Al Gore and the Power of Hindsight (or Powerpoint)
I was thinking yesterday about the changing perception of Al Gore. He seems suddenly to be the father of the party - or perhaps the wise, environmentally- friendly uncle to whom we turn for advice. (In my metaphor, Howard Dean is the rowdy cousin who gets you all pumped up on sugar before bed.)
Gore was mentioned in March as an ‘honest broker’ for the standoff between Clinton and Obama, a job in which he was not interested.
As the race slogged through another month of flag pins, Bosnia and Stephanopoulos, I saw his name mentioned again yesterday as someone to which Democratic faithful could look for support and sage wisdom. (Sorry, don’t have the link.)
I don’t know whether it’s An Inconvenient Truth or seven years of steadily paving the road to hell, but, man, Al Gore is totes popular now!
But remember 2000? Remember when everyone was just going to hold their noses? When there wasn’t any difference between the candidates?
Check out the stats I found today in some research I’m doing on Elizabeth Dole (Gallup poll, 17 March, 1999):
Along with high favorability ratings, Dole scored ahead of Bush and Gore on a number of specific items. More people were likely to report that Dole shared their values (69%) than Bush (58%) or Gore (56%). They were also more likely to report that Dole was someone they would be proud to have as president (68%, compared to 63% for Bush and 53% for Gore). Seven in 10 adults (71%) reported that Dole was inspiring, compared to 55% who said the same about Bush and 35% who reported that Gore was inspiring. (Heldman, et al., 2005: 219).
Now everyone’s all like, ‘Hey! Let’s see you on that forklift/crane thing again! With the graphs!’ or ‘Hey! Can you come save the Democratic Party from eating itself alive, once again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?’
I bet Al and Tipper sit at home drinking red wine, alternately giggling and weeping.
In case you want it, here’s the reference:
Heldman, C., et al. (2005) ‘”She Brought Only a Skirt”: Print Media Coverage of Elizabeth Dole’s Bid for the Republican Presidential Nomination’ Political Communication 22(3): 315-335.
