Al Gore for president in 2004?
Sen. Dianne Feinstein summed up the doubts of many Democrats
when she told The San Francisco Chronicle's Matier and Ross: "Too early to
tell. I can't quite figure out yet who he is."
Join the club -- a club headed by Al Gore. While George W. Bush
is a man who clearly knows who he is, Gore, 54, recently told The Associated
Press, "I've learned a lot over the last two years, including some things
about myself."
I can't figure what there was about Gore that he didn't know
already. The question isn't who Gore is, as much as which of the two Al
Gores is in charge of the former veep's psyche.
You see, there are two Al Gores. There's the winning Al Gore.
This Al Gore has just won office and planning on further victories. The
Winning Al Gore will do whatever it takes to win.
You've seen him before, the Al Gore who dialed for dollars from
the White House, the Al Gore who paid Naomi Wolf $15,000 per month to advise
him to wear earth tones and woo soccer moms as an alpha male. He's the man
who -- as smart candidates do -- aggressively amassed a small army of
pollsters and political consultants when he ran for the White House in 2000.
Then there's the Al Gore who has lost an election -- a man
America doesn't see very often, as he's only lost twice -- both times in
bids for the White House.
The losing Al Gore descends into a midlife crisis. It happened
when he lost in the 1988 presidential primary. It's happening again.
The losing Al Gore writes a book. After 1988, he wrote, "Earth
in the Balance." This go-round, it's "Joined at the Heart: The
Transformation of the American Family."
The losing Al Gore then runs around telling everyone that he
lost because he listened to political consultants instead of his own
instincts. In his 1992 book, "Earth in the Balance," he wrote of his 1988
loss that he had begun "to doubt my own political judgment, so I began to
ask the pollsters and professional politicians what they thought I ought to
talk about." He then pledged to listen to his instincts first.
Last week, Gore told PBS' Charlie Rose: "Where the consultants
are concerned, I appreciate what they did, too. I think they did a great
job. I think at times there were factors that they couldn't take into
account where they were just inside me, and I should have trusted myself
more and not go with all the strategy and all that."
The losing Al Gore promises to be more genuine and principled.
He wrote in 1992, "Now, every time I pause to consider whether I have gone
too far out on a limb, I look at the new facts that continue to pour in from
around the world and conclude that I have not gone nearly far enough."
The new new Al Gore repeated that sentiment last week. He told
USA Today, "I'm going to do my best to just tell it like it is and let the
chips fall where they may." His new slogan: "Let it rip."
The old new Al Gore wrote in "Earth in the Balance" that the
cumulative impact of cars "on the global environment is posing a mortal
threat to the security of every nation that is more deadly than that of any
military enemy we are ever again likely to confront."
But as vice president and designated Clinton White House point
man on the environment, Gore utterly failed to improve fuel-efficiency
standards -- in fact, American cars guzzled more gas under Clinton/Gore than
under the Reagan administration.
Now you know what Gore means when he says, "Let it rip."
