Al Gore Endorsing Howard Dean?

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/...ean/index.html

I'm not comfortable with this match-up. Just an opinion.

[skywalker]

And on the other hand I'm EXTREMELY comfortable with this match up!

Time to clean house, White House that is!


Mark

[Timber Loftis]

If it helps Dean's campaign, I'm all for it. Clearly he's not going to change his politics to match Gore's (where they differ).
__________________________________________________ __
Today's NY Times:
December 9, 2003
NEWS ANALYSIS
Mr. Inside Embraces Mr. Outside, and What a Surprise
By TODD S. PURDUM

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 — In moving to endorse Howard Dean, Al Gore embraced an insurgent candidate who has spent months railing against the brand of centrist-at-home, hawkish-abroad Democratic politics that Mr. Gore worked 20 years to help build. And in winning the endorsement, Dr. Dean has shown that he is now much more concerned about wooing the Washington establishment than whacking it.

Politics makes strange bedfellows? You bet.

In pledging allegiance to Dr. Dean, Mr. Gore passed over Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the man he chose three years ago as his own running mate; Gen. Wesley K. Clark, for whom several of his former aides are working; Representative Richard A. Gephardt, a onetime rival who warmly endorsed him four years ago; and Senator John Kerry, a former colleague who declined to challenge him for the nomination in 2000.

It was a move of striking — and discretionary — boldness that would have been all but unheard of for the cautious, calculating candidate Mr. Gore once was. At a time when a new generation of Democrats, like Hillary Rodham Clinton, are in the spotlight, this dramatic announcement puts Mr. Gore, at least briefly, back at the center of the public stage he left last year.

By accepting Mr. Gore's support, Dr. Dean clearly hopes to ease the fears of Democratic office-holders who worry that he cannot beat President Bush. Mr. Gore remains popular in Iowa, whose crucial early caucuses Dr. Dean is hoping to win, as well as with black voters in the South and throughout the nation whose support Dr. Dean would badly need in a general election. The location of the endorsement announcement, scheduled for Harlem and Iowa, drove home that point. But even as he stands to gain, Dr. Dean may also alienate some of the grass roots supporters who have flocked to his crusade, disaffected by politics as usual and disappointed by Mr. Gore's losing campaign in 2000.

The move carries obvious potential rewards, but equally obvious risks, for both men. The sudden marriage of such a seeming odd couple could wind up being seen as so politically expedient as to seem almost unprincipled, playing into the public's worst perceptions that campaigns are about power and winning, not big ideas.

"It plays into Republicans, who want to re-fight the last election and run against Democrats as not having firm moral values or beliefs," one Democratic strategist said. "They're going to use it against Gore, saying he threw out everything he believes in, and they'll use it against Dean saying he sold out. The No. 1 picture in both Democratic and Republican direct mail is going to be Gore and Dean together."

So why did Mr. Gore do it?

"It's just fascinating to me," said one former aide among several who confessed, all on condition of anonymity, that they were puzzled by the choice. "It's either Al Gore unplugged: `Look at me! I don't need any advisers. I'm my own guy. I don't have to put my finger to the wind and I can do unconventional things.' Or it's that Dean draws the sharpest contrast with Bush and that's the attraction."

Indeed, since ending his self-imposed moratorium on criticism of President Bush after he took office, Mr. Gore has emerged periodically with sharply critical set-piece speeches faulting the man who got the job he wanted. Several Gore aides noted on Monday that some of these comments have sounded far more candid — and liberal — than the man they worked for.

Another Gore intimate said: "Look, he wouldn't do this if he wasn't excited about Dean. This is a guy, it's not as if he's the personification of the Democratic Party, but he might as well be, given he was the nominee. And now he's saying it's O.K.," to be for Dr. Dean, "so that's the significance of it."

Mr. Gore and Dr. Dean have at least one thing in common: technology, specifically the Internet. Mr. Gore was an avid early supporter of the Internet, and Dr. Dean has exploited its organizational and fund-raising potential like no candidate before him. In a nascent career in the private sector, Mr. Gore has worked for a Los Angeles-based investment company with interests in high technology and tried to recruit investors for a liberal media alternative to conservative outlets like Fox News.

In August, Mr. Gore made a policy speech at New York University in Manhattan, criticizing the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq. The event was sponsored by MoveOn.org, the grass-roots Internet organization that was founded in opposition to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and has been instrumental in Dr. Dean's campaign. He said then that he would eventually endorse a Democrat for the White House, among other reasons, "because I believe that we must stand for a future in which the United States will again be feared only by its enemies" and for "a republic once again comfortable that its chief executive knows the limits as well as the powers of the presidency; a nation that places the highest value on facts, not ideology, as the basis for all its great debates and decisions."

Before the 2000 election, when Mr. Gore was vice president, he was concerned enough that a largely unknown governor from Vermont named Howard Dean might challenge him for the nomination that he took the trouble of warning Mr. Dean not to run. When Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, devised this cycle's front-loaded primary schedule, he too hoped that it would help deter challengers and lead the party to rally early around a consensus candidate — perhaps even Mr. Gore himself.

It did not work out that way, of course. Mr. Gore chose not to be a contender. Now the man who would have been king may settle for being a kingmaker after all.

[Timber Loftis]

While I'm at it:

Why TL Likes Dean

[HolyWarrior]

I'm wondering if this is an attempt at a "kiss of death"...

timber - great link from cnn summarising the candidates policies. [img]smile.gif[/img]

where's he gonna get the money for all that spending he talks about (eg guarantee social security, fund the currently unfunded education mandate, increase veteran benefits to previous levels, etc.), while still balancing the budget?

of course, given what the lil oil monkee's done to the budget (how large type font would adequately represent the current deficit?), maybe i shouldnt care how he funds it.

[khazadman]

HolyWarrior, the kiss of death among the dems would be to have Bill Clinton back you. Ask Grey Davis.

[Rokenn]

Originally posted by HolyWarrior: I'm wondering if this is an attempt at a "kiss of death"...

Kiss of death? Hardly, Gore won the popular vote despite his crappy campaign.

[Azred]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis (from the article): The move carries obvious potential rewards, but equally obvious risks, for both men. The sudden marriage of such a seeming odd couple could wind up being seen as so politically expedient as to seem almost unprincipled, playing into the public's worst perceptions that campaigns are about power and winning, not big ideas. [img]graemlins/erm.gif[/img] Campaigns are about winning, not ideas. So why did Mr. Gore do it? To put his name on everyone's lips and get his name blasted across every source of media available. It worked.

Actually, I am surprised that Gore isn't running himself. Except for Dean, he would certainly beat out any other Democrat candidate at this--or any--time.

[LordKathen]

Its all a set up for his run in 2008. IMHO