Gore-Clark 2008

[Tactical Progressive]

Gore has the name recognition and the following, and his Presidency was interrupted by a corrupt Supreme Court. He is owed, besides the fact that he is probably the best political candidate - at the very least one of the very best political candidates - that Democrats have.

General Wesley Clark I can't say enough good things about. He was my clear choice throughout the primaries from start to finish. Unfortunately he has no experience in elected office and not nearly the name recognition or political following that a long-time national figure like Gore has. The Vice-Presidency will give him that experience, which really does matter, and the exposure too. I have no doubt that under Gore he, like Gore under Clinton, would be a highly involved VP and not Quaylish window dressing. I look at VP seasoning as a positive consideration, not an obstacle. For fellow Clark fans, that means 16 years topside instead of just 8, assuming things work out, so not to fret.

I've been thinking about this since the election, and the more I think about it the better it sounds.


Btw, I'm also a huge Hillary fan and would love her as a candidate too if I think the times are right for that in three years.

[Downtown Hound]

1. I'd be down with that

[AverageJoe]

2. Razor!

Er,uhm, me too!

[kodi]

3. that 's really the ticket I'm hoping to see.

.

[roguevalley]

25. I would be fine with this. What a combo of brains.

[Jamastiene]

4. I agree wholeheartedly.

Gore said he'd fight for us and he kept his promise. He fought as best he could with that corruption in Florida's voting and the US Supreme Courts coronation of that grimy Bush. He managed to point out that he really won in 2000. He is owed. And he has some great views on many of my most important issues. I'd vote for him again anytime. I'd vote for him over Hillary in the primaries too. I like Hillary. Don't get me wrong. I just know that America isn't going to vote a woman president in unless she's a conservative. It's just a gut feeling, but I am sure of it. I like Hillary a lot, but Gore would be a better candidate. I am glad you posted this. I thought I was the only one who hadn't forgotten him.

[AntiCoup2K4]

5. An impressive ticket, but you do realize....

....you're giving the Pukes 4 years to campaign against it. Guilty as charged, because I suggested exactly this ticket in another thread. But maybe this is the time (especially now with Dean as DNC chair) to restablish the Party of the People and then make some gains in Congress.

And then sometime around the Fall of 2007, bring the Gore-Clark discussion back.....

[Kahuna]

31. "Party of the People." That should be our theme.

:thumbsup:

[autorank]

6. Done. Lets do it! Couldn't be better leaders at a better time.

[Mojambo]

7. I wouldn't have a terribly hard time getting behind that ticket. n/t

[Lexingtonian]

8. not gonna happen

We've tried that ticket before. That was in 1988, with Dukakis and Bentsen.

Okay, that was probably too cruel. But honestly, Gore and Clark are people who hit their personal acmes in the late 80s and early 90s. Gore really wasn't able to show he was really a man of the year 2000, that was his essential flaw then. Clark also reflects a time warp, even if it's not as plain to see- but look at the platform he ran on, and I think that's all the politics of 1992.

What bugs me about all this reliving the '04 primaries is that people cling to candidates so clearly defined with a period that we can't go back to. We/they/you don't mean to, but we/they/you just do. That is all a giving in to the *reactionary* impulse in the country. You know: the one that Republicans have so absolutely made their monopoly?

How about finding someone to champion who lives in the present?

[FrenchieCat]

17. Yes, Lexingtonian.....let's get some brand new candidates....

so that we can get the brand new smear material from the RNC right after the primaries...and we can get caught with our pants down as usual.

Clark ran on a National Security/Values platform. Was that the platform for 1992? Gee, I must have missed that. Thought 1992 was "it's the economy stupid". Thought that was more like the Edwards campaign....and the campaign Kerry started running on....till someone pulled on his coattail and informed him that this was really the 2004 "Iraq is F*cked up" election.

[Tactical Progressive]

20. I understand what you're saying

Sometimes it seems like we're living in the past, constrained by earlier politics and previous candidates. Should what appears to be a really viable, new candidate appear over the next three years, I'd be more than willing to consider them. But how often does that happen?

The existing political players are all pretty much well known. I doubt there's a governor with so much resume and charisma that we don't already know about them. Certainly there could be a Dean in there somewhere, or there could be somebody from totally outside the political arena we haven't even thought of, but aside from those types of aberrations, we're familiar with most of the major pols.

So when you say "not gonna happen" unequivocally, it would be better if you had someone in mind to reinforce the point. Something more than 'old hat doesn't sell' to make a point.

[MrSlayer]

9. I'm just afraid that Gore has the "sore loser nutcase" label.

After he "lost" the 2000 election he disappeared, grew the big beard and that's when they started the insanity bullshit. You saw how the corporate media took the clips of his speeches when he was impassioned and played them off like he was nuts. I think Gore might be considered damaged goods.

[Tactical Progressive]

13. I don't know where you get 'nutcase' from

but if you're afraid that he'll be labeled 'sore loser' then don't worry. He will be labeled that and everything else they can make up on him. It's guaranteed. Just as it's guaranteed that they'll make up nasty lies about any and every Dem candidate. Do you worry about that too? Don't again, because it will happen to them too.

As far as Sore-Loserman, I always called them Lying-Cheatermen. It usually shut them up, but it never caught on. Maybe now that Dems finally seem to have woken up about playing nice vs smear politics, we'll smear back. I know I will.

How about you focus the energy you spend worrying about being labeled with smears, into helping out doing our own smearing? I'll bet that turns out more productive in every instance than worrying about what they're going to call us.

[MrSlayer]

15. Well the policy speeches he gave last year were taken out of context.

The media played only the parts where he was very angry and loud and ran them over and over and implied that he was insane. They were some kick ass speeches too.

[Tactical Progressive]

18. Gore gets into that preacher revival voice

too much for my taste. He should learn to save it for a few forceful points and moderate it otherwise.

I don't think speeches from five years earlier will have much relevance, but if you're talking about his speaking style in general, then I agree he should probably tone it down a little. Al has kind of a tin ear when it comes to rousing the rabble.

[MrSlayer]

22. I like the new Gore as I consider him.

I don't have a problem with his passion, it's a hundred times better than the wooden personality he seemed to have before. I was glad to see him telling the truth and being outraged because people should be outraged of the shit that's been going on. But the perception of him through the media is that of an unhinged person on the verge of madness. I love Gore but my fear is that the media image of him will stick all too well in the minds of the ignorant.

[Tactical Progressive]

28. I never really saw him as all that wooden in 2000,

but then I'd been watching him for over a decade by that point and knew what he was all about. It was a label that didn't make too much sense, but that is a lesson in itself. Labels don't really have to make much sense.

I'm having a hard time following your assessments. You go from he was 100x too wooden to he's an insane nutcase, unhinged and on the 'verge of madness' as portrayed in his coverage. Yet from everything I've seen he hasn't changed all that much. He had alot of righteous speeches when he was talking about 'the people versus the powerful' in the 2000 campaign, which I thought were a little strident, but which he was labeled wooden for.

Yet you've got the impression, and I believe you, from the media that he was wooden then, and insane now. If he was wooden then and insane now then there is a problem in his delivery, which is something that can be fixed. If he wasn't wooden then, or isn't deranged now, or was neither wooden nor deranged ever, as I believe, then you have fallen under the spell of media misrepresentation and smearing.

Which they can and will do to anyone they come up against on the left.

So how can that be considered any kind of factor at all in choosing a candidate unless you are proposing we find some Democrat that the media isn't going to slime one way or the other, or as has apparently happened to Gore, both one way AND the other?

The answer is that if they are going to smear Dems both ways anyway, then their mischaracterizations make no difference and shouldn't be considered a factor at all.

[MrSlayer]

34. I haven't said any of that. I think he's fine.

I thought he was fine in 2000 and I like him even more now. It's not my perception that he's crazy, that's the way the media is portraying him.

My concern is that OTHER PEOPLE will believe the media perception without taking a look on their own and dismiss him as damaged. I have no problems with Gore.

[rabid_nerd]

10. Gore '08 all the way

All the reasons why: http://www.electhillary.com/

[JohnOneillsMemory]

11. Why all the fantasy threads when BBV means we can't even vote?

This strikes me as arguing over the cutest conductor when the train is going to Auschwitz.

Thread after thread of ticket fantasies, mostly involving Wesley Clark. This just doesn't make any sense to me.

[Tactical Progressive]

12. Ummm, how about if we don't talk about anything else

but BBV on this entire DU board? That 'makes sense', right? I mean, if we can't have a legitimate election, then what difference does anything at all make?

Maybe you could go around to every single thread and set their priorities straight. I know I only want to talk about BBV for the next two years.

[FrenchieCat]

14. Aren't you working on that?

I know that Senator Boxer and Feinstein and my Rep Barbara Lee have all received their letters from me. My local newspapers have too.

Now that I have chewed my gum, can I take a step....or should I wait for the ok?

[JohnOneillsMemory]

16. ouch! Point taken, FrenchieCat. All systems full ahead.

I don't think many Dems or newbies here at DU even know they can't vote anymore. So I see a lot of hoping to get something from Santa when he's been killed and his body stuffed in the chimney.

You can tell I'm pessimistic about us being allowed to control the US government. I don't think the neocons are going to give up power while they are busy with World War 4 for the last of the oil. These are the same cats scrapping since Nixon days and I'll bet they don't leave.

They've even passed a 'Doomsday Act' so that in a disaster, whoever is in DC is the legal government and everyone who can't get there isn't part of it anymore. This is what the neocons will use to stay in power if BBV isn't enough. Have a little bio-scare and lock down transportation, ta-da!

But BBV was enough in 2004 even when the evidence was against them:

>snip<

Another analysis that may have wide potential applicability has been published at the Democratic Underground website by a computer programmer who claims to have special expertise in the reverse-engineering of calculations, and who goes by the blogger cognomen of '59sunburst.' (Because this analysis has been anonymously published--and because, moreover, I have been unable to activate the author's link to a field of supporting data--I present it with due reservations, in the hope that those possessing programming expertise may be able to critically assess its validity.)

Finding it curious that in 46 Cuyahoga County precincts George Bush received the same number of votes in 2004 as in 2000, while only in 12 precincts did John Kerry receive the same number of votes that Al Gore did in 2000, '59sunburst' speculated that Bush's 2000 numbers in each precinct might somehow have been used "as a benchmark for altering the results of 2004"--with a putative hacker's goal being to ensure that Bush's 2000 level of support was either maintained or enhanced. '59sunburst' was able to develop a quite simple mathematical formula which made it possible "to calculate Kerry's and Bush's 2004 totals for over 400 precincts using Bush's 2000 numbers and a randomizing factor"; this formula, s/he claims, works both for the preliminary results published on November 8th and the final results published by Cuyahoga County's Board of Elections on November 30th.

After demonstrating, with figures from Cleveland precinct 1M, how the formula generates Bush's and Kerry's 2004 vote tallies for both the November 8th and the November 30th reports out of the Bush 2000 vote count and the number of votes cast in 2004, '59sunburst' anticipates the obvious objection: If you throw the right randomizing factor into such a calculation, "you can make anything come out the way you want it to."

True--but it appears that someone was indeed making things come out the way he wanted to on election night. For, as it happens, Cleveland precinct 1N--the very next one on the list--requires the very same "randomizing factor" as precinct 1M (Factor: 0.0618) for the formula to work. The same phenomenon recurs repeatedly with other pairs (or triplets) of consecutively listed precincts: Cleveland 6G and 6H (Factor: 0.005), Cleveland 10D and 10E (Factor: 0.024), Cleveland Heights 3C and 3D (Factor: 0.0267), East Cleveland 2E and 2F (Factor: 0.0263), East Cleveland 2H and 3A (Factor: 0.0241), East Cleveland 3B, 3C, and 3D (Factor: 0.0158), and so on.<56>

If the "randomizing factor" numbers were different in each precinct, or only randomly coincided, there would be no reason to suspect a hacker's presence. What gives the game away is the reappearance of the same numbers in successive precincts--an obvious economizing of effort on the part of a hacker whose sticky fingerprints on the Cuyahoga County returns are made visible by that very fact. The effects of this hacking appear to have been substantial: in the first pair of precincts discussed by '59sunburst' alone, Bush's tally rose from 2 votes in 2000 to 23 in 2004 (precinct 1M), and from 2 votes in 2000 to 32 in 2004 (precinct 1N).

>snip<

We are blessed to have Boxer and Lee on our side anyway. Feinstein is big trouble. And so is Ahnuld and his 'special elections.'

Locally, I want to see the Gropenfuhrer lose his shine and get tarred with the Enron mess he came in on.

Honestly, do see a way around the electronic voting machines?

[FrenchieCat]

21. I hear ya JohnOneillsmemory

You can tell I'm pessimistic about us being allowed to control the US government. I don't think the neocons are going to give up power while they are busy with World War 4 for the last of the oil. These are the same cats scrapping since Nixon days and I'll bet they don't leave.

That's exactly why I am supporting the kick ass General. I know that you don't consider him worthy cause he ain't "pure" in your "gotta be perfect as driven snow" view...But since I can't stand by and watch and hope that all of the sudden, some meek ass Moderate Southern Governor Democrat a la 1992 or some GOP lite Senator is going to shake things up, I'm gonna go for broke by backing the leader that I think we need to straighten out this shit once and for all.

Since you like to read, please read Clark's books, and then get back to me. He's pretty clear in them on what's happened and on what's happening. He names names in his book. That's why the GOP hate him so much. He's been dropping dimes on them ever since he retired. Actually, he wasn't taking their shit even before that.

Remember that recent Clark Radio interview that you so objected to in parts?....well recall his discussion of Kosovo and what's going wrong there. I believe that he made it clear that money and power are the two biggest factors in the way of any real progress there. He knows what's up....and if he could, that shit would be changing pronto.

(edited to add missing question mark)

[JohnOneillsMemory]

23. It's the slow season for work so I'll read some at Borders for free.

I'd like nothing more than to have a kick-ass candidate. Man, that seems like a dream about now.

But despite the concerns you've probably gotten tired of hearing from me, I'm actually bucking up some friends and relatives for the long-haul. I know that might seem hard to believe!

Still keeping the light on, as they say, with fingers crossed, turning cart wheels and blowing bubbles...

Hey, didja get to hear Cornell West in Oakland a coupla days ago? I missed him and he always lights me up. I have him on tape from last year and like to play it for friends.

"Funk-based hope!" I like that.

[FrenchieCat]

24. Nope....didn't go to that, cause the venue was too big for me....

I like more up close and personal type of situations.

But he was at my church for a panel discussion about 3 months ago...and I did go to that.

I love him...cause he really doesn't hesitate in calling out the bullshit, but yet he's so poetic about it....

Are you in the Bay Area? Cause if you are, when some worthwhile speaker comes to my church, I can let you know--we get the biggies. My hubby has some very good connections on that front.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

27. Yup. Bay area. If you need a sound engineer, I've had Grammy winners

as clients. Now I just like good music and a rightous speaker.
I sometimes work over at UCBerkeley where the School of Journalism brings in some names or down in San Jose.


Yeah, please. Do let me know when you have someone to hear.
Thanks.

Yikes, time to sign off and go to bed dreaming of kick-ass candidates.

See you back on the threads, FrenchieCat.
Ciao!

[FrenchieCat]

19. Gore/Clark--At least we'd be working with known quantities

from the standpoint of the RNC attacks.

I love Clark. He inspired me and many others. I want him as President, cuz....OK.....Don't even get me started....

Gore, was OK for me. Not inspiring, but he certainly did win that election. Don't know how much he's really changed, although I heard the fire breathing speeches....and they were doozies. But I still have a problem with his persona.

Call me superficial....but I think that many voters do this...so I'm just putting myself in their place. Gore kinda brings to mind an certain awkwardness that's easy to like, but harder to respect (in the physical sense, Goofy comes to mind). Strong leader is not what I see before my eyes when I see Gore. If they run Hagel, McCain or Romney.....when one does a compare and contrast.....we'd be f*cked. They could even Run Jeb Bush...and use the excuse that Gore is a continuation of the Clinton Dynasty.

Plus, I still kinda of resent Gore telling me to fall in line behind Howard Dean as President, before any votes for the primaries had been cast. That was an order that I had to disobey. In my eyes, he spent his capital as leader of the party when he did that.

Why don't we wait till after the primaries before we discuss who the winner will pick as a VP? Probably the Media will force the nominee to pick Edwards again anyway, with the promise that this time...they will cover the Boy wonder campaigning as VP (Sure!).

Again, I don't know exactly how much Gore has rehabilitated himself...which leads me to the fact that rehabilitated could be morphed into re-invented, which is how the 2000 RNC talking points went back then.

I think I'll stick with Clark in '08 for now.

[suigeneris]

26. You can put me down for Clark but not for Gore

I don't see him lighting a fire under enough of us like say Dean or Edwards or Clark, for example. Personal opinion.

I wish I knew more about Mark Warner of Virginia. Would he be southern light enough that I could stand him but still have a little cred with southern moderates?

I thought Edwards was vastly underutilized and that he went from awful on TV in the very beginning of his run to becoming a superb campaigner by the end of the primaries. His resume is a little light on politics but that could still be a good thing. One senate term does not a Washington insider make - always a plus.

I wanted Clark all along so he is a given for me.

[Kahuna]

30. I think we have some very strong contenders for 2008. Even..

better than in 2004. We potentially have, Gore, Clark, Hillary, Richardson, Warner and Bayh. I feel very hopeful believing that these people will be out there representing us and getting our message out.

[suigeneris]

32. Right, and you heard today that Richardson is in. Yes! nt

.

[Kahuna]

33. Is Richardson in? I haven't heard that..

:shrug: I'd be very happy to learn that he is though. Is he?

[Kahuna]

29. The Dean matter is my only real concern with Gore...

I like you was outraged and thought it was a big politically damaging mistake on his part. I still feel that way. I hope to not have reason to feel that way in the future. Dean has been labeled as sort of a buffoon by the MSM. I hope he can overcome that for the sake of the party. That remains to be seen.

If Dean can't improve his image with mainstream America, then Gore is definately finished goods, because he endorsed Dean. And they are wedded and tied at the hip.