Gore, cont.

Over at NRO, Rich Lowry has probably the best analysis yet of the current Gore boomlet. A sample:

He is one of those people who wants to be president, but doesn't really want to run for it. So he wants the party to come to him. In keeping with this desire, the movie is a painless way to advance his political ambitions: if the buzz around it doesn't increase his standing in the polls, he can say, “Hey, what's the big deal, it was only a movie about an issue I care about, and never had a political purpose”; if, however, it does create some sustained political momentum, he can capitalize on it if he wants. Apparently he is telling the people closest to him what he is saying in public, that he isn't interested in running. People are all over the map, though, on whether he will ultimately run or not. The conventional wisdom seems to be correct: that he will only do it if he sees a clear path to victory.

If I had to bet now, I would say that he will run, not win, and spend the rest of the rest of his life wondering how he could have lost that one, too.

He'll run because the right people will beg him to, because sell him on netroot money and Hollywood money and the cache of being Dean without the screaming. How he'd do against Hillary in the primaries I have no idea--but it would be interesting to watch the Clinton shock troops (Fabiani, Begala, Lehane) come out of the woodwork to leak (on deep, deep background, mind you) all of Gore's shortcomings as Vice-President. On the other hand, Dem voters in 2008 might look to a potential Hillary-McCain race in the middle of the war, and wince at the thought of people having to choose between a war hero and a woman who couldn't keep a leash on her man. Dems might very well see Gore as Dean plus Kerry: passion plus electability.

What they'd be getting in the general election, however, will be Kerry's passion and Dean's electability.

Two things to consider. First, Gore is a terrible campaigner. I mean, a terrible campaigner. Go back to 1988, when--once Super Tuesday was over--three Democrats remained standing: the train wreck known as Michael Dukakis, a vanity campaign of Jesse Jackson's, and Gore. In that field, Gore managed to finish third. I happened to be a graduate student in New York at the time, and I was treated to the early stages of what would become Gore's recognizable patterns: his yelling to convey passion, his slow-talking to convey earnestness, his abysmal political insincts. One of the most pathetic sights of the 1988 New York Primaries was Ed Koch's endorsement of Gore, when it was clear to everyone in the state (including naifish upstate graduate students) that Koch was merely using Gore as a stalking horse to slam Jesse Jackson, whom Koch despises. One of the saddest sights of the 1988 campaign was the Koch/Gore press conference, with Koch at the podium, half-heartedly forcing the words out, with Gore off to the side, looking round nervously and wondering what was expected of him.

Gore--better-known, more accomplished and handsomer than Bill Clinton--was almost slavishly happy to serve as Spin to Bill Clinton's Marty in 1992 and 1996, but was unable to convert Clinton's peace and prosperity to what should have been, in 2000, a forty-state victory (along the lines of what a similarly limited politician, George Bush 41, was able to accomplish in 1988). Gore's quest for the Democratic nomination that year was imperiled by so much a dismal compaigner as Bill Bradley, who, as Tucker Carlson noted, thought it an inspired campaign idea to wave a gun at reporters at a press conference. Then, of course, there was the fall campaign, when--during the debates--Gore huffed and sighed his way out of the White House.

Ah, yes, those debates. There is no disputing taste, but I think I am with the majority when I write that W clobbered Gore three out of three. I don't care about overnights, I don't care about forensic league scoring, the plain truth was that tongue-tied, dumbass W. had Gore for breakfast. It wasn't W.'s people who strapped Gore to a chair and forced him to watch a tape of the first debate, then a tape of "SNL's" devestating skit of the first debate.

(This isn't partisan sniping: Reagan was miserable in the first debate in 1984; as was Bush 41, first debate in 88; and (ugh) Bush 43, first debate in 2004. I like to think I have a discerning eye in these things.)

So, with the lowest of bars, Gore blew it. Which brings me to point number two:

People don't like him.

I've read about a dozen articles about how Gore's negatives (earth-tones, half-truths, etc.) get overblown by the media. I might be sympathetic--no, I'm not. Look, there is no disputing taste, but really:

Whenever Gore speaks (about anything) he comes off as lecturing to a group of twelve year-old dimwits;

He tells half-truths about himself and then blames whoever calls him out. On this, more later.