DEAR AL Gore,
After reading a story about you in The Washington Post the other day, I felt moved to write you a little note. The Post headline read, "If He Runs Again, Gore Says 'To Hell with Polls.'" Tipper and Karenna want you to run again, the story said, and apparently you're thinking about it - you even held a retreat for a bunch of potential fundraisers to get a feel for how much financial support you could get if you were to run again.
Which moves me to say: Don't do it. Do not run again, for the simple reason that you will lose. And Democrats will face another four years of dark days under an administration that has little regard for the environment, threatens civil liberties, opposes a woman's right to choose, and endangers the nation's relationships with potential allies through bad decisions on first-strike policies and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
I'm sorry, Al, but you can't blame me for not having much faith in you. You managed to lose even though you were vice president in an administration still incredibly popular after many a sex scandal. It was also an administration that had seen unprecedented economic growth during its tenure. In fact, historically, the incumbent party has been voted back into office in virtually every other presidential election in which the economy was as strong as it was in 2000. You should have won by a sizable margin. Instead, the margin consisted of a couple hundred dimpled chads that weren't in your favor.
If you run again, you won't have the advantage of being on the side of an incumbent party that has overseen a strong economy, and you'll be up against an opponent with astronomically high approval ratings. You say that if you run again, you'll have a better shot because you won't rely so much on polls and advisors. But really, Al, that alone won't help you win out over the incredibly popular Bush. And it won't help you overcome your biggest demon in the 2000 election, the thing that won't change no matter how many election cycles come and go. It won't help you overcome you.
Because, contrary to what you said in your speech at the Democratic nominating convention, the race for the presidency is a popularity contest. American voters want a president they wouldn't mind sitting down and having a beer with. By all accounts - and with the last election as a prime example - they like the candidate who seems like a "nice guy" over the one who is better qualified.
They want someone with personality. And you, dear Al, have the personality of a hall monitor. You are a stern, famously wooden know-it-all. You tried your darndest to give yourself a little flair, I know. But personality is not planting a wet one on Tipper at the nominating convention. It is also not gained by growing a beard.
Another thing that won't change is that you have a tin ear. Even with pollsters at your disposal, you have no idea what people want to hear. Bush does. In 2000, he promised the American people tax cuts, the presidential campaign equivalent of a sixth-grade student body president wannabe's promise of free pizza Fridays. You promised the American people a populist message of helping narrow the huge gap between the wealthy and poor. You told the people that there were hard times ahead that we would have to work through together. But this was 2000, when the dot-com bubble hadn't yet burst; things were still going well. People wanted to enjoy the good times, but you only promised them that there was hard work ahead. And people don't want hard work. They want pizza.
Believe me, Al, I stuck by you through the 2000 campaign, through everything - through the too-rushed nomination speech, through the debate sighs, through the hanging chads. Hell, I stuck with you through the "lockbox." Why? Not because I really liked you all that much. I didn't think you were dynamic, or on the way to being the next great leader of the Democratic party, or even on the way to being a slightly-more-than-mediocre leader of the Democratic party.
I stuck by you because you were all we had.
But now we have someone else - many others, in fact. We have Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, a former lawyer who is knowledgeable, intelligent, and - the clincher - charismatic. He's got that ability to connect with people, that pizza vibe, that you didn't, and don't. We have Tom Daschle, current Senate Majority Leader, articulate and experienced and the highest-ranking Democrat currently in government. We have Howard Dean, the current governor of Vermont, a former doctor who is campaigning for the Democratic nomination on a platform of fiscal conservatism and universal health care. And we might have your former running mate, Joe Lieberman, a more conservative Democrat who would likely bring in many moderate Republicans.
In short, we have hope. Not a lot of hope - Bush's approval ratings are still coasting in the high 70s - but some.
So I will make a plea to you. If you care about any of the things you say you care about - protecting the environment, reproductive rights for women, gun control - you will not run for president again. You will graciously step aside, acknowledging that you had your chance. Now it's someone else's turn.
(Laura Sahramaa is a Cavalier Daily opinion editor. She can be reached at lsahramaa@cavalierdaily.com.)
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