Enter Ozone Woman - New York Times: "He's being hailed as the new Comeback Kid, as New York magazine calls him, a passionate pedant. (Better than a compassionate conservative.)Hindsight is always 20/20. Who among us has not wished for the road not taken?
Shaken by the Asian tsunami, Katrina, gas prices and a literally explosive Middle East, many Americans now see the environment and conservation as the scintillating, life-and-death subjects that Al Gore has always presented them as, rather than the domain of cartoonish sandal-wearing, tree-hugging, New Age-y, antibusiness wackos.
As John Heilemann notes in New York, the Gore boomlet is also driven by 'the creeping sense of foreboding about the prospect of Hillary Clinton's march to her party's nomination.' Hollywood's top environmental campaigner, Laurie David, a producer on the Gore movie, argued, 'It's not time to experiment with trying to put in office the first female president or with somebody people feel is such a polarizing figure.'
Some Democrats are secretly compiling data to prove that Hillary is unelectable to derail the notion that she's inevitable. Gore loyalists suggest that they could be co-front-runners — a couple of raccoons in a bag.
The two hall monitors have always bumped against each other, first competing to be Bill Clinton's co-president, and then over Democratic money in the 2000 election.
So we are left with the prospect of a race between these two Democrats (Al, a popularly elected president; Hillary, a co-ruler). Neither was president, but both think they have been. Al's a seeker and Hillary's a triangulator (or you might say she's inflating her tires to the right pressure). They have shared the problem of stiff, situational personae, when they seemed to wake up every morning trying to figure out who they should be, how they should appear or how they should position themselves. By fashioning their identities all the time, they condemned themselves to being seen merely as identity fashioners.
Hillary is keeping Bill at a distance so he doesn't overshadow her, contradict her, embarrass her or hurt her attempt to pander to the right. But Al, who says he and Bill have made up and are now brotherly, may want to embrace the Big Dog this time, realizing the cost of muzzling him in 2000 (and the cost of taking hired guns' advice to soft-peddle the environment)."
You just kind of hope that potential rulers are able to think ahead. Maybe if he had understood that Bush was out to destroy the country, he might have done something a little more calculated to win. His home state. Just can't forgive him for losing his home state. Florida would have just been known as hurricane territory.
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