Al Gore and What Might Have Been

Throwback Thursday

I’m chatting online about what would have happened if Gore had won in 2000. The thinking is maybe 9/11 would have been prevented, we wouldn’t have rushed into Iraq, there wouldn’t have been torture, and ultimately this wouldn’t have seeded the madness that blossomed into Trumpism.

On the first point, I’m sympathetic. A Gore presidency might very well have detected and intercepted the 9/11 plot. Gore himself had significant national security experience, serving on Intelligence and Armed Services committees in Congress. As VP he was fully integrated into the Clinton administration’s process, where they had monitored the steady growth of global terrorism. Also, Gore had a very strong national security team. Gore’s closest national security advisor, Leon Fuerth had been with Gore since the 1970s when Gore was in Congress. (I interviewed Fuerth, who was very generous with his time.)¹

OTOH, within the Clinton administration, Gore was something of a hawk. When questions on use of force came up, Gore was generally one of the strongest voices favoring it. He pushed for a strong administration response in Bosnian war, for attacking Iraq when an assassination attempt on former President Bush was discovered, and the use of extraordinary renditions. He was also one of the few Democrats to vote in favor of the first Gulf War.

Gore receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, a pretty good consolation for not winning the presidency (and something that eluded Bill Clinton.)

Would Gore have avoided getting bogged down in Afghanistan and starting a war with Iraq? Maybe. Gore might have found his own foreign misadventure. Or maybe, with a divided government, Congress would have kiboshed foreign adventures. Or maybe something else awful and unexpected would have happened.

So with that, here’s a post from over a decade ago, before Trump emerged as a serious political force. The question of what might have been if 2000 had turned out differently has become more poignant since. In a way, for my generation, it compares to the question of what if Lee Harvey Oswald has missed.

Al Gore Redux?

• March 3, 2014

Sunday morning I caught Al Gore on Fareed Zakaria GPS hawking his new book – The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change.

He will be 68 years old in 2016 – he could make another run for the Presidency.

I don’t think he will. He is having a good time writing books (his first career, before politics was as a journalist) and making lots of money. Being a politician is not all its cracked up to be, the truth is being a journalist is more fun. His split from Tipper and the sale of Current TV to al-Jazeera might be fodder for the opposition.

Plus, campaigning is hard work and by most accounts Gore did not love it – not the way Clinton did. And running brings with it the risk of losing – one can easily imagine that Gore is not ready to go through that again.

Finally, politics can be like TV – the people want a new face. This goes for many leading political figures. Gore has been on the national stage since his first run for the Presidency in 1988 (25 years ago). This also applies to some other likely candidates. Hillary, in this regard, suffers from her association with her husband – we’ve now had 20 years of Clintons on the national stage. Biden first entered the Senate in 1973 and ran for President in 1988. Jeb Bush, on the Republican side, suffers similarly. After two Presidents Bush and a Bush in national office for 20 of the past 32 years there is no particular hunger for another President Bush.

The irony is that these well-established figures often have the resources needed to win the nomination, but then can’t win the general election against a fresh face. None of this by the way is a comment on the merits of a any of these figures as a potential President. But still, it is an intriguing possibility. If, for whatever reason, Hillary and Biden opt out and none of the Democratic party’s 2nd team gets traction in the 2016 primaries, is a draft Gore initiative out of the question? He remains and impressive, engaging figure who brings up issues that resonate with much of the party’s base. And Gore has the intriguing quality of “what might have been” had things in 2000 gone just a little differently.

It makes me think of the end of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises:

“Oh Jake,” Brett said, “We could have had such a damned good time together.”

Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly, pressing Brett against me.

“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

1. Gore’s VP, Joe Lieberman, was one of the more hawkish members of the Democratic Party.