Al Gore Could Steal the Nomination from Hillary

Dick Morris thinks that Al Gore's crazy act may be just the thing to carry him past Hillary for the nomination in 2008:

The former vice president’s slashing attacks on the administration and his stalwart, if misguided, opposition to the Iraq war leave him without the complications and complexes that will devil Clinton as she seeks to appeal to the unforgiving left of the Democratic Party.

And Gore may be a man whose time has come in his party. It was he who warned of climate change and predicted its consequences. Hurricane Katrina was just a fulfillment of the prophesies Gore wrote about in his late-1980s book Earth in the Balance. He has been an energy-conservation nut for years, and his obsessions with alternatives to oil will play better and better as we come to realize how our addiction to oil has led us to dependency on the dealers of this particular drug — Iran, the Saudi royal family and Hugo Chavez.

The Democratic base’s anger at Gore’s defeat in 2000 was assuaged by the worse Kerry defeat of 2004. The idea that he was an incompetent candidate has been replaced in Democratic iconography by the idea that he was cheated out of the presidency. The hiatus has healed his reputation with the base in much the same way that the negative rap on Nixon for losing in 1960 was ameliorated by the Goldwater wipeout of 1964.

Let's not forget that Richard Nixon lost a close election in 1960 and came back to win in '68. It's not out of the realm of possibility that Gore could get nominated again, but he's gone so far left that I don't see how he would have any appeal beyond the fringe lefties.

Meanwhile, I'm sure GOP operatives will be actively working to push the idea that Gore's the guy. It will keep Hillary off balance, and will give the GOP a soft target for '08.