A Room Without a View: Dickerson on Gore

John Dickerson has identified the biggest problems Al Gore would face in a second run for the presidency: Democratic consultants and the press.

In his Slate column yesterday, Dickerson approvingly cites Mark Leibovich’s story in last Sunday’s New York Times. Leibovich says Gore left a “sour taste” in the mouths of voters after his 2000 loss and that “broad sectors” of the Democratic party see Gore as “deeply stigmatized.” But Leibovich quotes only six Democrats by name — none of whom said anything negative about Gore — and some unnamed “operatives and insiders” who are prepared to trash Gore should he run.

That doesn’t sound like a groundswell of disapproval to me. It sounds like a few Democrats commenting on the difficulties involved in a political resuscitation and a few more, those operatives and insiders, who don’t want to see Gore run because they’ll be working for candidates threatened by Gore and because they don’t have a hope in hell of getting hired by him if he puts their meal tickets out of the race. So some of Leibovich’s sources think a Gore candidacy would be difficult but not offensive, and others have a vested interest in preemptively nuking the idea.

Dickerson also cites Gore’s favorable/unfavorable ratings in a Times poll (Acrobat file) from earlier this month, which stand at 29% and 38%, respectively, with 25% undecided. Compare those numbers with his ratings in March of 2000, when his campaign was getting underway: 34% favorable, 40% unfavorable and 20% undecided. Two years out, Gore’s numbers are about the same now as they were then, and the current Times poll was taken before Gore began receiving favorable reviews on his new film.

That’s not to say Gore would be a lock for the nomination if he ran, and Dickerson offers some persuasive reasons why he might not want to run, primarily that he’s having fun doing what he’s doing and that he’s not fond of campaigning. But the obstacles to a run aren’t Leibovich’s “broad sectors” of Democrats, which is patent crap, or the New York Times poll numbers, which are essentially meaningless at this point; they’re the press, who have their infinitely recyclable “Al Gore invented the internet” and “earth tones” diminuitives, and a Democratic leadership and consultancy class more comfortable attacking Gore and Howard Dean and any other Democrat with a pulse than they are attacking Republicans.

Dickerson says he likes Gore, finds him authentic and would like to see him run. He also mentions that his current editor, Jacob Weisberg, tweaked him about his fondness for authenticity, as expressed by a fondness for John McCain, in 2000. That would be this Jacob Weisberg, who only a month or so ago concocted a formula by which McCain’s pandering to the hard right and his presumptive abandonment of them as the election looms equals an iconoclastic authenticity.

Because, you know, only a genius of authenticity would pretend to like someone and then dump them on prom night. And only a playa hater would call the rascal on it.

Dickerson makes good points about some of the problems Gore will face if he runs, including the press backlash, but undermines them up front with the twin assumptions that what might be described as Gore’s populism and what can only be described as his passionate advocacy for sane environmental and foreign policies are incompatible with his previous political positions.

It seems to me that the hype about the New Gore poses a problem for him should he eventually decide to run: He can’t sustain the authenticity that is fueling his bandwagon.

It’s not that Gore is inherently dull. (And judiciousness could be a plus after the Bush years.) The problem is that the activists and bloggers most approving of Gore’s “authenticity” also seem the least likely to allow any deviation from their definition of it. Campaigns require tactical compromises and prioritizing, even to achieve noble goals, and those acts are often seen as inauthentic and weak. Even Howard Dean, who is often praised for his genuineness, tailored his views on fiscal policy and entitlement reform to appeal to liberals in his party, a disconnect with his more conservative past. Gore’s assessment of the last presidential elections suggest he still believes campaigns must be won by moving to the middle, a notion some in his party abhor. He knows about political shading. It’s why he can craft that coy language about running in 2008. But if he does too much of this, he will disappoint his new allies.

Talk about the New Gore also builds upon a structural flaw of his last candidacy: Does he know his own mind? If what we’re seeing now is the real Al Gore, why was he so easily swayed last time by advisers and pollsters bearing bad advice? If authenticity is just a political gambit, it’s hardly authentic. The Old Gore vs. New Gore angle is likely to become a theme of the coverage if Gore runs. The press will remind us again and again about the 2000 campaign’s earth-tone suits and the Great Dane kiss of Tipper at the convention and all the other inauthentic things he did to tailor his behavior to show people what he thought they wanted to see. The press will watch closely for signs of a relapse. [links are Dickerson's]

If Gore runs and abandons both the issues he’s pressing now and the intensity with which he’s pressing them, then yes, bloggers and activists will cool on him. But, in sharp contrast to the press, with their teenaged social preoccupations and sensibilites, most of the bloggers and activists now intrigued by Gore are adults capable of accepting political realities — actual ones, not the imaginary ones the DLC and others cater to — and resisting the narratives reporters find so compelling.

Nuances aside, there’s a larger point that seems to elude Dickerson: Gore doesn’t need to move toward the center; he’s already there (as are most of the bloggers and activists who support him). A large majority of Americans oppose the Iraq war and an even larger majority think Republicans are truly awful at governing — the same New York Times poll Dickerson cites shows a whopping 70% of respondents think the country is headed in the wrong direction, with majorities or pluralities saying Democrats would do a better job on almost every issue than are Republicans. What sets Gore apart from most other Democratic politicians isn’t so much the content of his positions but the fact that he actually has some and isn’t afraid to forcefully articulate them. There’s no reason at this point to think that will change.

Gore didn’t run a great campaign last time and was savaged by the press. The latter won’t change; it’s inevitable that the kiddie corps will again focus on irrelevancies rather than issues. If the former doesn’t change, Gore won’t make it out of the primaries. It’s important to remember, though, that despite the press, despite the campaign misteps and despite the votes siphoned off by Ralph Nader, whose grasp of nuance compares unfavorably with that of George Bush, Gore won the election. If he’s not smart enough to do as well or better next time around, he doesn’t deserve to win.

The point of all this is that Dickerson, who actually likes Gore, is succumbing to many of the same misconceptions that plague, or are merrily adopted by, depending, his colleagues who dislike Gore. It’s fine, in fact it’s helpful, to point out the hazards Gore will face if he runs, and Dickerson deserves credit for being among the few institutional press writers who are willing to admit that the press create phony issues and then report on them as if they arose from the Zeitgeist. But mistaking passionate advocacy for an unacceptably liberal policy stance, mistaking Leibovich’s analysis for reality and imagining that Gore enthusiasts suffer from the same iseological rigidity as the fanatics on the Republican right are crippling failures.

UPDATE: In support of the proposition that Democrats find Gore unpalatable, an anonymous journalist pointed me to a November 2005 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll which shows the following:

“Are there any candidates on this list for whom you would definitely NOT vote for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination?” Multiple responses accepted. Asked of registered voters who are Democrats/leaners, or are independents who would vote in a Democratic presidential primary.

%
17     Al Gore

13     Unsure

I would guess that those numbers have shifted considerably since then, but they do offer a modicum of support for the proposition that Gore was unpalatable to some Democrats six months ago; it would have been nice to see the breakout specifically for Democrats rather than Democrats and independents.

Two more recent polls show Gore trailing Hilary Clinton only slightly in matchups against John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, with both Republicans coming out solidly ahead of both Democrats. Gore’s upward trend is more pronounced than Clinton’s, while both Giuliani and McCain are headed down against Gore: McCain enjoyed a 28-point spread in September of last year, down to 12 as of last week, and Giuliani’s 23-point spread in September is down to 13.