I Like Gore’s ‘08 Pre-Positioning
by Patrick Ruffini :: January 7th, 2007 12:37 amVia the Wire, it appears that Al Gore is still leaving the door open a crack for an ‘08 run.
My biggest botched prediction of the ‘04 cycle was that Al Gore would run and was the odds-on favorite for the Democratic nomination, so take this for what it’s worth.
It strikes me that Gore has been positioning himself very shrewdly for an ‘08 run, using his documentary An Inconvenient Truth to regain control of his public image and recast his negatives into positives, at least in the context of a primary.
Most second-tier presidential candidates, especially Democrats, tend to succumb to the Seven Dwarves problem. They’re virtually indistinguishable. Look — it’s another moderate (ex)Governor of a red state! Or another liberal Northeastern elitist. Watch as my head nods off and comes crashing down on the desk.
This time, Gore (and at some level Edwards) have taken a different tack, seizing on a single issue to solve this product differentiation problem. The rap on Gore was that he was robotic, “the smartest kid in the class.” An Inconvenient Truth does nothing to dispel this notion. In fact, it embraces it. The whole movie consists of him giving a slideshow we are given to believe he personally slaved over on his Macbook. Gore is rushing headstrong into the criticism, trying to turn a weakness into a strength by showing passion and depth on a single issue.
I don’t think he completely succeeds. A couple of bits of narration in the middle of the film will strike middle America as strange. Recounting the famous story of his son’s car accident, Gore says it spurred him to travel the world and understand environmental issues more deeply (instead of spending more time closer to home?). In a postscript on his loss to Bush, he still seems deeply pained, six years later.
The New Gore doesn’t quite get through the general, but for Blue America, he’s pitch perfect, replete with intellectual superiority and agonizing introspection wrapped in the shiny packaging of environmentalism. He’s a serious challenger to Hillary if he wants to be.
Tagged: 2008 
al gore an inconvenient truth
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Al Gore doesn´t have the charisma that Obama has. Now that Joe Biden has thrown his hat in the ring I believe he is the more serious challenger to Hilary and Al fades into the greenery.
[…] Patrick Ruffini likes him too. As does Power Line. […]
[…] I wrote a piece about Al Gore on the political blog over the weekend that was actually largely favorable. There was one more thing about Gore and his documentary I found impressive: his slide show. Agree or disagree, it’s proof of Matt Lewis’s point: those of us on the other side of Gore politically need to think about more about framing our ideas. […]