Heed Mondale, Al Gore, don't run

THE stunning political mandate President Bush won on Tuesday sends former Vice President Al Gore a timely message: Do the Democratic Party a favor by declining to run against Bush again in two years.

The president's congressional triumph does not mean he will automatically be re-elected in 2004. Much can happen between now and then. But it means that the past is no longer the present for the Democrats. They need a new message and new candidates if they are to overcome the president's financial and psychological advantages.

Gore has been virtually missing in political action since he was beaten by Bush. He made a major speech urging Bush to get United Nations backing for any invasion of Iraq, but on a wide array of domestic issues he has been silent.

A book promotion tour by Gore and his wife Tipper later this fall is unlikely to do much to energize demoralized Democrats. The Gores' topic is family values -- while the country is focused on the economy and possible war.

This week voters rejected two famous Democratic names -- a second-generation Kennedy, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, running for governor of Maryland, and former Vice President Walter Mondale, running for the Senate seat of the late Paul Wellstone in Minnesota.

The Mondale defeat was particularly poignant. I had felt that the stature and experience of an elderly statesman would outweigh the youthful vigor of his GOP opponent. Alas, that reasoning was fatally flawed.

It was a case of "what have you done for me lately?" And Mondale,74, had been away from public service for too long. The Democrats, up against the president's 67 well-publicized campaign stops raising money and touting GOP candidates, simply couldn't compete on a nationwide basis. They lacked star power, and their themes lacked substance.

Former President Bill Clinton campaigned extensively for selected Democrats, but he is still controversial and not welcome everywhere. Party elders can't decide if he helps more than he hurts.

Gore campaigned for 16 Democratic candidates, a modest effort for a party's titular leader. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who has presidential ambitions, campaigned for 29 candidates. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina stumped for 16. Connecticut's Joe Lieberman, Gore's 2000 running mate who also lusts after the White House, vastly outdid both Gore and Kerry with 64 campaign appearances across the country. Senator Lieberman has promised not to run if Gore does. Gore says he will decide by the end of the year.

House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt and Senate Democratic Tom Daschle also campaigned valiantly for colleagues, seeking to increase their party's numbers in the House and Senate. They both failed to block the Bush juggernaut although South Dakotan Daschle managed to rescue his home state's endangered Democratic senator Tim Johnson.

This record does not bode well for victory in a 2004 contest against a popular GOP president. Both Gephardt and Daschle had been mulling the possibility of a run for the White House. Gephardt promptly announced he would step down from his House leadership post and left open the possibility that he might yet run for president. However, prudence now dictates that they sit out that competition.

The Democratic campaign strategy this year was to downplay the party's differences with Bush on terrorism and a possible war with Iraq. And the Democrats avoided any hint that the president's big 2001 tax cuts should be reversed or delayed even though most of them are appalled that the cuts heavily benefit the rich. The failure to confront Bush directly left the party without a clear vision that could arouse local partisans.

The final New York Times/CBS News poll of the campaign showed that barely a third of respondents felt the Democrats had presented "a clear plan for the country." Party loyalists contend they did have a good message but couldn't get it out past all the static over war, terrorism, snipers and negative advertisements.

But it was the Democrats' own fault that they provided only mushy alternatives and let the president pre-empt the national stage with an unchallenged agenda.

Many of the congressional races were won by a whisker, demonstrating that the country is still basically as evenly divided ideologically as it was two years ago when Gore won the popular vote but lost the crucial Florida ballot count.

Ambivalent about making a second run for the White House, Gore has showed recently that his commitment to national politics is spotty at best. If he does intend to seek a replay against Bush, he will not get the Democratic presidential nomination without a fight.

The party would do well to field a fresh face. There are several attractive hopefuls who have yet to be nationally tested but are eager to try, Kerry and Edwards among them. The old familiar names don't have what it takes any more, although there's always someone who doesn't get it. Former Sen. Gary Hart, 65, who lost the nomination to Mondale in 1984 and blew a subsequent campaign in 1992 over a sex scandal, suggested he might offer his name again. What nerve.

It's time, as Mondale wisely observed in a gracious concession speech, for the Democrats to move on.

"A book promotion tour by Gore and his wife Tipper later this fall is unlikely to do much to energize demoralized Democrats. The Gores' topic is family values -- while the country is focused on the economy and possible war.

Family Values?!?! Like the family values of calling a married man who has oral sex and plays hide the cigar in the oval office while his wife and teenage child are in the same building, the best president the country has ever had?

The family values of trying to keep blacks locked into economic depression where being a father-less child is the norm instead of the exception? Those family values Gore?!?!

The family values of pushing the murder of infants as the most important issue to the democrat party? Save me from Al Gore's and the dems family values.

I think the demos should listen to Mondale. After all, isn't he the political dynamo who is now the only person in history to lose statewide elections in all 50 states? He lost 49 to Reagan in 1984, carrying his own state of Minnesota by a whopping 3,500 votes. Now he lost to Norm Coleman, making it 50. Such a distinquished and wise political counsel...not.

I heard someone mention on Foxnews earlier the possibility of Al Gore running for President in 2004 with Hitlery as his running mate!
That means she would have to step down from her Senator position to even run.

Never happen. She won't run until she thinks she has a sure thing -- in 2008. And if she loses in 2008, she'll still have her Senate seat.

Gore - McCain 2004 I wish all Dems could share the ticket. Would be like "running the table" in a pool game. I love politics!!! And it was especially fun when we rocked the house last Tuesday!

Shame on you! Don't insult the man if you want him to run. Praise and encouragement will win the day, just as good thoughts will cure the world's ills. You must be a young'un.

All hale Al! Hail Al! Sieg heil Al!

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