Another Proponent of the "Gore Option"

Joe Klein writes in Time Magazine that the only hope for the Democrat party may be...Al Gore:

Which brings us back to Al Gore. Pish-tosh, you say, and you're probably right. But let's play a little. Let's say the elders of the Democratic Party decide, when the primaries end, that neither Obama nor Clinton is viable. Let's also assume—and this may be a real stretch—that such elders are strong and smart enough to act. All they'd have to do would be to convince a significant fraction of their superdelegate friends, maybe fewer than 100, to announce that they were taking a pass on the first ballot at the Denver convention, which would deny the 2,025 votes necessary to Obama or Clinton. What if they then approached Gore and asked him to be the nominee, for the good of the party—and suggested that he take Obama as his running mate? Of course, Obama would have to be a party to the deal and bring his 1,900 or so delegates along.

I played out that scenario with about a dozen prominent Democrats recently, from various sectors of the party, including both Obama and Clinton partisans. Most said it was extremely unlikely ... and a pretty interesting idea. A prominent fund raiser told me, "Gore-Obama is the ticket a lot of people wanted in the first place." A congressional Democrat told me, "This could be our way out of a mess." Others suggested Gore was painfully aware of his limitations as a candidate. "I don't know that he'd be interested, even if you handed it to him," said a Gore friend. Chances are, no one will hand it to him. The Democratic Party would have to be monumentally desperate come June. And yet ... is this scenario any more preposterous than the one that gave John McCain the Republican nomination? Yes, it's silly season. But this has been an exceptionally "silly" year.

I just don't see it happening. Why would Obama abandon the nomination that should be his because the elders of the Dem party get nervous? And why would Obama's followers in the black and youth communities get excited about losing the nomination to a fat old white guy while their guy colludes with the Dem establishment to make himself the second banana? Obama would be seen as a sell-out by those people and his support would evaporate. Nobody votes for the Vice President.

Of course, Gore has his own problems. The religious fervor with which he has pursued the global warming cause would not be popular with a lot of Americans, and the way he has criticized his own country and government, especially his "Rev. Al" rantings about how Bush "BETRAYED HIS COUNTRY - HE PLAYED ON OUR FEARS!!!" would be rerun in every GOP commercial. Gore would come off looking like a complete lunatic.

All this being said, have you seen Al Gore lately? He's disappeared from public view, and my theory is he's hit a fat farm somewhere to slim down to campaign weight in case the "Gore option" comes to pass. He may be thinking that this is his opportunity to finally win the White House, but I doubt he'll succeed.