Al Gore Should Wait

Following the long and boring Academy Awards, many folks are renewing their efforts to get Al Gore to run for President again.

We have no idea whether Al is inclined to do so--we'd think he's having a lot more fun, and arguably doing more good, with his current gig.

But, if Gore is motivated to give it another try, he should wait. As they say in the movies (now that he's a sort of movie star) "wait 'til you see the whites of their eyes."

Conventional wisdom is that the '08 presidential race will be so expensive that a candidate has to get in now to be able to raise enough money. Indeed, the money race has already claimed Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack as a victim, and deterred others from entering.

That conventional wisdom doesn't apply to Al Gore (or to Newt Gingrich on the GOP side, either). If Gore decides to run, he'll be able to raise a boatload of money in short order.

Better off to wait as long as possible, which we think is probably until about September. During that period Hillary, Obama and Edwards will be clawing each other to death, to the point that none of them will be all that attractive come the end of summer. In fact, we're already getting pretty sick of them. Moreover, it looks like both the Democratic and Republican nominating races are going to devolve into three-way contests where no candidate has a decisive advantage.

Thus, the longer Gore can wait, the cleaner he'll look. In the meantime, he can take the high road, possibly even earning a Nobel Peace Prize along the way. He doesn't have to criticize any of the other Democratic candidates--indeed, he can praise them all. Then, when he does enter, it can be "for the good of the party."

In contrast, if Gore enters now, he'll soon get bogged down in sniping, especially with Hillary's crowd, about all kinds of issues besides global warming. His initial momentum will soon fade--just look what's happened to Obama. Come September, he'll be just another muddy Democrat in what could be a four-way race with no decisive leader (or, he could knock out Edwards--Gore is even cleaner than Edwards on Iraq, and we're not sure what else Edwards really has to offer besides a pretty face).

It's an interesting scenario historically. In 1960, Richard Nixon lost a squeaker to JFK--many Republicans claimed the race was stolen from Nixon in Chicago. Eight years later, he came back to win (during a very unpopular war) with a much more "checkered" past (couldn't resist) than Gore's is now. After LBJ bowed out in '68, the race was almost as wide open as this time around. Could history repeat itself 40 years later (without the subsequent downfall of Nixon, of course)?

Only time will tell. Gore can afford to wait.