Will He Or Won't He?

Recently on Huffington Post I responded to a post by Norman Lear in which he said that he would be giving money to all the Democratic contenders in 2008.

This is what I wrote:

I like the idea of supporting all the candidates -- assuming that you can afford it. It's a great way to make sure you're backing the eventual winner.

My way is a little bit different. I look at each candidate one at a time and evaluate them both according to their intrinsic merits as people and politicians and also more calculatedly, in terms of whether I think they can win.

And my calculations go like this:

Barack Obama: Very charismatic, but not enough experience. My hunch is that he'll use 2008 to test the waters for a further national run down the line and possibly for a spot on the ticket. I think his chances of being VP on the ticket are 50/50.

Hillary Clinton: The Democratic nominee is determined by 200,000 voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, and I don't think they'll vote for Hillary Clinton. I think she'd make a good president but I don't think she can win on a national level.

John Edwards: Very charismatic. I like both him and what he stands for. But I don't think he can get the nomination and I don't think he can win -- when he was on the ticket in 2004 he couldn't even deliver his own state.

Tom Vilsack: Him I know nothing about. However, he has two big advantages over the rest: 1) He has a leg up on Iowa, and 2) He's not a sitting Senator.

In the last century only two men went from being sitting senators to being president. Since JFK was the last one to do it, more than 50 senators have tried -- they've all failed.

I want a ticket that can win. And I know the ticket that I would put my money on, if I had any money.

Gore/Richardson. Gore can win both Iowa and New Hampshire -- and whoever wins both wins the ballgame. And if Gore in the general election wins the states that Kerry won last time and Richardson gives him New Mexico, that gives them the White House.

Let me elaborate on that just a little.

Gore is sending mixed signals about 2008, according to a recent AP piece by Beth Fouhy. He's been on Leno, Oprah and The Today Show, all ostensibly to promote the upcoming DVD release of his film "An Inconvenient Truth," which he hopes will win him an Oscar nomination if not the Oscar itself. But questions about running for the White House in 2008 still dog him.

From the AP piece:

"I am not planning to run for president again," Gore said last week, arguing that his focus is raising public awareness about global warming and its dire effects. Then, he added: "I haven't completely ruled it out."

Those words make Gore the 800-pound non-candidate of the Democratic field. The possibility of another presidential bid delights many Democrats still steamed over the disputed 2000 election, in which they argue a few more votes, a state other than Florida and a different Supreme Court could have put Gore, not George W. Bush, in the White House.

Gore's in a delicate position here. He doesn't want to appear to be chasing the nomination, and yet if he starts too late he might never be able to catch up in terms of money and organization. Wesley Clark has said that starting too late was a fatal mistake for him in 2004 -- a mistake he will not repeat this time.

But is Gore the exception that proves the rule? After all, my hunch is that the 200,000 voters in Iowa and New Hampshire who will decide the eventual Democratic nominee would jump at the chance to vote for Al Gore, regardless of whether he has the money and/or organization or not. And if Gore puts Bill Richardson on the ticket, I think he would be a lock to win the general election no matter who the Republicans threw at them.

I have nothing against any of the potential Democratic candidates, but I think the ticket that will wn the White House is Al Gore and Bill Richardson. I would understand if Gore decided not to run (running for president is a demented process that no sane man would willingly undergo), but I think that if he ran he would win -- and think about it. How much better off would this country be if Al Gore and not George W. Bush had been in the White House for the past six years?

Tom Moran