TANNED, RESTED AND READY? :

The New Nixon? : Al Gore plots his comeback (John Fund, April 17, 2002, Wall Street Journal)

Democratic leaders worry that Mr. Gore's superior name identification could deliver him the nomination but then leave Democrats with a weak candidate in the general election. They recall that when Democrats nominated Walter Mondale in 1984, many voters identified [him] as Jimmy Carter's vice president. Mr. Mondale won the District of Columbia and--barely--Minnesota.

Mr. Gore prefers to look back at the career of another former vice president, Richard Nixon. In 1960, Nixon lost a heartbreakingly close election to John F. Kennedy. Two years later he ran for governor of California and was trounced. But in the years after, he gamely campaigned for dozens of GOP candidates, building up political chits while improving his television skills. In 1968 he was elected president.

The Nixon comparison is inapt for another reason. When the evil one ran in 1968 the ideological wing of the GOP had just been drubbed last time out, in 1964. So Nixon's moderation was a good sell.

The ideological wing of the Democrat Party hasn't been drubbed since '72 and one assumes they want another crack at it. This would tend to favor a fellow traveler of the Left, which Gore, for all his faults, is not. That's why a Hilary could beat him and even an Al Sharpton is likely to do well in the primaries. You almost have to hope that Hilary runs, just so we can enjoy the spectacle of her trashing Bill's legacy : free trade, welfare reform, balanced budgets, etc. But assuming that Gore does win, he'll have had to veer so far Left as to marginalize himself in the public eye and to make himself nearly unelectable. He's no Nixon, at least electorally.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 17, 2002 8:41 AM