From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Gore
Goes Sane
BOSTON--The most remarkable thing about Al Gore's speech last night was how
unremarkable it was. For the past couple of years, Gore has been ranting like
such a lunatic that even political allies have been questioning his sanity.
In May the New York Times' Maureen
Dowd said Gore personified the "wackadoo wing of the Democratic Party."
Just this year, Gore has delivered a shrill speech on "global warming" on one of the coldest days in recent history; fulminated about President Bush that "he betrayed this country!!!"; called Abu Ghraib "an American gulag"; and likened Republicans to Nazis (specifically, he accused them of employing "digital brownshirts"). Many observers attributed Howard Dean's fall from front-runner status to Gore's endorsement, presumably because it belied Dean's carefully honed image of sobriety.
But last night was nothing like this. Gore's speech was almost as levelheaded--though nowhere near as memorable--as his Dec. 13, 2000, concession, probably the best speech he's ever given. He made a few mildly amusing jokes at his own expense ("I know from my own experience that America is a land of opportunity, where every little boy and girl has a chance to grow up and win the popular vote"), he bandied bipartisan banalities ("these challenges we now confront are not Democratic or Republican challenges; they are American challenges--that we all must overcome together"), and he even worked in a strained reference to--wait for it:
[John Kerry] showed uncommon heroism on the battlefield in Vietnam. I watched him show that same courage on the Senate floor. He had the best record of protecting the environment against polluters of any of my colleagues--bar none.
It seems to us it takes a lot more courage to serve in combat in Vietnam, even if for only four months, than for a liberal Democrat from a liberal state to vote "against polluters." But we quibble.
As we noted yesterday, the Democrats are taking great pains to appear moderate. Gore has been up to his shoulders in the fever swamps, and the biggest test for Democratic discipline was whether they kept him on dry land. They certainly passed.
Gore gave thanks to his supporters from 2000 and then said: "There's someone else I'd like to thank, and that's the man who asked me to join him on the ticket at our convention 12 years ago, my friend--and my partner for eight years--President Bill Clinton."
This was Gore's biggest applause line. That must've stung.
Franchise
Player
Regular readers of this column may not be surprised to learn that we are not
an admirer of Bill Clinton's character and politics. But we can't help appreciating
a masterful performance, and Clinton certainly delivered one last night.
Clinton's speech was compellingly demagogic. Although the whole convention has kept Bush-bashing to a minimum, Clinton bashed Republicans with abandon:
Democrats and Republicans have very different and honestly held ideas on that choices we should make, rooted in fundamentally different views of how we should meet our common challenges at home and how we should play our role in the world.
Democrats want to build an America of shared responsibilities and shared opportunities and more global cooperation, acting alone only when we must. We think the role of government is to give people the tools and conditions to make the most of their lives.
Republicans believe in an America run by the right people, their people, in a world in which we act unilaterally when we can, and cooperate when we have to.
Clinton's cleverest rhetorical device was to cast himself, repeatedly, as an ungrateful beneficiary of President Bush's tax cuts:
When I was in office, the Republicans were pretty mean to me. When I left and made money, I became part of the most important group in the world to them. At first I thought I should send them a thank-you note--until I realized they were sending you the bill. . . .
On Homeland Security, Democrats tried to double the number of containers at ports and airports checked for weapons of mass destruction. . . . The White House and the Republican leadership in the House decided my tax cut was more important. . . .
If you think it's good policy to pay for my tax cut with the Social Security checks of working men and women, and borrowed money from China, vote for them. If not, John Kerry's your man.
Clinton employed similar faux self-deprecation in praising Kerry's Vietnam service while defusing the problem of his own lack of same:
During the Vietnam War, many young men--including the current president, the vice president and me--could have gone to Vietnam but didn't. John Kerry came from a privileged background and could have avoided it too. Instead he said, send me.
Then there was the sound bite of the evening:
Their opponents will tell you to be afraid of John Kerry and John Edwards, because they won't stand up to the terrorists. Don't you believe it. Strength and wisdom are not conflicting values.
That last line sounds almost profound, until you think about it and realize it's an obviosity. Did anyone ever say strength and wisdom are conflicting values? But when Clinton said they aren't, what his audience heard was: Kerry's tough, and he's not stupid like Bush. That Clinton can deliver a message like that and not seem to be Bush-bashing is testament to his awesome political talent.
The crowd loved it. Bill Clinton is the most legendary figure in the Democratic Party since John F. Kennedy, and there's no way to know if JFK would have cast such a shadow had he lived. This was a real event, and seeing it in person from the grandstand of the Fleet Center, with crowd noise so deafening it sometimes drowned out the ex-president's voice, was a real treat, like watching a great athlete perform (even if you're not rooting for the home team).
Why do Democrats love Bill Clinton so? Partly because he's so good at what he does, but mostly, as New York's junior senator said in introducing him, because "he showed Democrats how to win again."
"He showed Democrats how to win again." Is this true? Let's just say it's unproven. Of course, he was the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second term as president. But when he took office, the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Within two years, the party had lost both chambers. They made some gains in subsequent elections (in the House in 1996-2000 and the Senate in 2000), but not enough to make up for the 1994 losses.
Unlike Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton failed to get his vice president elected to succeed him. Clinton's supporters argue that Al Gore hurt himself by denying Clinton a central role in the campaign. Clinton's detractors contend that Gore's association with Clinton hurt him among voters disgusted by Clinton's immorality and scandal. Although these are competing explanations, they are not contradictory, and we'd say both are true. Both also provide evidence that Clinton's political talents are not transferable to other candidates.
Maybe some of the Clinton magic will rub off on John Kerry, and we'll be proved wrong come November. So far, though, the post-Clinton Democrats have looked like the Chicago Bulls without Michael Jordan.
Green T
Last night found us on the "T"--that's Bostonian for "subway"--heading
to our Back Bay hotel from the Fleet Center after a long day. A young man of
perhaps 20 was on the train collecting signatures to put Ralph Nader on the
Massachusetts ballot. He didn't have much success.
Two local Democrats--a 30ish African-American man sitting next to us and an older woman of pallor who was in the seat across--politely demurred, on the ground that in the last election, Nader took votes away from their candidate.
The Naderite argued with them, with an earnestness we found winning (though they found it unpersuasive). "This isn't saying you're going to vote for Nader," he explained patiently. "It's just about ballot access." They were unmoved.
Finally, we interrupted to offer a suggestion: "You should tell people that George W. Bush has no chance of winning in Massachusetts anyway, so it's unsporting of them to refuse to sign," we offered. "If it were Florida or Michigan, they'd have a point, but in this state, they may as well be magnanimous."
"Oh, we bring that up sometimes," he replied, "but it just plays into the corrupt two-party system."
To which we offered an unassailable rejoinder: "Dude, you want signatures, don't you?"
The Democrats laughed--and they had much to laugh about. For if our young canvasser is typical, this year's Nader campaign is too green to pose a threat to John Kerry.
(Carol Muller helps compile Best of the Web Today. We're mostly reporting rather than blogging this week, but if you have a tip or comment, you can still write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- Review & Outlook: Let's all see what Sandy Berger was trying to hide.
- John Fund: Democrats use computer hysteria to get out the vote.
- James Taranto: No Republican has won the White House without Ohio. So what?
- Scott Simon: There's more McCarthy than Murrow in the work of Michael Moore.
