Gore in '08?

I have a confession to make: aside from his ridiculous participation with his wife, Tipper, in the mid-eighties PMRC fiasco, I've always really liked Al Gore. He is an incredibly smart man, dedicated to his priniciples (nobody in politics knows more, or cares more, about global warming and the environment than Gore), and is actually even funny in person. Unfortunately, in 2000, he didn't trust his own instincts and instead hired a bunch of automatons that stifled him into the boring and unengaging punchbag he was. And yet, he still received more than 500,000 votes than our current president and, except for an unprecented intrusion by the Supreme Court, would be President today, probably. And who, looking back over the last eight years, truly believes that we wouldn't be better off with a Gore presidency than the tragic (and deadly) joke the Bush presidency has become?

Gore has said that he's not interested in running again. But since he came out of hiding a few years ago, he has been a completely different man. His own man. And he has been the single most articulate critic of the Bush administration, probably because of his freedom.

I don't see why Gore couldn't pull another Nixon off and run for President again in 2008. Remember, Nixon lost the 1960 race by a fraction, then took his hits, and eventually came back to claim the Presidency. But I have a feeling that a President Gore would have none of the paranoid shenanagins of the President Nixon.

In any regard, there is a new article in the American Prospect that addresses this very subject. It is good reading. And it raises interesting questions for the next three years. Check it out.