Gore, Obama, And A Coalition Against The Politics of Fear

[cal04]

By Jim Sleeper

Whatever Al Gore’s shortcomings (and I wrote plenty about them in the 1990s), he has risen with impressive decency and effectiveness above setbacks I doubt I could have endured without succumbing to the mild derangement one finds in many a political “survivor.” Gore has only grown stronger. He’s been prescient about big changes in communications, in climates, even in the fog of war. And the best argument for his running for President is that a Gore-Obama ticket stands the best chance of bringing 16 years of seasoned sanity to the White House.

I have the campaign slogan ready: “Make it Right, America.” It means, “You know that you elected Gore in 2000, but see what you got instead. Make it Right.” The slogan blurs the moral and partisan meanings of “right” -- just in time for a political realignment beyond “liberal” and “conservative,” even “Democrat” and “Republican.”

There's only one small problem: Just what kind of political realignment would it be?

A really interesting answer is developing here at TPM Café. Yesterday Andrew Golis contrasted Barack Obama’s claim, “I have the capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other,” with what he called the Right’s “dehumanization of some Other… on nearly every policy” – on immigrants, gays, Muslims, and, liberals, for instance.

The left has done that, too, I would add, in its overemphasis of diversity and in the more virulent of its racial and sexual identity politics. (Remember mau-mauing? The Weathermen? Rioting? Various kinds of sex police? Heterophobia?) Andrew commends Obama’s “new kind of politics,” which would work to end the “active demonization of political opponents” by doing more to “cultivate social empathy.”

more
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/specialguests/2007/may/24/gore_obama_and_a_coalition_against_the_politics_of_fear

[IndyOp]

1. Very interesting. I think Gore & Obama would take off like nothing we've

ever seen before -- they could take as many votes as FDR in one of his re-elections.

[Locrian]

2. I like it

Gore + Obama = GO!

[Brigid]

3. Me likey.

Very much. Gore/Obama would be unbeatable.

[IndyOp]

4. See also Gore's message to Amazon.com readers...

I've dedicated my book, The Assault on Reason, to my father, Senator Albert Gore Sr., the bravest politician I've ever known. In the 1970 mid-term elections, President Richard Nixon relied on a campaign of fear to consolidate his power. I was in the military at the time, on my way to Vietnam as an army journalist, and I watched as my father was accused of being unpatriotic because he was steadfast in his opposition to the War--and as he was labeled an atheist because he dared to oppose a constitutional amendment to foster government-sponsored prayer in the public schools. The 1970 campaign is now regarded by political historians as a watershed, marking a sharp decline in the tone of our national discourse--a decline that has only worsened in recent years as fear has become a more powerful political tool than trust, public consumption of entertainment has dramatically surpassed that of serious news, and blind faith has proven more potent than truth.

More -
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x957725

[RedEarth]

5. That's the ticket I want.!!!