of the Clinton marriage.

If Senator Clinton is the Antichrist, might not it be time for a resurrected messiah to inherit (and save) the earth? Enter Mr. Gore, celebrated by New York on its cover as "The Un-Hillary."

There's a certain logic to this. Mrs. Clinton does look like a weak candidate — not so much because of her marriage, her gender or her liberalism, but because of her eagerness to fudge her stands on anything and everything to appeal to any and all potential voters. Where once she inspired passions pro and con, now she often induces apathy. Her most excited constituency seems to be the right-wing pundits who still hope to make a killing with books excoriating her. At least eight fresh titles are listed at Amazon.com, including my own personal favorite, "Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation From Mussolini to Hillary Clinton." (Why settle for Il Duce when you can go for Hitler?)

Since no crowd-pleasing Democratic challenger has emerged at this early date to disrupt Mrs. Clinton's presumed coronation, the newly crowned movie star who won the popular vote in 2000 is the quick fix. Better the defeated devil the Democrats know than the losers they don't. Besides, there are at least two strong arguments in favor of Mr. Gore. He was way ahead of the Washington curve, not just on greenhouse gases but on another issue far more pressing than Mrs. Clinton's spirited crusade to stamp out flag burning: Iraq.

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. He saw that the White House was recklessly putting politics over policy by hurrying a Congressional war resolution before the midterm elections (and before securing international support). 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, the White House professed to ignore Mr. Gore's speech, but on cue in the next five days Condoleezza Rice, Ari Fleischer, Donald Rumsfeld and the president all stepped up the hype of what Mr. Rumsfeld falsely called "bulletproof" evidence of links between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Democratic leaders in Congress, meanwhile, 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. Of the potential candidates for 2008, only Senator Feingold raised similar questions about the war so articulately so early. The Gore stand on the environment, though still rejected by the president and his oil-industry base, has become a bipartisan cause: 86 evangelical Christian leaders broke with the administration's do-nothing policy in February.

If this were the whole picture, Mr. Gore would seem the perfect antidote to the Democrats' ills. But it's not. The less flattering aspect of Mr. Gore has not gone away: the cautious and contrived presidential candidate who, like Mrs. Clinton now, was so in thrall to consultants that he ran away from his own administration's record and muted his views, even about pet subjects like science. (He waffled on the teaching of creationism in August 1999, after the Kansas Board of Education struck down the teaching of evolution.) That Gore is actually accentuated, not obscured, by "An Inconvenient Truth." The more hard-hitting his onscreen slide show about global warming, the more he reminds you of how much less he focused on the issue in 2000. Gore the uninhibited private citizen is not the same as Gore the timid candidate.

Though many of the rave reviews don't mention it, there are also considerable chunks of "An Inconvenient Truth" that are more about hawking Mr. Gore's image than his cause. They also bring back unflattering memories of him as a politician. The movie contains no other voices that might upstage him, not even those of scientists supporting his argument. It is instead larded with sycophantic audiences, as meticulously multicultural as any Benetton ad, who dote on every word and laugh at every joke, like the studio audience at "Live With Regis and Kelly."

We are also treated to a heavy-handed, grainy glimpse of Katherine Harris, Michael Moore-style, and are reminded that Mr. Gore is not a rigid blue-state N.R.A. foe (he shows us where he shot his rifle as a farm kid in Tennessee). There's even an ingenious bit of fearmongering to go head to head with the Republicans' exploitation of 9/11: in a worst-case climactic scenario, we're told, the World Trade Center memorial "would be under water." Given so blatant a political context, the film's big emotional digressions — Mr. Gore's tragic near-loss of his young son and the death of his revered older sister from lung cancer — are as discomforting as they were in his 1992 and 1996 convention speeches.

If "An Inconvenient Truth" isn't actually a test drive for a presidential run, it's the biggest tease since Colin Powell encouraged speculation about his political aspirations during his 1995 book tour. Mr. Gore's nondenial denials about his ambitions (he has "no plans" to run) are Clintonesque. Told by John Heilemann of New York magazine that his movie sometimes feels like a campaign film, Mr. Gore gives a disingenuous answer that triggers an instant flashback to his equivocation about weightier matters during the 2000 debates: "Audiences don't see the movie as political. Paramount did a number of focus-group screenings, and that was very clear." You want to scream: stop this man before he listens to a focus group again!

Even so, 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. "I think the war looms over everything," said Karl Rove this month in bemoaning his boss's poll numbers. It looms over the Democrats, too. But the party's leaders would rather let John Murtha take the heat on Iraq; they don't even have the guts to endorse tougher fuel economy standards in their "new" energy policy. While a Gore candidacy could not single-handedly save the Democrats from themselves any more than his movie can vanquish "X-Men" at the multiplex, it might at least force the party powers that be to start facing some inconvenient but necessary truths.

Warner is expanding his stump speech with more foreign policy stuff, and is starting to really kill. I only caught a bit of Feingold, but he didn't impress me much.

Quinnipiac gets national readings on the candidates, and for the unknowns, reveals how unknown

Hotline reports on New Hampshire

he and Feingold have now both side nice things about each other on the stump. i still don't find either particularly compelling.

cravenness of Ed Muskie + Mr. Ed looks = loser

(Oh, and the Dems have to leave behind "Seventies populism." Who knew "I'm not George McGovern" is what expert Dem strategists can come up with as a winning identity.)

Novak: Clinton "nervous" about Bloomberg

Bonus by Gothamist:

http://www.gothamist.com/attachments/Jen Chung/2006_06_prparade1.jpg

truf!

* Giuliani and McCain are dead in the water as far as the nomination goes. Who was it that said Republican primary voters will look the other way on values issues about their own candidate? YOU'RE CRAZY, or at least weren't watching the 2000 election when McCain got deep-sixed in South Carolina by a "not officially endorsed by the Bush campaign" push poll that portrayed him as soft on... miscegenation! Leave out the possibility of a Dean Scream or other pre-election "meltdown" - these guys are NOT GOING TO WIN primaries in South Carolina or any other such place, no matter WHAT they do.

There WILL be at LEAST one other semi-high-profile contender with SOLID good-ole-boy values and they will beat Giuliani and McCain across the map. If they're both in the race it gets even worse, because to the extent that they have appeal as "semi-outsider straight-shooter with gravitas and great military-themed bio Vietnam/9-11," they're competing on each other's turf and will end up splitting whatever base they have in Republican primary voters.

* The Obama article from way upthread ("This is his only chance to run!") is total horseshit. Even if you agree with the premise that long-term Senators are in a bad position to run for President, there's no reason why Obama has to be a long-term Senator; he might well make a bid for Governor when an opportunity presents itself, and if he wins that he's a shoo-in for the next round of presidential contenders. The alternate, simpler scenario is someone else picking him up as a running mate in 2008. Vice presidential candidates don't need huge resumes - they just need to be able to add some interesting details to the ticket. Scowling at nukes in Ukraine is great material, and that commencement speech Obama gave that was linked further upthread suggests he would know how to pull it together into a convincing campaign speech. (That's the other job of the running mate: cover campaign stops to which the nominee can't make it.)

* the GOP is much more the top-down, orders-following party

Arguably, but in the primary process this has rarely if ever been true. Look at the enormous field at the beginning of the 2000 campaign for example. Of course, as this thread makes clear, the GOP have the disadvantage of incumbency - people too deep in the government will have a hard time distancing themselves from Bush, in the same way that Gore was saddled by the Clinton scandals. The negatives pass along and the positives you have to make up on your own.

* Gore's prospects honestly don't seem bad to me. Putting the global warming movie out has let a lot of people sharpen up their knives, but it's so blatantly a personal-obsession type of work that the backlash on it won't fit neatly with the Republican line in 2000 of Gore being a craven, cynical flip-flopping liar. A tree-hugging liberal may not be much better, but he has some advantages, mainly, sitting out the government entirely through the Bush administration. You can't blame HIM for Iraq, gas prices, etc., nor does he have that do-nothing handicap that's going to be easy to slap on Democratic Senators and their ilk.

He should have kept that beard though!

i know this is over a year old, but i have to say it: powell has no credibility.

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/original/hillary_clinton_bust_museum_of_sex.jpg

Tarbaby?

as I said elsewhere, I'm starting to envision Edwards (working-class-populist) vs Warner (middle-class-techno-globalist) for the primary

can we talk about who's running for Veep? Brownback obviously. maybe the older guys - Clark, Biden, Dodd. and the wildcards - Rice, Obama, Gore. what about Huckabee? Feingold? what to make of Bayh's under-the-radar strategy and Richardson's off-the-map strategy? is Giuliani a wildcard or not?

is it possible we could have 2 Virginian ticket-toppers and 2 Kansan veep candidates? meanwhile, Novak is apparently making noises about wanting Brownback at the top of the ticket, which may be an attempt to quell the veep talk.

tell me the last sub-5'8 president we elected.

i think the country is ready for a woman president, but i'm not sure the country is ready for a non-jocular president. i think it's no coincidence that Condi's athleticism gets played up.

Also I think its highly unlikely we'll be "out of Iraq by then".