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September
30, 2002 9:00 a.m. |
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ood
readers, I come to praise Al Gore, not to bury him.
Reading over the former vice president's speech from September 23 I am struck by what an impressive document it is. Not, of course, from the standpoint of public policy. In that respect, it is what you might expect, nothing revolutionary. Yet, as a political document, from the perspective of a student of the electoral art, it is superb. Reading it, I find it strange that people would ask whether Gore is seeking his party's nomination. Of course he is. He is already positioning himself, for both the nomination and the election, and he is doing very well.
The most important objective for Gore in the 2004 race is to bring the Greens back into the fold. Ralph Nader's electoral efforts undeniably cost Gore the presidency. For that, I applaud him. If Gore can win the Green-inclined voters back and maintain most of his 2000 voter base, he can win the White House handily. Therefore, he will take positions over the coming months calculated to appeal to the Democrats' radical nomads, without placing himself squarely among them.
The Iraq speech is a case in point. Gore is the only mainstream Democrat making an emphatic appeal against the president's plan to subdue Saddam Hussein. Of course, if you look carefully at what Gore actually said, the stance is not as bold as reported. He calls for caution, for more coalition building, and for spreading the costs of war, while noting that Iraq presents a threat to the stability of the Middle East, affirming the right of the United States to respond unilaterally to threats to its survival, and even allowing that the U.S. could justly take action under existing U.N. resolutions ("the existing resolutions from 1991 are sufficient from a legal standpoint," i.e., there is controlling legal authority). But there is a touch of audacity too, for example his criticism of the victory in Afghanistan, in which the United States defeated a "fifth rate power." He also stated that the majority of the 9/11 terrorists have "thus far gotten away with it," which makes one wonder about who all those guys at Gitmo are, not to mention those who have been sent to collect their 72 virgins in paradise. (As for Osama bin Laden — he's dead folks, face it.) Gore makes it sound as though the war on terrorism has been an enormous failure, which is audacity squared when one considers the questionable record of the previous Administration in pursuing the same mission. Nevertheless, you have to admire such brazenness. It can win elections. The Clinton-Gore team did the same in 1992, taking issues believed to be Bush strengths and attacking them frontally. Who would have thought then that George Bush senior would wind up playing defense on his foreign-policy record? Imagine if Al Gore successfully positions himself as the candidate best suited to prosecute the struggle against al Qaeda?
The most immediate intra-party effect of the speech is to make other Democratic leaders look weak, vacillating, and prone to compromise principles for political expediency. This is an important objective, because these are Gore's likely opponents in the 2004 primary race. Gore has to separate himself from the pack, and make himself relevant despite the fact that he is a private citizen and has no direct input in the policy or legislative arenas. Opposing the president's war agenda is the best tool available. The Democrats will all say the same things on their core issues — education, Medicare, Social Security. Their talking points will be interchangeable for the most part, varying only on the particulars of the bewildering and largely expendable plans they will formulate to "save" one thing or another. The Iraq issue gives Gore a chance to both stand out from the crowd, and appeal directly to the activist, antiwar base of the party. Senator Daschle and other likely contenders are constrained by the election, either because they are running for office and are afraid of taking an unpopular position, or because they don't want the Democratic party to be seen as impeding the president's war-making ability. Gore, free of these constraints, has the issue all to himself.
Gore hinges his credibility on his vote in favor of the resolution supporting the use of force against Iraq in Operation Desert Storm. (He was erroneously reported by ABC as casting the deciding vote but the tally was 52-47, so no single vote could be called decisive.) In Gore's January 12, 1991 speech, he demonstrated that he could countenance armed conflict when the threat was of sufficient magnitude. Today he does not feel that the danger posed by Saddam meets the threshold. Very statesmanlike. However, this is a slim reed. Despite the difficult intellectual struggle he claimed to have based his decision on at the time, the story around town is that he sold his vote to the highest bidder — the currency being TV exposure. He had approached Senators Mitchell and Dole to see who would give him the most speaking time, and the best time slot. In the end, the supporters of the force resolution had the better offer. Dole discussed the deal in detail on Evans and Novak (July 24, 1992), stating, "that's kind of the inside joke around the Senate, the way [Gore] played it," Former Democratic Senator Bill Bradley mentioned the event in the Democratic primary race in 2000. Former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, who was the Minority Whip in 1991, brought the story up last week, after Gore's speech. Gore's team denies it, of course, and besides, the affair is only important to those who think character counts.
So one may ask, isn't Gore taking a chance in staking out this particular ground? Suppose the war goes well, if there is one? In the first place, he is not taking much of a stand, technically. Check the text. There is enough wiggle room in the speech to justify any position he might have to take afterwards. He can always invoke counterfactuals and projections (sanctions would have worked, we moved too swiftly, having more coalition partners would have been better, the long term effects will be profoundly negative, the costs of the war will be far too high, nation building isn't working, etc.) Furthermore, no matter how the war might go, the people to whom his speech was addressed will still be upset about the fact that we fought at all. For them, Gore will still be a hero, the only candidate who had the guts to stand up to the president, the only one who displayed leadership and resolve in the face of the Bush "war machine."
If the conflict goes well and the economy stays sluggish — or appears to drag, or is merely reported to be worse than it is — Gore can replay the 1992 strategy and perhaps win. (There were six straight quarters of GDP growth leading up to the 1992 election, but the Clinton-Gore campaign kept saying the country was in recession and the press went along with it. Again, toujour l'audace!) Two years from now the war could be over and much forgotten, or so the Gore team would hope. Yet, if the war is an easy victory and the economy rebounds (and the recovery actually makes the news), it is hard to see how Bush could lose.
If, on the other hand, the war goes poorly, Gore can claim to have taken an ethical stand, a lonely but righteous position based on sober foresight, and can assert a mandate for new leadership. And no matter what the outcome, there is bound to be some unfortunate incident, perhaps — God forbid — friendly fire, or the accidental bombing of civilians, which can supply ample opportunity for solemn intonations with the whiff of "I warned you." It's a line he can deliver well. So in the rush to scorn Al Gore for daring to speak the unspeakable, I hope that Republican strategists are taking a moment to step back from the fray to understand what is going on. The game is afoot.
— James S. Robbins is a national-security analyst & NRO contributor.