Vice President Gore? It has a certain ring. Most folks have assumed that Gore is off the VP list, but he hasn’t been slotted as a convention speaker yet, which is curious since Gore is one of the party’s superstars and its most effective spokesperson on energy and the environment.
Are they holding off because he’s a finalist for Veep? And I have two pretty good sources who say Gore and Obama are actively exploring an administration slot for Al. What better post to be sustainability czar than vice president?
Yes, he’s been there, done that, but this would be entirely different. And yes, Gore is an insider and Obama is anti-Beltway. But Gore in his eight years out of office has entirely redeemed himself as an outsider. He may be fifty pounds heavier, but he’s at least fifty pounds lighter in having liberated his own compelling voice. Consider the checklist:
- Stature? Definitely.
- National security credibility? Check.
- Believable as president if need be? That, too.
- Boring? That was the old Gore, not the new one. (And compared to whom? Biden? Bayh?)
- Help carry a key state? Gore is in his own unique state, and the regional effect has been overrated since LBJ.
- Upstage Obama? Funnily, doesn’t seem so.
This is mostly conjecture, of course, but that seems the main spectator sport this August week. …
--Robert Kuttner
