Before election night, defeat almost certainly meant a one-way ticket to private life for Al Gore. The idea of a Nixon-like sojourn in the wilderness, followed by a climb back to the top, seemed a quaint one. Since Nixon, no major party has given its failed standard-bearer a second chance. Losers often wake up to a harsh and unforgiving political world on the morning after, shunned by their party and frozen for years in their worst moments: Michael Dukakis riding in the tank, Jimmy Carter in his malaise, Walter Mondale promising higher taxes.
But there has never been a presidential loser like Gore. In the end, defeat served as well as victory–perhaps better than victory–to show voters that he has a soul. His eight-minute valedictory was everything that Gore wasn’t during his 18-month campaign: graceful, authentic, inspiring. “While we yet hold and do not yield our opposing beliefs, there is a higher duty than we owe to political party,” he said. “This is America, and we put country before party.”
His performance left even partisan adversaries and smash-mouth cable pundits groping for superlatives. “I have nothing ‘hardball’ to say,” said MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. “It was an amazing speech… almost sacramental in quality.” Gore’s well-received exit and narrow plurality in the popular vote, combined with the possibility that the Supreme Court prevented a recount that could have awarded him Florida–and the White House–make him the party’s front runner in 2004. Gore isn’t talking about his plans, but friends expect him to run, and his parting rhetoric leaves the door wide open. As he called for the country to rally behind Bush, he added: “There will be time enough to debate our continuing differences.”
But “Gore in ‘04” could be an uphill fight. As many as a dozen Democrats, from House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, his old 1988 rival, to retiring Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey and Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton, are expected to look closely at a primary challenge. And the 50 million-plus votes he won this year will not excuse Gore from having to explain to party activists why he should be nominated again after losing a race widely viewed as a sure thing. Even as praise flowed for his dogged five-week post-Election Day struggle–especially his advocacy for African-American voters, who encountered trouble at Florida polling places–so did the scathing appraisals of his candidacy. “He ran a pretty lousy campaign,” said former Labor secretary Robert Reich. “It was his to lose.”
Gore will have to scramble to retain the support he enjoyed in 2000. The center-left coalition that he and Clinton held together for eight years is already unraveling. Party progressives charge that Gore didn’t lend them the support they needed to combat the Ralph Nader insurgency. Organized labor, which helped engineer a huge turnout for Gore despite its misgivings about administration trade policy, would almost certainly get behind Gephardt if he decided to run. “[Gore] has severe problems” with the left, said one top campaign adviser. Money will also be a concern. Gore is by no means assured of keeping his fund-raising network together. Terry McAuliffe, uber-fund-raiser of the Clinton-Gore era, who is likely to be the next Democratic National Committee chairman, began his career with Gephardt and remains close to him.
Moderates, led by the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), aren’t much happier with Gore. They say his reluctance to run aggressively on the Clinton administration’s economic record sealed his defeat. Clinton pollster Mark Penn (dumped by Gore in 1999, in part because he discounted voters’ “Clinton fatigue” as a threat) unveiled a survey for the DLC concluding that Gore’s old-style populist message, presenting himself as a champion of “the people, not the powerful,” repelled the swing voters he needed to push him over the top. While the poll showed that Gore won majorities on most major issues, his class-warfare rhetoric made it easy for Republicans to brand him as a big-spending lefty.
Gore operatives say Penn’s analysis is nonsense. Hours after the DLC previewed his survey, Gore pollster Stan Greenberg (dumped by Clinton after the 1994 midterm elections) fired off his own study. He counted conservative hatred of Clinton as a key factor in Gore’s defeat, along with voter doubts about his honesty. Greenberg also credited the Bush campaign with skillfully blurring major issue differences with Gore. “In the end,” Greenberg wrote, “almost half the electorate threw up its hands, unable to differentiate the proposals of the two candidates.”
Whether he is regrouping for 2004 or planning a life after politics, Gore’s near-term future isn’t hard to visualize. He’ll probably split his time, as always, between Washington (he still owns his suburban Virginia home) and his farm in Tennessee, where he will need to rebuild politically after narrowly losing the state to Bush. Paying the mortgage won’t be a problem–there will be speeches and teaching opportunities to supplement an estimated $94,000 annual civil-service pension based on his 24 years of government service. There’s been speculation that he could wind up as a university president, possibly at Harvard. “Now that would require some real fund-raising,” he quipped to an aide recently. But no major institution will take him seriously if he is still looking at 2004. He’ll likely return to one of his passions–writing and crusading to raise public understanding of global warming’s long-term consequences.
Perhaps Gore’s biggest challenge will be to deal emotionally with the wrenching reality of his defeat. The prize around which he’s organized his life has slipped away. For the first time since he returned home from Vietnam a dazed and embittered Army veteran in May 1971, his future is unclear. On concession night, not even his iron discipline could deflect the grief that was setting in. In an almost cruel twist of scheduling, a holiday party was underway as he left his Naval Observatory home to deliver his prime-time address at the Old Executive Office Building. He spoke briefly to the 300 friends, staff, contributors and Hollywood stars there, but couldn’t get through his remarks without tearing up. His wife, Tipper, finally took his elbow and helped him through the crowd. Even the fun pictures of his rowdy post-concession party can’t completely hide the pain in his eyes. “Your heart just broke for him,” said one guest.
Gore also carries with him into private life the question that puzzles much of Washington and a good portion of the public. Why hadn’t it seen more of the Al Gore that it saw on his last night as a candidate? His political future may hinge on his ability to find the answer to that within himself.
