Al Gore As The Liberal Alternative To Hillary Clinton

Al Gore

With many liberals concerned about the prospect of Hillary Clinton walking away with the Democratic nomination there has been increased talk of other potential candidates. Joan Walsh listed several in a recent article at Salon. Although I thought it is purely coincidence, I recently noted speculation in light of Al Gore’s planned visit to Iowa this spring. Despite what many political pundits believe, some people do go to Iowa or New Hampshire for reasons other than to launch a presidential campaign. Ezra Klein is now writing that Al Gore should run for president.

He is pushing for Gore to run largely because of climate change, arguing both the importance of the issue and pointing out that this is an area where a president can take action with executive agencies even with the opposition of Congress. While I agree, I’m more interested in Gore because of the strong commitment to liberal positions and the forward looking thinking he has expressed since leaving office. As Klein wrote:

Single-issue candidacies rarely go far in American politics, but then, Gore need not be a single-issue candidate. Indeed, the rest of his positions are closer in line with Democratic Party activists than, say, Clinton’s. He opposed the Iraq War and endorsed single-payer health care, for instance. His Reinventing Government initiatives, mixed with his Silicon Valley contacts and experience, look pretty good for a post-Healthcare.gov era.

And there’s a lot more on Gore’s mind. His most recent book, ambitiously titled The Future, runs through the six forces he believes are changing the world: a globalized network of governments and corporations he calls “Earth, Inc.”; worldwide communication technologies that are leading to the emergence of a “global mind”; massive shifts in power from West to East and from government to corporations; an economic system that too often devastates natural resources; revolutions in genomics, biotechnology, and other life sciences; and, perhaps most optimistically, the beginnings of a revolution in energy and agriculture.

The book has been blurbed by everyone from conservative economist Arthur Laffer (“transcends ideology while turning our attention to big issues, big ideas, and big solutions”) to internet hero Tim Berners-Lee (“If you are concerned about the massive changes the world is just heading into, then you should read this book. If you aren’t, then you must read it!”).

You can believe Gore a visionary or you can believe him a blowhard, but he’s offering a very different, and much more radical, vision of what politics should be about than even Elizabeth Warren, to say nothing of Hillary Clinton.

Gore also has the experience, name recognition, and the resources to launch a campaign, while other candidates would be overshadowed by Hillary Clinton. He has even won the popular vote for president once, and could have won the electoral vote if a full recount was held in Florida, or if not for the butterfly ballots.  It sounds like a great idea except for one major problem. I doubt that Gore has any interest in getting back into politics.

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In follow-up of other recent items, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked about the story in The New York Post which claims that Valerie Jarrett leaked the information regarding Clinton’s email. He called the report “utter baloney.” Of course those who believe the story will probably not believe his denial.

Dvorak, a tech blog, has discovered more information on how insecure Hillary Clinton’s private server was. He found that Clinton used an outside spam filtering service and that people working there could have reviewed any sensitive email going through her system. The author, who has supported Clinton in the past,  pointed out that “this is one of many reasons they have a rule at the State Department that you have to use their servers.” (Noncompliance with this policy was cited by the Inspector General as one of the reasons for firing an ambassador under Clinton.) The article also showed that security was relatively weak on the system. The author has a response for those who excuse Clinton’s actions because Republicans did it too: “Are you F…ing kidding me!”