Posted on 07/04/2002 10:17:48 AM PDT by Jean S
James Carville, ferociously partisan, seldom fires on a fellow Democrat. Nevertheless, he was not pleased by Al Gore's performance in Memphis last weekend. "I've heard of political consultants (who) advise a candidate to go negative on another candidate," Carville said on CNN's "Crossfire." "This is the first time I've seen a candidate go negative on a political consultant."
At a three-day "retreat" with carefully selected donors and fund-raisers, Gore delivered an extraordinary explanation for why he is not president of the United States. He would "shed the constraint" on him imposed by consultants if he runs in 2004.
In other words, bad advice-not the candidate himself-lost the election. While that triggered a standing ovation from diehard supporters in Memphis, it has not played well across the country as Democratic activists chewed over comments by their once and possibly future leader.
Their conclusion: It was the same old Gore, re-inventing himself. He had trumped his ace, obscuring his frontal attack on George W. Bush's presidency with meditations on an old campaign.
Democratic despair is that Gore, relying mainly on name identification, may sweep through a foreshortened primary election schedule as a second-chance nominee who may repeat the failures of William Jennings Bryan and Adlai E. Stevenson.
The gathering in Memphis was an indication of how far Gore has traveled down the road toward another candidacy. Some 60 men and women there were not invited for political sagacity but for their bank accounts and their loyalty to the former vice president.
It is remarkable that in facing so docile an audience, he felt compelled to put the blame for the 2000 outcome on somebody else.
Gore named no names, but the consensus is that he was pointing at Bob Shrum and Tad Devine, partners in a Washington-based consulting firm with a consistent record of success.
Shrum and Devine have had little contact with Gore since working for him in 2000, but they have refused to utter a word critical of their former client. When I asked Devine whether he was Gore's target, Devine replied: "I just don't want to get into that.
You're going to have to ask him (Gore) about that. I don't know who he was talking about."
Donna Brazile, the former vice president's 2000 campaign manager, backed Gore by suggesting he "received some bad advice from some of the consultants." "What bad advice?" I asked. "The advice not to campaign hard in Tennessee."
The accusation that Gore lost his home state-and therefore the election-because of consultants, ignores the fact Tennessee was delegated to the care of local Democrats. Expenditure of $1 million and a late campaign stop could not endear Gore to his fellow Tennesseeans.
In fact, the consultants revived a moribund Gore campaign, with Bush far ahead in the polls when Devine went to Nashville to perform political surgery. Gore's own polls showed he had moved ahead by 5 percentage points just before his feckless performance in the first debate. The fault was not the campaign's but the candidate's.
The most influential adviser for 2000 figures to exert the same influence for 2004: Karenna Gore Schiff. She is blamed for Gore's mid-campaign decision to dress in shades of brown. Mrs. Schiff is behind the current push to propel her father into another campaign and was the apparent architect of the Memphis festivities.
I asked several prominent Democrats their opinion of what Gore said last weekend, and found all highly critical and none willing to go on record. One senior member of the House, respected in Democratic circles, said: "The wrong thing for Al Gore to do is to try to re-invent himself. I cannot think of a worse idea for him." Yet, he added, if he must predict the 2004 nominee this early, it would be Gore.
The one element Gore has right is that the Democratic faithful are more than ready to end bipartisan support for President Bush's conduct of the war on terrorism.
But they would like Gore to lower his voice, stop complaining about his advisers and maybe shed a few pounds. Perhaps he needs help from political consultants.
Democrats always say Republicans are the party of special interests.
The fact is that many far-left groups have only one plan for a Gore presidency.......as a gravy train for their extreme, Anti-American messed-up ideas!!
And do what?? Go shagadelic on us? Yeah, I can see it now. Party Man Gore, the with-it hep cat who knows how to groove, daddy-o.
He'd make Austin Powers look trendy.
Maybe. Who knows? He was pro-life and pro-gun while in the House. I wonder if he does have any core beliefs or just parrots what a consultant tells him will go over with Democrats. Somewhat conservative while in Tennesse or extremely liberal while running for a national office.
We have a prime example of this hypocrisy here in North Carolina, John Edwards. He was elected to "represent North Carolina values", but now that he's on the national stump, we've got Hillary Clinton.
You can stop wondering. The answer is:
NO!!!!
Unlikely.. Green Party candidate for 2000 Ralph Nader focussed his campaign on exposing Gore as an 'environmental imposter', a corporate whore, warmonger and polluter who has always served the interests of polluting industries. Greens don't like Gore at all.
Brain-dead and dangerous, in my opinion. Scary, huh?
Who hired the stupid consultants?
Who took bad advice from stupid consultants and acted on it as if it were his own thinking?
Do we want a president who chooses stupid advisors and acts on bad advice without thinking?
I'm a "real conservative" and I take offense at your comment. Not one true Conservative on FR has ever come close to saying this or even thinking it.
When we comment on the fact that President Bush has made the wrong decision, or a stupid decision it doesn't mean we are the enemy. It means we are truthful and not deceitful.
SIGH. Not another one. Do I have to do this all day?
This individual is a Keyes supporter. I've talked with him. I'm sure he would identify himself as a "true conservative". And just in case you decide not to bother to click on the link, this is the opening statement of the post:
It would have been better for our country if Gore had won.
Sheesh.
I said there are no true Conservatives on Free Republic who wish Gore had won. There are many who pretend to be conservatives in order to say stupid things and cause fights between Republicans and Conservatives. They are suspect and I don't care to read their drivil. Sheesh
I don't care who he supported. Hey, I voted for Keyes in the Primary, but supported Bush in the election.
True Conservatives don't wish algor had won -- gag spit. This guy you are refrencing is a red herring seeking to cause riots between die hard Republicans and true blue patroit Conservatives.
I wouldn't give him my time. I always reckoned he was James Carville in drag.
LOL - well, I'm not sure he'd appreciate that! He's been around a while, and he really is a Keyes supporter.
As for me, I think his logic in this case is insane. (Given our history, he won't be surprised to hear me say that.) People need to know there ARE others who identify themselves as conservatives who think this way, as bizarre as it seems. Personally, it scares me.
"'Oh, no, my mom is going to debate Ice-T on national television, I'm really embarrassed.' I liked Ice-T. I was a fan."
Come on. How much of a fan of Ice-T could she possibly have been?
"I knew all the words to 'Colors,'" she insists. To prove her point, she breaks into the rap:
"'I am a nightmare walking, psychopath talking/king of the jungle, just a gangster stalking/Living life like a firecracker, quick is my fuse/Then dead as a deathpack the colors I choose,'" she raps, sort of. "I mean, the whole thing."
To be fair, I should say, for a lily-white senator's daughter who went to the National Cathedral High School, Harvard University and Columbia Law School, her rapping isn't terrible. Salon
And this, from the Al-Gore-2004 web site:
Karenna Gore Schiff, the eldest daughter of former vice president Al Gore, hinted Thursday that she might follow in her father's footsteps and seek political office.
"I really love grassroots politics," she said in an interview with CNN. "I care a lot about issues that other people do: environmental protection and health care and education. And it was such a privilege to be able to talk about those things out on the campaign trail in 2000. So I don't know if I'll be a candidate, but it is something that I wouldn't rule out."
Schiff said she would most likely run in New York where she now lives. "I do feel like it's home," she said. "When I vote I vote on the basis of New York issues, and I support local candidates in our city and in our state. So I feel politically oriented to New York right now."
Just pick a state a random, Karenna - it worked for Hitlery.
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