GORE-EDWARDS? Presidential tickets cannot be re-compiled like a band�s discography, but as I've mentioned before, if the Democrats wanted to create a �greatest hits� ticket from the last two cycles that would mean pairing the better of the two presidential nominees, Al Gore, with the better of the two running mates, John Edwards.
Yesterday, in my weekly column for the Baltimore Sun, I wrote about Gore�s confrontation with Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe last week on Capitol Hill. What I didn�t know as I was filing was that Gallup would be releasing a poll the very same day showing that of the four Democrats they included in the survey, the net approval scores (approve minus disapprove) among the Democrats surveyed for Gore (+73) and Edwards (+60) would not only be on the rise, but are now higher than for either Hillary Clinton (+52) or Barack Obama (+51). Gallup writes: �In recent weeks, Clinton's favorability ratings among Democrats have declined somewhat, from 80% or better to the current 74%. Meanwhile, Gore's image has improved from 72% in early February to 84% today. Edwards' popularity also received a small boost following the announcement of his wife's recurrence of cancer. Views of Obama have held steady in recent weeks.�
Approval ratings are a soft indicator, and they can be quite fluid. Edwards has been in the news because of his wife�s cancer, perhaps creating some sympathy (the poll went into the field the day after the couple�s Chapel Hill presser); and Gore is still riding on the fumes of his post-Oscar celebrity. Still, one wonders: On mostly making the race so far about each other, have Hillary and Obama peaked too early?
--Tom Schaller
