Rehabilitating Gore

Todays New York Times carries yet another article on Al Gore. The article discusses the problems defeated candidates in general have within the Democratic party.

If Mr. Gore runs for president again — and he says he won't, though not quite definitively — he would come rested, battle-tested and, given how Democrats have treated their losing nominees, deeply stigmatized.

As a general rule, it can be an unpleasant career move for a Democrat to run for president, streak to primary victories, win his party's nomination and, ultimately, fall short. For his troubles, he will automatically be consigned by large sectors of his party to a distinctive Democratic pariah status — his campaign ridiculed, second-guessed and I-told-you-so'd endlessly by insiders and operatives who bemoan how "winnable" his election was and "unlikable" his personality is.

They will reflexively lump the runner-up into the party pantheon of losers and hope he stays away. "We tend to treat our losing nominees like Superfund sites," said Bob Beckel, a longtime Democratic strategist who ran Walter F. Mondale's presidential campaign in 1984, a landslide loss to Ronald Reagan.

This is quite true of the Democrats, they really have shunned losers and have done so for many years. Republicans tend to bear their losing candidates no ill will. Robert Dole wasn't shunned after losing to Clinton, was he?

Republicans are more disposed to a corporate or military model in which retired executives or generals are often kept around, brought back as advisers or re-deployed in times of crisis. "Democrats tend to tire faster of people than Republicans do," said Frank Luntz, a Republican communications consultant who has conducted focus groups on presidential candidates of both parties. "A conservative nature is a more patient nature."

Mr. Luntz says the influence of television in modern campaigns only heightens the impatience of Democrats. He suggests that Adlai Stevenson — the last losing Democrat to be renominated, in 1956 — would likely not be afforded a second chance today. "We demand instant gratification now, in our lives and our politics," he said.

Yet this article, along with a recent rash of other ones is addressing things like this in an apparent attempt to rehabilitate Gore. It would be rather an amusing turn of events if it were to happen. The primaries would be fascinating.