JFK II: A Contender, Or Comedian Fodder?
The Boston Globe assesses John Kerry’s 2008 prospects, and how can I resist? The pitch:
Kerry, like Nixon, would hardly start as the favorite for his party’s nomination. That would obviously be Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
And yet, Clinton’s polling numbers probably reflect as much nostalgia for her husband’s presidency as they do genuine support for the New York senator herself, who hasn’t displayed his political skill or nimbleness.
Moreover, several recent polls — one showing her being beaten handily by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona; another revealing that a (slim) majority of registered voters polled said they would never vote for her – have Democratic insiders edgy.
What state could Hillary Clinton win that he didn’t, Kerry has pointedly asked some associates?
Now, Clinton may prove unstoppable in the primaries. But from today’s vantage point, the Democratic early-going seems likely to become a struggle to see what candidate emerges as her principal rival.
There, Kerry has some distinct pluses. Start with $15 million in his campaign kitty, a sizable advantage in a race that will leave most of the new faces scrambling for table stakes.
Indeed, perhaps only Clinton and the wealthy Mark Warner, attractive as the popular, moderate former governor of Virginia, would be as well-funded.
Despite the disdain some Washington types have for him, Kerry remains reasonably well thought of by grass-roots Democrats, which is important in a crowded field. In 2004, his status as a second choice for many primary voters gave him room to grow when others faltered.
He’s also maintained an online community, one that generated 3,000,000 responses of one sort or another last year. Meanwhile, he raised almost $5 million from more than 120,000 contributors in 2005, and gave $3 million to Democratic causes.
All bets would be off if Al Gore got in (though that’s currently considered unlikely). Gore could also raise the money needed. As the former vice president, his national security credentials trump Kerry’s, and as the popular vote winner from 2000, he has a better claim to electability. And the drama of a Gore-Clinton clash would leave a second Kerry effort robbed of oxygen.
Still, easy as he is to caricature as a political zombie, in a Gore-free campaign, Kerry simply can’t be written off. Although he wouldn’t start with the best hand, he still holds enough solid cards to count as a serious player.
Look, it’s in my best interest for Kerry to be the Democratic nominee because (a) he’d lose the election, even if his opponent was a mule in a dress, and (b) he would provide endless opportunities for sheer hilarity for me and my readers.
However, read my lips:
NOT…A…CHANCE…
“What state could Hillary Clinton win that he didn’t, Kerry has pointedly asked some associates?”
So if we should assume Hillary can’t win any more states than Kerry, how does it follow that Kerry can win more states than Kerry?
I saw some story on him where he talked about how people come up to him in airports and praise him and say they should have voted for him in ’04, etc., and I’m lefting thinking that all those stories that mocked him as a pompous egomaniac, those stories that I tended to dismiss as the typical rantings of campaign season, might actually all be true. He really doesn’t realize that people were not voting for him; they were voting against Bush. I’m really astounded at how dim the guy must be about his own prospects.
These “here’s how he could win” stories remind me of similar stories talking about how Quayle might be the nominee in 1996 or 2000. Sure, if you squint you can see it, but let’s be serious.
Finally I see in print what I’ve been mocked for saying out loud to my friends:
Al Gore is a serious contender for the 2008 nomination.
I really think he will enter the race and win the nod. He is the perfect compromise candidate – Hillary can’t win, Kerry just lost, and nobody knows who Mark Warner is – that brings you right back to Al.
Add to the fact that he will be able to raise copious amounts of cash, and that what he is attempting to do has been done in the past by Nixon, and there you have it.
Well, anything’s possible these days, but I seriously doubt it, Bij. For one thing, all the GOP will have to do during the general election will be to run the endless tapes of Big Al’s many rants and ravings over the past 4 years – no editing will be required here.
If you think the press made Dean look like a raving lunatic with his flame – outs last time, just wait until you get a look at Al’s greatest hits – the guy is a walking symbol of unhinged rhetoric and unbridled, unprincipled rage. End result: GOP landslide in ’08.
No one likes a sore loser in this country (even Nixon figured this out after his defeat to Kennedy, and he had quite a few valid reasons for contesting the results), even though it’s understandable, given his circumstances.
Dmac,
I think you are applying too much Republican analysis to Bij’s statement.
Koskids don’t think Al Gore is a lunatic and neither does Hollywood, Air America, MoveOn, or other Democrat deep pockets.
I agree with Bij. I think Gore will run and be formidable. As crazy as it seems now, a Kerry/Gore or Gore/Kerry ticket may be the only hope for the Democrats. Both have big negatives, but their positives combined may be just enough to get them Ohio without giving up PA, WI, or MN. Hillary may get more votes, but not have enough positives to help a ticket in the swing states.
Of course none of the three want to be VP, but Gore and Kerry both believe they deserve to be President so an alliance is possible.
There is a basic fact that Kerry’s handlers need to get a grip on:
Senator Kerry could not beat George Bush in a run for President, how on earth is he going to beat ANY Republican Candidate, who is sure to be much more well-liked than the Universally-hated Bush?
Kerry 2008
To bad for Kerry that the majority of those wishing for him to run, are those who plan to vote against him.
The Dems have a real problem for 08.
“Koskids don’t think Al Gore is a lunatic and neither does Hollywood, Air America, MoveOn, or other Democrat deep pockets.”
Yes, but we’ve already seen that these narrow constituencies are not enough to win in a general election, even when the opposing candidate can be easily beaten. These are the same far – left orgs that got behind Kerry, and he still lost a campaign that was definitely winnable. Gore should also have won handily – it never should have been close with the kind of lead – in that he inherited from Clinton. Both candidates are terrible campaigners and tone deaf to boot, and even worse on the stump.
It’s a losing hand, and if McCain or Rudy is the opponent, count on the GOP to run roughshod on the kind of nutters that support their opponent, and then watch the states outside of the coastal areas run away in horror.
I was firmly in line with Bij’s theory up until last year, for the exact same reasons Bij cited. Quite frankly, it makes a lot of sense.
At least until you look at the poll numbers.
There’s this Fox poll from last September (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,171340,00.html) where they asked voters who they viewed as a “strong and decisive leader” and Gore got 27 percent, bottom of the pack. Even more brutally, if you look at the accompanying pdf file, only 45 percent of Democrats viewed him as a strong leader, vs. 46 percent who said he isn’t. No one else did so poorly among his own party.
Then you’ve got this Fox poll (http://www.pollingreport.com/2008.htm#misc) that just came out today and when you look at the list of who would be a good president, you’ve got 34 percent saying Al Gore would be good, 60 percent saying he would not. The only people with worse numbers are Ted Kennedy, Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It’s all surprising to me, because I thought the post-2000 distaste for Gore was pretty much a right-wing phenomenon alone. But the numbers don’t lie. Anything is possible, and of course opinions can change a lot over the next few years, but the numbers indicate he would have a hard time convincing Democrats that he’s their savior.
Dennis – while I agree with your analysis here, I don’t know about the relevancy of any polls this early in the process, and particularly polls from Fox, CBS, NYT, etc. Pew certainly has their problems at times, but is fairly reliable, and the Gallup/NBC polls are also good, sober pieces that don’t ask leading questions and usually get good cross – sectioning in their sample base.
I’m not an expert here by any means, but Fox is a little too partisan for me to take seriously (unless they had a polling partner that was credible).
dmac, Fox’s news coverage certainly has a conservative slant, but their polls have genuinely been viewed as kosher from everything I’ve read. They work with Opinion Dynamics Corp.
You’re certainly right that there’s only so much you can conclude from polls three years out, but I still think it’s remarkable that Al Gore comes across so poorly in these polls. Now if he starts running and people start taking him seriously again, the numbers will probably improve. But I expect the only way he’ll get some voters excited by the prospect is to run left, and I think that will hurt him fatally in the general election, should he make it that far.
Hi dmac,
I agree with everything you wrote regarding the general election. Gore will have a problem getting elected President. So will Kerry, so will Hilary, so will Obama, so will every other Democrat because the primary voters on the Democrat side will not be voting for a candidate who will win. They will be voting for a candidate who says what they want to hear. Even if they thought they were voting for a candidate based on his or her ability to win, they have no way of knowing if that person will win.
I also agree with you about Rudy and McCain. I do think McCain will have more of a problem getting nominated, though. Rudy seems like a very good bet even with a few of his negatives.
i think much prediction right now is risky because of events on the global scene, especially iran and iraq. there is an old adage that governments are not elected but defeated. the best way to defeat the republican noise machine is with the facts concerning the debacle of a misguided bush doctrine. and i would say that because of gore’s record of being against the iraq mistake from the first could put him in the most enviable position of all the candidates if he played it right. and any other outsider as well such as mark warner who didn’t vote for the worst executive decision in american history. its only a matter of time before the word neocon becomes a pariah. thus a gore/warner ticket could be indeed the nixon68 type comeback the democrats dream of. the wildcard is iran and how the impending crisis with that country comes to be played out.