GOREWATCH. Pat Buchanan, no stranger to insurgent candidacies, is arguing that Al Gore is well-placed to defeat Hillary Clinton and take the Democratic nomination. Most of his points are, I think, perceptive and convincing, but his final grafs falter. "Hillary," Buchanan writes, "has the option of waiting much longer to decide when and whether to get in. Gore must decide soon after November." I think it's quite the opposite. As I argued in my profile of Gore, the longer he stays out, the stronger his chances of winning become. Were he to enter early, the initial shock would wear off and the psychodrama of Gore versus Clinton would emerge, harming and marginalizing both candidates. More likely is the scenario wherein Gore enters late in 2007, becoming the exciting deus-ex-machina candidate of the race. If Hillary is dominant but not thrilling, or absent but not replaced, Gore could enter as the bigfoot the Democratic base (and media) was waiting for, grabbing headlines, attention, and momentum along the way. In that scenario, the heretofore ineffectual anti-Hillary voters would coalesce around the last, best hope for an alternative, and Gore could argue that his entrance was motivated by the timidity, torpidity, and ineffectuality of the current crop of candidates. That's always a better reason than the more honest "Because I want to be president."
--Ezra Klein
