In the end, the problem was not Al Gore's stands on the issues. The problem was Gore.
The difficulty was not Gore as a person but Gore as a politician. People who know Gore well say he is a delightful, relaxed and funny man in private. His kids are said to be among the genuinely nicest of politicians' children. But put Gore into campaign mode and the man sounds phony and preachy, stiff and contrived.
Gore's recent actions were a tip-off to anyone who was paying attention. His two recent books on the family -- reviewed in the pages of the most recent Prospect by Garance Franke-Ruta -- foreshadowed Gore's departure from the presidential race. These were the books of a man who was fed up with posturing. In them, he and his wife, Tipper, called for a celebration of the American family in all of its diverse forms. The books must have given hives to Gore's cautious Democratic Leadership Council handlers who want him to embrace "mainstream" values -- as if single-parent families, lesbian families and children conceived by artificial insemination were not as mainstream as any other families.
In recent weeks, Gore had thrown caution to the winds: boldly criticizing President Bush for wagging the Iraq dog, coming out for single-payer national health insurance, embracing gay families and crowning his liberation with a surprising performance on Saturday Night Live. What a commentary on our times that Gore, to be himself, had to cease being a candidate.
Had Gore been this sort of candidate -- championing ideals that serve the vast majority of Americans and doing so with passion and conviction -- rather than a candidate of cautiously calibrated positions, he might well have been president. It is not for his views that George W. Bush wins voter support but for the sense that the man is a leader. Reagan was the same.
When you think about it, there are three rather different aspects to why a candidacy succeeds or fails, quite apart from the strength of the opponent: where the candidate stands on the issues, how clever his political strategy is and how ordinary voters respond to the candidate as a person. Gore flip-flopped on the issues, which didn't help. The Republican political operation was tougher and more professional. That hurt, too. But ultimately, even people who voted for Gore endured him more than they esteemed him. That's what killed his political career, at least for the time being.
The lesson for next time is both that the Democratic Party needs to stand for something clear and passionate and that the candidate needs to be comfortable in his or her own skin.
So cynical is American public opinion that some see Gore's departure as just his latest reinvention, or even a ploy to sit out 2004 and come back in 2008 -- in the same way that the disgraced Richard Nixon quit politics in 1962, let Barry Goldwater get trounced in 1964 and then came back as the new Nixon in 1968.
I don't think that's Gore's game. Gore's actions are those of a man thoroughly enjoying his liberation. But who knows? If Gore is so liberated that he can come back eight years from now, relaxed, comfortable and championing national health insurance, more power to him.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of the Prospect.
