Jeb versus Al

Bush Junior and his father, the ex-President, are talking up Florida Governor Jeb Bush's candidacy for President at an undisclosed future date.
Well, I predicted as much as year or so ago, although the fawning National Review cover "Why Not Jeb?" hasn't come thru yet.
The Bush Dynasty, is the electoral equivalent of comfort food...bad for you in every way but unavoidable.
The secret of la Famiglia Arbusto's electoral success is two fold:
1.) They are willing to sling mud from the gutter and have mastered the art of defamation of character whilst conversely wallowing in their own sanctimony.

2.) They will pretend to agree with almost any collection of crackpots in order to win. If necessary they will even implement the policy demands of said crackpots in order to maintain their coalition.

There is no reason to believe that Jeb will not pursue this same strategy come 2008 or 2012. He is plump, serene, utterly self righteous, more than a little humorless and prefectly willing to sell out the nation to achieve high office.
In that regard he is, the perfect GOP candidate for President.
Moreoever, in the murky political underworld that is discussing the whole notion of "who can stop McCain" you know Jeb's name comes up...a lot.
There is also good anecdotal evidence to suggest that Jeb himself wants to run, he has resisted all desperate entreaties to shove the increasingly demented Katherine Harris aside and run for the US Senate this year. No interest that office clearly suggests a desire for another sinecure...and when you are a dues paying member of the Arbusto Syndicate that can only mean the White House.

Meanwhile, over on our side of the fence, a disparate collection of liberals and earnest bloggers have been sporadically talking up Al Gore for President in 2008.
It seems that more than a few democrats and progressives are having big second thoughts about Hilary Clinton's notional candidacy ever since she started canoodling with Rupert Murdoch and catching bouquets from jerks like David Brooks.
So of course, suddenly Al, with his Clinton Aufklarung bona fides and sincere environmentalism suddenly looks good.
These would be the same drowsy surly liberals who had to be practically flogged down to the polls to vote for Al circa November 2000 and who begged the Former Vice President NOT to run in '04.

If Al or Hilary goes down for the count in 2008, will this fuel a revival of John Kerry's fortunes?
I doubt it, he is from Massachusetts, nationally the Commonwealth is still dead center in a rhetorical free fire zone.
Still there is something vaguely silly about the likes of Eric Alterman talking up Al Gore given the way they dismissed his "terrible campaign and many mistakes" in the 2001 thru 2005 period.
This is a futile sort of activity in my humble opinion, I had no brief for the Deaniacs in 2004, but at least they coalesced around someone new. The whole "Al in '08" thing bespeaks a sort of equivocation and mental exhaustion.
I don't think because someone loses a presidential election they ought to be cast aside and reviled, but that is a vice deeply imbedded within liberal political culture.
Alas no single blog or blogger is every gonna make a dent in it.
I am still with John Kerry til he says otherwise, I do that out of loyalty to the man, his policies and to the Commonwealth he represents. I didn't back down on him in December of 2003 and I didn't back down on him in December of 2004.

Others have taken a different path, so be it.

Meanwhile, the blunt truth is, that presidential politics as of 5-12-06 9:36am EST largely revolves around John McCain, Hilary Clinton and a vast subculture of money and activists who are desperate to find alternatives to both those candidacies.
Al Gore's name has cropped up, but who knows maybe next week it'll be Jeanne Shaheen or Bernie Sanders.