Anon-Voter wrote:Green Witch wrote:A Gore & Obama team would be fine with me. I recently heard a speech by Gore on NPR and apparently his balls have grown back - it was a great speech.
Gore would have a tough time getting my vote again.
Anon
I felt that way too until I heard him speak at The National Press Club. If I can find a link I will post it. His speech really blew me away. I thought Gore was gonner in politics, but this single event changed my mind.
That's exactly where I'm coming from now, though, nimh. In 2004, I didn't like ANYONE. It wasn't that I thought Kerry was fantastic, it was that I thought he was the most likely of the mediocre pack to get somewhere. Who do you think would've been able to do it?
And that's exactly the thing here -- there is again a mediocre pack, with only one guy who gets me fired up.
Green Witch wrote:Anon-Voter wrote:Green Witch wrote:A Gore & Obama team would be fine with me. I recently heard a speech by Gore on NPR and apparently his balls have grown back - it was a great speech.
Gore would have a tough time getting my vote again.
Anon
I felt that way too until I heard him speak at The National Press Club. If I can find a link I will post it. His speech really blew me away. I thought Gore was gonner in politics, but this single event changed my mind.
The 2000 election was there for him to lose, and he did it! He misplayed it, I think he ran a jacked up campaign, and we can thank his poor showing for the mess we're in now! There ain't no way GW!
Anon
sozobe, what I meant by "local communities" is small towns in rural states. (Like where I live) There is a difference in trying a little weed and admitting to cocaine. If a concentrated effort was out there where his campaign managers really talked up how it was just a phase while he going through some hard times and it has been twenty years and how far he has come since then, it might sink in to "local communities" but it won't be easy to sell to the more rural states as it would be in the bigger cities. Maybe I am naïve, but I don't think his being black will hurt him too much. It is the combination of being black and using "blow" that might hurt his image.
Having said and hope that I am wrong, I hope he does run, I would vote for him.
Gore would be burned alive with his more crazy, spittle-spewing speeches, that are EASY to characterize as nutso.
You'd lose in the national.
Yeah, not Gore. Eek.
revel, there is some encouraging precedent there, in the Illinois race. The drug stuff came out then (as much as something can "come out" when it had already been published some 10 years earlier), and he still won in a landslide. A few quirks of fate helped that landslide, but the fact remains that he did great with the rural white population too. In fact, reading some articles about the amazing connections he forged there was one of the first things that got me thinking "I like this guy!" I'll see if I can find some reference to that.
nimh wrote:Al Gore?! I should friggin' hope not.
Plus, he's polling negatives that outshadow Kerry's and make Hillary look like everyone's favourite granma.
On that count, one of the problems with Kerry IMO was that, well, basically people thought he was unsympathetic from the start -- and the Democrats, or those that supported Kerry anyway (not that I'm specifically talking about you, Sozobe
), made the mistake of thinking, well, but he isnt really that bad, so its just a question of getting the true picture out, and once the efffort is made of showing who he really is, people will come around!
Problem with that is that, in a high-tension, high-pressure competitive race, you simply cant afford to first have to spend precious energy on getting people to the point where they're willing to come to first base like that, to where they'll actually be prepared to
listen to what the man is saying in the first place. Thats much of my problem with Hillary too.
It may be helpful in your appraisal of Gore's poll showings to remember that at the two year mark, no one who ended up at the top of the 2004 Dem ticket was polling in the lead. Gore's main problem was that he paid too much attention to polls and not enough to his gut. I think he's listening to his gut now, and I think I could support him - again. I would l-o-v-e a Gore/Obama ticket - I'm just idealistic enough to back that.
nimh wrote:Al Gore?! I should friggin' hope not.
Plus, he's polling negatives that outshadow Kerry's and make Hillary look like everyone's favourite granma.
On that count, one of the problems with Kerry IMO was that, well, basically people thought he was unsympathetic from the start -- and the Democrats, or those that supported Kerry anyway (not that I'm specifically talking about you, Sozobe
), made the mistake of thinking, well, but he isnt really that bad, so its just a question of getting the true picture out, and once the efffort is made of showing who he really is, people will come around!
Problem with that is that, in a high-tension, high-pressure competitive race, you simply cant afford to first have to spend precious energy on getting people to the point where they're willing to come to first base like that, to where they'll actually be prepared to
listen to what the man is saying in the first place. Thats much of my problem with Hillary too.
It may be helpful in our appraisal of Gore's poll showings to remember that at the two year mark, no one who ended up at the top of the 2004 Dem ticket was polling in the lead. Gore's main problem was that he paid too much attention to polls and not enough to his gut. I think he's listening to his gut now, and I think I could support him - again. I would l-o-v-e a Gore/Obama ticket - I'm just idealistic enough to back that.
sozobe, I am glad to know that. I hope your right if he does decide to run.
I think that Gore would be the kiss of death. I'd much rather see Obama at the head of his own ticket.
I found this:
Quote:Obama's ease in front of predominantly white crowds?-or, for that matter, all-white crowds?-is a source of wonderment in Illinois. I've seen it, and it looks so effortless that it doesn't seem remarkable. The sight of big white corn farmers proudly wearing big blue "OBAMA" buttons and lining up to shake his hand is, I must say, slightly more striking.
In a packed community center near Decatur, in central Illinois, Obama was addressing a crowd of a couple of hundred. Ryan Marucco, the president of the Young Democrats of Macon County, told me,"I just never heard anybody speak like him before." Marucco, apple-cheeked and short-haired, wore a necktie with an American Eagle on it. "It's like he's talking to you, and not to a crowd."
Obama began by saying, as he often does, that people were always getting his name wrong, calling him "Alabama" or "Yo Mama." The crowd roared with laughter. In Swahili, he said, Barack means "blessing." Then he took the question of racial difference head on, declaring, "We have shared values, values that aren't black or white or Hispanic?-values that are American, and Democratic."
He went on, "People are always asking me, ?'Why, with these fancy degrees and a professorship, would you want to go into something dirty and nasty like politics?' And my answer is ?'We've got too much cynicism in this country, and we're all in this together, and government expresses that.' "
Two big factories in Decatur had closed in recent years, and thousands of jobs were lost. Obama told the crowd, "We have an Administration that believes that the government's role is to protect the powerful from the powerless." The little community center rang with angry acclamation. This situation could be changed, Obama said. "Take a leap of faith with me."
Later, rolling through the flatlands of central Illinois in a leased S.U.V., Obama offered an explanation of his ability to connect with white rural and small-town voters. "I know those people," he said. "Those are my grandparents. The food they serve is the food my grandparents served when I was growing up. Their manners, their sensibility, their sense of right and wrong?-it's all totally familiar to me."
In an essay in The New Republic, Noam Scheiber argues that, apart from charisma, what makes Obama such a strong candidate outside the black community is precisely his exotic (and unthreatening) background?-everything that serves to differentiate him from what white voters might see as stereotypically African-American.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040531fa_fact1
I
might support Obama/ Gore... Gore could bring the statesman and experience part to the VP role,
maybe. Makes me wince, but I could be convinced.
You know. It is not outside the realm of possibility that McCain could add on to a Dem ticket. I think he'd do better with them these days.
But, LOL!!! I don't think it'll be Obama!!
Send Gore back to Tennessee, he's a has been. The qualities of leadership will never be associated with him in the mind of the American public in sufficent degree to secure his election, in my never humble opinion.
I'd like to see Obama, and as it the custom, i'd like to see him make his own ticket.
Setanta wrote:I think that Gore would be the kiss of death. I'd much rather see Obama at the head of his own ticket.
Absolutely! Give Obama a strong VP selection and I think they have a chance. I would have voted for Hillary at one point, but I'm not that wild about her any more.
Anon
Obama/ McCain -- that'd be interesting!!
Soz--
Yeah. It would make things incredibly interesting. Did they make up after their argument? I haven't heard.
McCain ain't gonna run as a Democrat.
It's mind boggling (to me, at least) that anyone thinks of him as being other than a conservative Republican with the occasional independent streak.
