Posted on 07/02/2002 2:21:26 AM PDT by kattracks
Watch out, says Al Gore: The Old Al Gore is tanned, rested, clean-shaven and ready to roar back.
If you can't recall his many earlier incarnations, remember only that the Old Al Gore was replaced by the New Al Gore and it was that Al Gore (the new one) who lost the 2000 election — or had it stolen from him by five Supreme Court justices, as his die-hard fans still claim.
No more earth tones for me, Gore said a few days ago. No more pollsters and advisers. No more constricting scripts. Just Al Gore as he used to be — the Old Al Gore.
"If I had it to do all over again, I'd just let it rip," Gore told about 60 key backers in an impassioned confession in his once (and now once again) home state of Tennessee — which he lost to President Bush two years ago. "To hell with the polls, tactics and all the rest," Gore thundered. "I would have poured out my heart and my vision for America's future."
Which is how Gore will do it if, as expected, he seeks to avenge the 2000 "robbery" in 2004.
"I would [meaning "will"] spend more time speaking from the heart on a few occasions each week," Gore said — a promise that could cause a cynic to wonder which organ will control him on other occasions.
At least one supporter salivated at such talk. "It makes your heart sick about what he could do if he were in the job [now]," said Karenna Schiff, whom you may recognize as the former Karenna Gore, the Old (and New) Al Gore's oldest daughter.
Slap at Bush
Well, what about that? Within hours of proclaiming his latest reinvention, the former vice president swiped at Bush's war on terrorism.
"They haven't gotten Osama Bin Laden or the Al Qaeda operation, and they have refused to allow enough troops from the international community to be put in Afghanistan to keep it from sliding back under the control of the warlords," Gore said.
"I simply don't know what he's talking about," responded Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. "We have 27 different countries involved on the ground in Afghanistan."
Well, Condi, whatever Gore is talking about is less important than the people he's talking to: the core Democrats who hate Bush, the voters who select their party's presidential nominee.
"So it makes at least some political sense," says one of the former advisers Gore won't rely on next time. "It won't broaden his appeal for the general election, but he's first got to be the nominee, which is why he's striking out at Bush on the war now."
The Flip-Flop
This is a change. In February, Gore epitomized the adage that "partisanship stops at the water's edge." Bush "deserves tremendous credit for the way he has led our nation in ... the war against terror," Gore said in his first postelection foreign policy speech.
Trouble is, until Gore weighed in the other day, some of the other Democratic wanna-bes had gotten ahead of him by jumping on Bush's conduct of the war. Of them, the most notable has been Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, a Vietnam War hero who has torn into the Tora Bora operation that failed to kill or capture more than a handful of Al Qaeda and Taliban soldiers because U.S. troops did such a poor job of closing the "back door" through which most of the enemy escaped into Pakistan.
While Gore doesn't want to be left out of the war-criticism game, he'll face some tough questions when the Clinton-Gore administration's dealings with terrorists are scrutinized.
As recently recounted in a Washington Post piece co-authored by Timothy Carney, the U.S. ambassador to Sudan at the time, the Clinton team rejected a Sudanese offer to turn over Bin Laden in 1996.
Even then, most intelligence experts knew how bad Bin Laden was, but the White House feared it didn't have enough evidence to convict him in court, so they let him go free. That may have been the right call at the time, but in political terms, Gore, whom Clinton boasted was the most involved vice president in history, will find that his former administration's actions will muddy his ability to score points against Bush.
In other words, while the "new" Old Al Gore may change his clothes and speak from his (new or old) heart, he'll never be totally free of the "old" New Al Gore. Which may explain why surveys show that if the election were held today, Gore (new, old or whatever) would lose to Bush by more than 25 points.
E-mail: mkramer@edit.nydailynews.com
Heavens, that is an unnerving thought to contemplate. Al speaking from the heart but, thankfully, only a few days a week.
Pray tell, which organ would Al allow us to then behold, the writer asks?
Let's stop it right now. I know where the writer is going and it's not very nice. Algore is no Clinton. He would not ever let us behold his other organs.)
Not so far as you and I are concerned, but it might be 'the economy, stupid' or who knows what in a couple of years. What crisis was there that mandated the replacement of GHWBush? Each year has its own dynamic after all and I'm just saying that we ought to not sell Gore short. Common Tator has pointed out that he -Gore- got more votes than any Dem in history.
********************* Yes, Al Gore the landlord who after his tenants pleaded for plumbing help due to overflowing toilets, Al did the noble thing and ordered them evicted. No wonder they love him so much in Tennessee.
...incredibly stupid.
I suspect it will be a political disaster of Biblical proportions, go ahead, Al.
I just can't help but think the next DNC convention may be like the campfire scene in Blazing Saddles, but then again they are always smelly affairs!
I can't wait for that soundbite!
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