Ezra Klein: Al Gore makes me sad

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May 26, 2007

Al Gore makes me sad

(Posted by John.)

I'm reading The Assault on Reason, and it's very good. But I have this rule I go by: if a potential political candidate writes a book where he goes after the media hammer and tong for their incredible incompetence, he's not going to do well in a campaign covered by that same media. And if he writes a chapter in his book where he goes over, in great detail, the historic and modern day problems with concentrations of great wealth and power, he'll be caricatured as a Cultural Revolution-era Maoist.

So as much as I'm enjoying the book, for the first time I really do think Gore's being entirely sincere when he says he doesn't plan to run. I think it's probably the only way he'd feel quite liberated enough to write the book he has.

Aside from the parts I've mentioned, the book is actually very interesting, spanning from neuroscience to Communications Theory (part of what I studied in University, so I'm biased.) So help Al help the rest of us: buy his book.

May 26, 2007 | Permalink

Comments

Thank you for that.

I did exactly that 3 days ago in spite of that;
I have effectively quit...reading. Dunno why.
But this one I'll get through.

If only to feel that good people are
even in these times ...all around me.
Al Gore being a great one.

Posted by: has_te | May 26, 2007 12:21:24 PM

for me,
al gore is the only bright light
in the political firmament.
his decency, honesty and vision
continue to inspire
and give me hope.
what a dream come true
it would be
if he would be our next president.

Posted by: Liliana Klein | May 26, 2007 12:28:23 PM

if a potential political candidate writes a book where he goes after the media hammer and tong for their incredible incompetence, he's not going to do well in a campaign covered by that same media. And if he writes a chapter in his book where he goes over, in great detail, the historic and modern day problems with concentrations of great wealth and power, he'll be caricatured as a Cultural Revolution-era Maoist.

You are probably correct, John, but I wish you weren't. Or, put another way, I'd sure like a candidate that was willing to take on an essential but broken, institution - our so-called free press/media.

It would take huge wads of cash to mount a attack or counter-attack by a Dem. candidate, but it's possible that this could be done if it became a goal.

I've often wondered how much it would cost to purchase some channel (like MSNBC or one of the CNN outlets) and position it against Faux News as the voice of the progressive movement. Then, add to that a daily newspaper/reporting staff (USA Today, LA Times, or even the NY Times?) and build it up for national and international reporting of high quality.

In an era of $200-300 Million presidential campaigns, a $1 billion or so might get both ventures in hand and finance the early years of operation. That is not completely out of reach.

Posted by: JimPortlandOR | May 26, 2007 12:45:24 PM

I think, though, that the problem with the media is only a symptom of a much larger problem - what John identifies as "the historic and modern day problems with concentrations of great wealth and power." The media's corporate-controlled narrative is but a piece of a larger issue around the arrangement of power in American, late capitalist society.

I think people on the web get way too caught up in the media critique - not that it's wrong, but it's not like there's some perfect ideal of objectivity that the media had that we're trying to return to, and the problems run much deeper.

How many major news stories ran in the supposed "golden age" of television about the reign of terror attacks on African-Americans in the south? The defense of entrenched structures of power has always been a part of the media's history. There was no golden age. The problems run a lot deeper than Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch, and a lot deeper than a mere lack of "high quality" reporting.

Posted by: DivGuy | May 26, 2007 1:17:42 PM

John: gee, ya think? Gore would be a fool to run unless the media changed. Like the Daily Howler says, they're still making fun of his weight even now that he seems right about every vital issue.

Posted by: hf | May 26, 2007 1:21:11 PM

> But I have this rule I go by: if a potential
> political candidate writes a book where he goes
> after the media hammer and tong for their
> incredible incompetence, he's not going to do
> well in a campaign covered by that same media.

Unless he plans to keep going after the media hammer and tongs consistently and forcefully throughout the entire campaign. Even the traditional media can't ignore a leading candidate, and eventually they would have to engage him or start to look ridiculous in their own viewers' eyes.

Whether or not Gore would have the strength and the fire in the belly to keep that up for 9 months is another question. But I suspect it would work, especially if he hired a few good liberal quip writers to keep him supplied with zingers.

Cranky

Posted by: Cranky Observer | May 26, 2007 1:31:07 PM

I think you're right, but I've also been saying for several months now that Gore would only run if response to this book was positive enough for him to think he could do it mostly on his own terms. IOW, he's throwing down a gauntlet to see if anyone will pick it up. It's a gamble, but since he was already forced to let go of his lifelong ambition-- to his personal benefit, IMO-- he knows he can walk away from the table.

Posted by: latts | May 26, 2007 1:40:55 PM

"Unless he plans to keep going after the media hammer and tongs consistently and forcefully throughout the entire campaign."

How much damage has this done the blogosphere, and has the blogosphere changed the MSM? A little, a little? I actually hoped Gore would run such a campaign, and thought it might be successful.

And I think a head-on constant attack is preferable to establishing an alternative voice, as in Air America. The MSM does operate somewhat like the blogosphere (sorry, folks), with consensus and cross-amplification amd memes, and an alternative voice would just be like a 500-ranked blog that no one links to.

Remember the old LBJ story:"I just want to see him deny it" Just attack, and make the attack the story. Worked for the other side, and this is a tactic progressives can feel righteous about.

Posted by: bob mcmanus | May 26, 2007 2:04:11 PM

When Gore said that he doesn't see a scenario where he would run, the very scenario Gore says he doesn't see is what you just described: that his words that resonnate so clearly, bravely, and accurately, would find such a following that they could rise above the din of television. He also said that he believed that the internet was maybe almost strong enough to take on the MSM. That is part of the gauntlet he's throwing down. He is brilliant in attacking the power players head-on, never once being rude, just being painfully honest in a way no one else dares to be. I think we should expect him to run. I think we should be the kind of swarm around him that those who followed Gandhi were. We are more powerful than the media. There are millions of us. And a veto proof majority of Americans believe that Global Warming is THE issue that must be dealt with NOW. It's ridiculous to give up when we finally have someone out there daring to tell the truth. If you want his ideas to succeed, you have to make it happen. He is uniquely qualified. If he were elected, the world would know immediately that the United States had done a 180 degree turn. I live in Germany. You cannot imagine what a difference he could make without a word of explanation. He could lead the world. But we have to make him do it. I don't believe for a second that if there were a groundswell that he would stand back. Even if there weren't a cushy, automatic win, waiting for him. Because at his age, what matters for someone like Gore is actually using everything you've got to make real an issue that you have been trying to make evident your whole life.
All he did in this book is lay down the conditions under which he would run. All he is saying is that THIS time, he's not going to mince words and try to be what he's not. So what you're saying is that now that you have the candidate that you really want, well, you can't really have it, so you're going to assume it won't happen. Talk about beaten down. Jeez. People in other countries have established democracies against greater odds than this. Buck up.

Posted by: Paula | May 26, 2007 4:21:27 PM

I can't remember a single campaign in the history of the united states where attacking wealthy interests turned out to be stupid move. In fact, you can trace the decline of the Democratic party to the moment it decided that class issues were off limits. Without making a real strident argument on the area of politics where left-wing parties are always the strongest, there is no way to counter the cultural-traditionalist tactics of the right that have always been their electoral strong point. It helped Gore to talk about the "people vs the powerful", improving his poll numbers even as he got the worst press coverage of any major-party candidate to run for President in my lifetime.

Reporters like Ezra make too much of the Media's power. They can't keep a major party candidate out of the limelight, and attacking them as blatantly as they did in 2000 just serves to make them more popular.

Posted by: soullite | May 26, 2007 5:06:27 PM

At the same time, he could be willing to essentially say, "Fuck 'em," and run no matter what he thinks the press myight do. Perhaps he feels that if he eggs them on enough, the various outlets will cover the issues in a substantial way.

The other thing to emphasize is that he can potentially hold out until the filing deadline. With the Internet increasing a candidate's ability to raise money quickly, he'd be able to jump in late, even with a severe monetary disadvantage, and then do well, after which point the money would come to him. Of course, this assumes he'd think that he'd win. What are signs that he's polling, or doing something else to make sense of some signals?

Posted by: Brian | May 27, 2007 1:06:34 AM

It is sad that Gore won't be running but, I figured this out a year ago. I remember last summer thinking that I'd probably support him in the upcoming election. Then towards the end of summer I realized he ain't running. period. So I went elsewhere.
I really support my current candidate but, I cannot help but, feel wistful for what should have been.

Posted by: vwcat | May 27, 2007 1:21:43 AM

I take Gore at his word: he's not running.

He's doing what he really loves: researching complex issues, putting the information together, and telling people about it. (Remember, before he became a Senator, he was a journalist. That was his first career choice.)

Say he did run. You know, we all know, what happens then: the MSM turns on him, the gasbags and consultants and spinmeisters turn on him. Everything he does and says is misquoted, misinterpreted, and ridiculed. He gets to try talking about intelligent subjects to people who don't understand the subject matter and don't want to understand the subject matter, who then get it wrong when they report on it. And when they're not doing that, they're reducing it all to political calculus - a political calculus that has nothing to do with the actual stakes, and everything to do with the shallow, juvenile, bubbleheadedness that passes for political reporting in the US.

But say he makes it through all that, and wins the election. What happens then?

He gets to try getting his policies through Congress while every single corporate interest group gets its pet pols to fight every step of the way, while the MSM and Might Wurlitzer keep on trolling, and while the bitter-ender loser GOP embarks on another Scaife-funded War on the Democratic President.

Oh, and he gets to do that while trying to clean up the mess the Bushies will have left behind of our military, our economy, our infrastructure, our international reputation, our intelligence services, and every other damn thing.

All that, and Gore doesn't even like politics that much. Really, he doesn't. He likes being able to cut through all that crap and educate people. He likes being able to deal with individuals and organizations who have the intelligence to understand the issues, the passion to want to address them, and the integrity and courage to act. None of which describes Congress - or, for that matter, most of the country's citizens.

When you get right down to it, why would Gore run? What does it get him that he doesn't already have?

Posted by: CaseyL | May 27, 2007 1:28:59 AM

My optimistic side says this:

If Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize, for which supposedly he's been nominated, then he may well run.

I think the book is a shot across the bow that he won't take crap from the corporate owned media. If he fights them, he'll get big blogger support, who will inundate the coprorate media outlets, and. more important, swing voter viewers will like his standing up to elites whom dominate corporate media.

Remember, he won the popular vote in 2000 despite running a lackluster, too calculating campaign.

And one final point: Think Nixon's close loss in 1960 and Nixon's comeback in 1968. Stranger things have happened in US history...

Posted by: Mitchell Freedman | May 27, 2007 1:36:14 AM

I'm sure that if one "writes a chapter in his book where he goes over, in great detail, the historic and modern day problems with concentrations of great wealth and power, he'll be caricatured as a Cultural Revolution-era Maoist." but I am also sure that the voters want a more progressive tax system. They say so in every poll. I think the first politician who ignores the pundits and gets his money on the internet (or out of his pockets if he is a class war traitor) and runs on "soak the rich" will transform American politics.

Don't ask me, ask Gallup http://www.pollingreport.com/budget.htm
(search for "upper income people") since Gallup first asked in 1992, they haven't done a poll in which fewer than 63% of people say that "upper income people" pay "too little" in taxes. Since '04 they have asked about "corporations" with at least 69 % of people saying corporations pay "too little".

The American people are making their views clear. Why won't politicians listen ? The furious accusations about class war would only tell the people which candidate agrees with them on the issue.

Posted by: Robert Waldmann | May 27, 2007 10:33:54 AM

I have never thought Gore would run again. Why would he put himself through it, when the press acts the way it does?

However, I would argue that this book doesn't change the dynamic. For instance:

"if a potential political candidate writes a book where he goes after the media hammer and tong for their incredible incompetence, he's not going to do well in a campaign covered by that same media."
Gore was never, ever going to do well with this media. They hate him. It's not entirely clear why, but they really, truly do. And they have for a long time. So, I don't think the book will change the dynamic.

"And if he writes a chapter in his book where he goes over, in great detail, the historic and modern day problems with concentrations of great wealth and power, he'll be caricatured as a Cultural Revolution-era Maoist."
After an Inconvenient Truth, the media was never going to treat him as anything other than an absurd leftist no matter what.

Posted by: MDtoMN | May 27, 2007 3:43:35 PM

Gore was never, ever going to do well with this media. They hate him. It's not entirely clear why, but they really, truly do. And they have for a long time. So, I don't think the book will change the dynamic.

I don't worry about the media -- they're a known known. I worry about the already-announced Democratic candidates, all of whom, except the clear VP-this-time candidates, would immediately go into killbot mode, to defend their shot at the nomination.

Posted by: Davis X. Machina | May 27, 2007 5:29:57 PM

Anyone who thinks Gore would or should run needs to start (re-)reading the daily howler from first post to last.

I am as angry as Somerby about no one talking about our amazing recent history. (I'm looking at you, Ezra, and Matt and Josh and Kevin and blah blah blah.)

Gore had nothing to lose by attacking this media because there was no way he could win while they are in charge. It actually gives me a little hope that someone as competent as Gore now sees the MSM as directly in opposition to all things he cares about.

He can't win in this media environment is obvious to anyone objectively looking at how things went down with Bush in 2000 and in 2004. Maybe Dems could have run better campaigns, but the press could not have done more to make W look less like the idiot he is.

Read the daily howler, and keep reading it until you finally understand how completely in the winderness Dem's are in on the issue.

Posted by: Chuck | May 27, 2007 8:59:51 PM

Picking up on what others have said, the only way Gore runs is if a popular movement emerges to demand it, and that movement has enough momentum to steamroller the media that would return to its 2000 coverage. He runs if there's a way not to 'run' in the traditional sense, but instead to be carried on the shoulders of millions.

He's after an army of nerds. I re-read The Partly Cloudy Patriot today: Vowell's account of Gore's wonkishness, and her demolition of Kit Seelye's disgraceful reporting on the Love Canal canard, are as on the mark today as when she first wrote them.

That's to say, it's not his decision to make. It's ours. He runs if he gets an electorate -- or at least a vocal section of it -- that wouldn't just like him to run, but wants him to run. And because of that, he won't run, because the system is designed to crush popular movements, even if sufficient numbers of the American public got off their collective rears.

All that, and Gore doesn't even like politics that much. Really, he doesn't. He likes being able to cut through all that crap and educate people.

One of the things that Vowell mentions is how Gore understood the structural problem of politics, especially in an American system which re-elects one federal chamber every two years: that you need to find a way to pitch a long-term solution within an electoral system fixated on short-term needs and achievements.

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