Gore & Dean: Left, Left and Left they Go!
By Ben Johnson
The Democratic Crack-Up
Although Gore no longer represents the centrist faction of the
Democratic Party, the media are correct in saying there is a civil war
brewing between the centrist Democratic Leadership Council and the
party's left-wing base. And Al Gore is in the midst of that fight,
pushing the party leftward.
Interestingly, in his endorsement speech, Gore twice emphasized the
need "to remake the Democratic Party." When Bill Clinton took over
the party in 1992, he took the party's public image well to the
right. No Democrat had campaigned on a platform of cutting taxes,
supporting the death penalty and crafting a militaristic foreign policy
since JFK (or at least George Wallace). With the exception of the
post-Watergate election in 1976, itself a squeaker, Democrats had not
been politically viable since George McGovern
captured the party for the New Left 20 years before. ***** Morris'
brilliant "triangulation" strategy changed all that.
Gore's endorsement of Dean is his statement on the matter: he's had
enough triangulating. In this war over the Democratic Party's
realignment, Al Gore finds himself to the left of his old boss and
Senator Hillary Clinton. Although Hillary is a doctrinaire leftist with
a radical pedigree, Hillary has learned a lot since trying to
nationalize health care. She is triangulating herself these days, as
demonstrated by her recent "hawkish" foreign policy. She and Bill
hope to keep the party centrist in order to keep it electable.
(Ironically, Al Gore reportedly objected to "Hillarycare" behind
the scenes, complaining the move was too liberal.)
However, many, including Gore, believe political success will come
about only if the party realigns to the Left. Gore has not forgotten
that if a few hundred Floridian Greens had voted for him instead of
Ralph Nader, he'd be president today. Many feel the Democratic Party
must reclaim its radical activist core, which deserted it for the Green
Party, in order to sure up its electoral future. And that means heading
to McGovern territory: retreating from the War on Terror, ending
Homeland Security, endorsing every
form of cohabitation as equal to the nuclear family and repealing every
tax cut since the '60s.
The prescription is perfectly disastrous. Al Gore garnered his
much-ballyhooed popular vote total because most Americans were satiated
by the economic prosperity created by Clinton's capitulation to the
Republican Congress. Al Gore believes he would have won if he had been
far enough to the Left to attract the Greens, but Ralph Nader, for all
the media's hagiographic coverage, captured only a tiny, doctrinaire
portion of the electorate; call it the Kucinich Bloc. Were it not for
the prosperity Republican policies created, Gore would not have
accumulated enough votes for Nader's showing to look significant.
Realigned as the party of leftist orthodoxy, the Democratic Party will
return to the days of McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis; to the days Gore
himself derided its "politics of retreat, complacency and doubt."
In other words, voters will consign this Democratic Party to permanent
minority party status. With his endorsement of Howard Dean and calls
for the party to adopt his own leftist ideology, Al Gore has
moved his party one step closer to that fate.
Howard and Al "MoveOn"
Both Gore and Dean have been drinking from the same poisoned wells in
recent months, cavorting with the hatemongers of MoveOn.org. Although
polls showed Dean as the emerging frontrunner, it was his victory in
MoveOn's "virtual primary" (in which Dennis Kucinich came in
second) that cemented his status. The same website ran interference for
Gore in 2000, attempting to jam the Nader campaign's communication
lines in the waning days of the campaign. And it was MoveOn.org (and,
pointedly, not any official party venue) that sponsored Al Gore's two
most significant speeches, in which he derided Bush' s handling of
Iraq and called for the repeal of the Patriot Act.
MoveOn has provided an enthusiastic audience as Gore allows his leftist
convictions to finally come to the fore. Someone once said politics is
the art of finding a crowd, getting in front of it and telling it what
to do.
Gore has found his crowd; it is at MoveOn.org rallies cheering Howard
Dean. According to one of Gore's associates, "When Gore gave a
speech to MoveOn, he got 3,000 people there. There were times in the
race when we couldn't get 3,000 people to turn up, and he was the
nominee."
For his part, Gore barely disguises his motivation. Howard Dean has
captured the party base in a way Gore never could. Assured by
endorsements from two huge public sector unions (AFSCME and SEIU), Gore
is comfortable Dean has "critical mass" to win the nomination. And now
Al Gore wants to share his spotlight. In his endorsement Tuesday
morning, Gore noted that Dean "really is the only candidate who has
been able to inspire at the grassroots level all over the country."
Translation: Dean's a winner and leftist soulmate,
and I want to come along for the photo-op. Yet there is more to the
endorsement; there's also a very personal reason for his actions:
revenge.
Gore Strikes Back at the Clintons
"Clinton fatigue" played a major role in Gore's paper-thin loss in
2000. Although Clinton survived his scandal-ridden presidency, voters
took out their frustrations by proxy on Gore; Gore became, in Chris
Matthews' words, "the bathtub ring" of the Clinton
Administration. He has not forgotten, and his sense of cosmic justice
will not allow him to suffer for Bill Clinton's sins, while Hillary,
sanctified by the same sins, waltzes to the presidency in 2008. Gore's
endorsement of Dean could derail her campaign, perhaps alone
worth the effort in his mind.
When Hillary runs in 2008, she can count on the support of most current
party apparatchiks, leftover from her husband's tenure. However, if
Dean wins the nomination, he will kick the Clinton cadre out of the
DNC, beginning with the famously inept Terry McAuliffe. This will
realign the party to its traditional leftist core. Should Dean win the
nomination but lose the general election (which seems likely), the 2008
presidential hopefuls will have to wrestle with a party establishment
cast in the image of Howard Dean - and Al Gore. With new leadership,
Hillary's ascendancy to the nomination will be sidetracked, possibly
interred. ( Indeed, the Clintons have set up alternate sources of
funding in case of just such an event. ) And if Al Gore's endorsement
put that new party leadership in place, he will be in a position to
collect these chits in 2008. And 2008 is the bottom line.
Nixon Ressurexit
Al Gore was raised with a sworn duty. From his tender years, he was
raised to do what Albert Gore Sr. could never do: become President of
the United States. His father reportedly exercised inordinate emotional
pressure on Gore to strive for the top prize, inducing a neurotic lust
for power from Al 's childhood. Indeed, his mother canceled his
boyhood violin lessons, telling the young Albert, "future world
leaders do not play the violin." He will never feel he has lived up
to his duty until he sits in the Oval Office, even if that means facing
down Hillary Clinton four years from now (and it will).
Gore is now following the playbook of another Vice President who
narrowly lost (or perhaps legitimately won) the presidency, became
widely reviled and was considered "washed up" by the following
election cycle. This Vice President graciously endorsed and campaigned
for his party's nominee four years later - a man whose fiery
rhetoric excited the party's ideological base - racking up favors
and goodwill throughout the party in the process. Then, he set about
reinventing himself before capturing his party's nomination, and then
the White House. And Richard Nixon was elected to two terms in office.
How will Al Gore reinvent himself? His proposed leftist television
network would be a good start. Having seen Howard Dean emerge from
obscurity via the internet, Gore has learned the power of positive
media. Like Dean, Gore is fascinated with technology and how to channel
it to suit his political ends. In fact, the lone highlight of Gore's
stillborn campaign for the 2004 nomination was his appearance on
"Saturday Night Live," in which he effectively portrayed a living
human being. Was it the real Al Gore? Gore
himself probably doesn't know. But the audience liked that guy a lot
more than the version they had become accustomed to over the past ten
years. Should Gore launch an avowedly left-wing TV network, his smiling
face will be beamed into millions of homes everyday. In 2008, Hillary
will have a Senate record to defend, but Gore will have only a blooper
reel. In the meantime, he can carefully - electronically - manage
his public image, neatly editing out all signs of stiffness,
insincerity and well-bred arrogance.
Some would say a perpetual media campaign is a slender reed on which to
hang a presidential campaign, but it has worked before. Ronald
Reagan's radio commentaries, newspaper columns and televised debates
kept the ex-governor in the spotlight from 1974-1980. Gore could use a
worse role model.
The Nixon analogy is not perfect; Nixon did not back Goldwater during
the primaries, and an abysmal showing by Dean in '04 could backfire on
Gore. Apparently, it's a chance Gore is willing to take. The bottom
line is clear: If Howard Dean succeeds in the primaries then falters in
the general election, the nation will get to see how effectively Al
Gore can execute the Nixon playbook in 2008.
--
Left-wing liberals are EVERYTHING they accuse the right of being. They
are mean, vicious, hateful, greedy, cold-hearted, closed-minded,
selfish, intolerant, bigoted and racist.
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