Calling Al Gore

Democracy for America is running an informal poll of it's members to see who they would pick for the Democratic nominee. Big news? Not really, unless you mention that Al Gore is winning as a write in candidate. You can find more info on DFA's website.

Depending on how you look at this, this could mean one of two things. Either Al Gore has resurrected his political career to become the man, liberally speaking, or the Democratic field is so lame right now that the Tin Man himself can poll better them him by just using a couple books and one persuasive Power Point presentation.

Regardless of whether he's the man or the Tin Man, there's a chance that it won't even matter. As David Brooks wrote, the Republicans are so caught up in becoming more conservative than the next guy that they're leaving their roots. With Dems like Hillary, according to Brooks, quickly trying to show the middle and lower classes that they have plans for middle class ascendancy, the Republicans are in a bit of trouble.

In my own naive mind, I like to think that this presents the perfect storm for a strong Democratic revivial. We have a weak President; a Republican party that's ideologically inbred (meaning so lacking new ideas that it's boring and idiotic), and therefore weak; and a nation that wants change. My hope is that the Democrats have the guts to pick a good candidate, not an electable one. Not someone who's going to say the right things so much as the person who has the right ideas.

We'll see.

gore! Gore! GORE!

Paul Krugman of the New York Times has written a brilliant article about Al Gore and why the hard line right wingers, read Faux News, and the like absolutely hate Al Gore and trash him in a way that is usually reserved for Bill Clinton.

On the day after Al Gore shared the Nobel Peace Prize, The Wall Street Journal’s editors couldn’t even bring themselves to mention Mr. Gore’s name. Instead, they devoted their editorial to a long list of people they thought deserved the prize more.

And at National Review Online, Iain Murray suggested that the prize should have been shared with “that well-known peace campaigner Osama bin Laden, who implicitly endorsed Gore’s stance.” You see, bin Laden once said something about climate change — therefore, anyone who talks about climate change is a friend of the terrorists.

This is great, cause alerting folks about a possible environmental crisis is a terrible thing to do. It's so bad that one must lump them in with Public Enemy Number One since he has the same belief about the environment. You can never congratulate a man who has done some legitimate good for the people, or at least he's attempting to do that. No, you have to bash and act like a seven year old child whose parent won't buy him a toy while they're at the grocery store.

The worst thing about Mr. Gore, from the conservative point of view, is that he keeps being right. In 1992, George H. W. Bush mocked him as the “ozone man,” but three years later the scientists who discovered the threat to the ozone layer won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 2002 he warned that if we invaded Iraq, “the resulting chaos could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam.” And so it has proved.

But Gore hatred is more than personal. When National Review decided to name its anti-environmental blog Planet Gore, it was trying to discredit the message as well as the messenger. For the truth Mr. Gore has been telling about how human activities are changing the climate isn’t just inconvenient. For conservatives, it’s deeply threatening.

That is a big part right there, the right HATES being shown that it is wrong about any subject. All Al Gore has done since he was in the national and world spotlight is disprove many of the lies the right would have you believe. Instead of debating a man with facts and science, they ridicule his name and call him stinky and claim the man has cooties, since they is in their arsenal.

Al Gore is a difficult man to like, he can be a bit robotic, our own political version of Spock and his wife is an absolute horror. That being said, I'd still vote for him over any of the Republican candidates they currently have running. Check that, I'd still vote for him over ANY candidate running as I think he's taken the last seven years and stepped back from politics and realized what is important to him and to people. He hasn't be a part of the "Beltway" and seems to have a clearer view then he did before. Bottom line is he seems more, human.

Krugman sums it up with his very last paragraph:

Which brings us to the biggest reason the right hates Mr. Gore: in his case the smear campaign has failed. He’s taken everything they could throw at him, and emerged more respected, and more credible, than ever. And it drives them crazy.

Al Gore, officially too qualified to be president...

Its official.

The rumors had been circling for weeks if not months that it would happen, but Former President (yes I'm aware of the horrendous job the "Supremes" did, so I will refer to him as such) Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The win is also likely add further fuel to a burgeoning movement in the United States for Gore to run for president in 2008, which he has so far said he does not plan to do.

Now, this is quite a mixed blessing for a lot of different reasons... First off we are all incredibly proud of Former President Gore for continuing on this quest of his that started so long ago and finally seeing some fruits of his labor come to bloom. This is not to take anything away from this journey that he has been on most his life...

But damnit Al... You just made yourself way too damn smart for the average american to vote for you... I mean, you were already there when you ran against the idiot boy king but you still could have pulled that election off if you hadn't listened so damn much to those idiots around you. Granted, Shrum and company did wonders for Clinton when they WERE genius minds in the political spectrum, but they lost that ability soon after and just assumed they were still geniuses (which, was so pathetically false).

It is really sad, but the second Al ran for office, the right-wing political machine will go back to reminding people how little they would have to talk about with Al at the dinner table, or while watching a football game while knocking back a few "Buds" (I resisted the urge to mention that stupid event in which a bunch of glorified truck drivers keep making left hand turns all day, whats it called, NeckCar?).

I mean, we get the democracy, and the government we deserve. In a lot of ways, that is why we are demeaned so much overseas, since those idiots in power reflect extremely poorly on us (but damnit, we put them there!).

I'm still hoping for a last second Al Gore run here... If only because I don't think I can stomach the leading two options in Clinton or Obama... Edwards would be fine for me, but something about the treachery of the Democratic party in its "selection" phase (Howard Dean anyone?) tells me that anyone that gets in either Clinton or Obama's way will be dealt with with another malfunctioning Microphone...