Al Gore: the super super delegate
It is a brewing historical irony that the Democratic presidential primary in 2008 could shape up to mirror the election of 2000: one candidate could win the "popular vote" ie. the majority of the delegates selected by the voters and caucus goers, while another candidate could win the nomination by winning enough additional super delegates to put them over the threshold for victory.
Nobody wants this. No one. But the reshaped Tsunami Tuesday and it's "all at once" delegate selection process might well lay the groundwork for this very situation to come to pass. (There are some very powerful forces of the status quo that are using the avoidance of this situation as an expedient excuse to rally behind Senator Clinton, mark me on that.)
I look at the situation right now, however, and think that there's a very small number of "big mover" factors that haven't yet come into to play that could help swing things one way or another.
One of those factors is Vice President Al Gore.
Let me say this. If Al Gore intends to endorse someone in this primary, if not actively campaign for that candidate, he should do it now in advance of Tsunami Tuesday. If there's one figure who's got the moral authority and gravitas in the party to sway both the voters and the super delegates it would be Mr. Gore...whose popular vote victory in 2000 was stolen from him by just such an undemocratic quirk of fate as the one we potentially face right now and whose resurrection as an activist confronting climate change has won the hearts of a new generation that did not much know him in his former role as Vice President.
It would be thrilling and apropos if Mr. Gore saw fit to bestow his endorsement on Senator Obama, whose rhetoric and journey mirror the Vice President's, and such an endorsement might well help the Senator from Illinois turn the tide.
It would, likewise, be a, perhaps, decisive blow to the Obama camp's hopes if Mr. Gore came down on the side of Senator Clinton.
Either way there is but one Super Super Delegate in 2008, and his name is Albert Gore.
Which way does your beard point tonight, Al?
Nobody wants this. No one. But the reshaped Tsunami Tuesday and it's "all at once" delegate selection process might well lay the groundwork for this very situation to come to pass. (There are some very powerful forces of the status quo that are using the avoidance of this situation as an expedient excuse to rally behind Senator Clinton, mark me on that.)
I look at the situation right now, however, and think that there's a very small number of "big mover" factors that haven't yet come into to play that could help swing things one way or another.
One of those factors is Vice President Al Gore.
Let me say this. If Al Gore intends to endorse someone in this primary, if not actively campaign for that candidate, he should do it now in advance of Tsunami Tuesday. If there's one figure who's got the moral authority and gravitas in the party to sway both the voters and the super delegates it would be Mr. Gore...whose popular vote victory in 2000 was stolen from him by just such an undemocratic quirk of fate as the one we potentially face right now and whose resurrection as an activist confronting climate change has won the hearts of a new generation that did not much know him in his former role as Vice President.
It would be thrilling and apropos if Mr. Gore saw fit to bestow his endorsement on Senator Obama, whose rhetoric and journey mirror the Vice President's, and such an endorsement might well help the Senator from Illinois turn the tide.
It would, likewise, be a, perhaps, decisive blow to the Obama camp's hopes if Mr. Gore came down on the side of Senator Clinton.
Either way there is but one Super Super Delegate in 2008, and his name is Albert Gore.
Which way does your beard point tonight, Al?
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