This, from Mona Charon on NRO’s The Corner, is a good thing:

I was just on the John Batchelor radio program. He says that Chuck Todd, NBC News political director, has heard from Hillary’s people that she would accept the number two spot on the ticket.

I don’t mean it’s a good thing in that it will be easier for Republicans to win the race or that I want an Obama/Clinton tag-teaming in the White House. The very thought makes me shudder.

I mean it’s good for two very specific reasons, both having to do with Democratic eyes slowly turning to Al Gore to ride in and save the day. The first voice came a few weeks ago and cried for Gore to come in and impose Gorian discipline on the two wayward Democrats who had mucked up the Democrat’s shots at re-taking the presidency. For some reason, Charles Hurt at the New York Post, only an older, white, male, politically connected DC insider can save the Democrats from the first black man and the first woman to ever climb so high in a US presidential campaign.

I wonder how women for Hillary and America’s black communities might feel about that?

IF AL GORE can pull himself away from saving the planet long enough, he might want to consider rescuing the Demo cratic Party from the clutches of utter self-destruction.

Campaigning against an unpopular war in Iraq, a sputtering economy and a disappearing dollar, Democrats cannot lose in November.
But wait! They’re Democrats!

“The only reason we ever lose is when we beat ourselves,” one nervous Democrat grumbled yesterday as the primary dogfight dragged on.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has made it clear she won’t quit and no one expects Barack Obama to exit - and so on to the Denver party convention they go, viciously attacking one another all the way.

I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if Gore descended from the heavens--beatific smile on his face, arms spread wide, radiantly wise and good--to save the party from Obama and Clinton. I’m sure that Obama’s supporters would immediately turn toward the fatherly figure of Gore and his melanin deficit and think, “Yes. Yes he can.”

I’m just as certain that all the Clinton supporters who have continued to swim upstream against the steady flow of her wholly irritating voice (seriously, is there a more unpleasant speaking voice running for office anywhere?) will collapse in weariness and float gratefully into the waiting arms of Gore the Magnificent, praying thanks for his big masculine arms and soothing voice.

And now there is rising noise about Gore being the guy who can not only bring clarity by acting as the patriarch of the clan and disciplining the other candidates (in some nebulous way that I still don’t quite understand), but about Gore taking over the top slot and taking one or the other candidate along with him.

With the prospects of a divisive and potentially chaotic Convention looming, some Democrats are starting to think - and talk — about other options. Pushing Obama aside in favor of Hillary would cause serious problems among the African-American base that the Democrats rely upon. But despite Obama’s rhetorical skills, many Democrats remain concerned that his lack of credentials and experience make him vulnerable to McCain. If neither candidate can lock up the delegates to claim the nomination by the time the Democrats gather in late August, some party leaders are thinking privately that Al Gore might be the only one who could bring the party back together and carry it to victory in November.

Or maybe it will really piss off black communities to think that they somehow need to be “rescued” from their candidate--and the offer of second place will taste pretty bitter to people who are pretty sure that there guy can actually win the election. The way some women have been treated (Oprah, I’m looking at you) for daring to choose skin color or politics over gender leads me to believe that there won’t be universal celebrations at the return of the old white male candidate. And their anger would be well-placed.

While I do think that Hillary should bow out--which we can discuss later if anyone is up for it--I also think that these two have fought through the debates and all the votes. They’ve made their stands on issues clear (well, as clear as a Clinton and a NAFTA-straddling Obama can ever be) and they’ve earned their support. It would be an insult to their supporters for their party to shove another name into the mix and say, essentially, forget your candidate and support this guy. For Gore to, essentially, be rewarded for sitting on the sidelines doesn’t seem like a winning strategy to me.

But it isn’t my party and my biggest complaint is that candidate Gore seems weaker than an Obama-Hillary ticket.

Sure, with Obama-Hillary, there are people who will refuse to vote either for a black candidate or a female candidate, but those would be balanced by the votes purely for the black or female candidate. Hillary’s biggest negative is that while there is a passionate block of voters for her, there is an even stronger and equally passionate set of voters who would never vote for her regardless of circumstance. Those voters who wouldn’t vote Hillary for president might well vote this ticket assuming that the young, healthy Obama would be more than enough to ensure that Hillary won’t ascend to the presidency. Given that their politics aren’t far from each other--with Obama arguably being a little further to the left on many issues--it would really reinforce the liberal, populist messages of their individual campaigns.

In the “marketplace of ideas,” I don’t want my candidate running against the weakest of their camp. Even though McCain is hardly my first choice--nor is he the strongest conservative choice--he is demonstrably to the right of both Hillary and Obama on the issues that are the most important to me. Pitting his ideas against theirs and seeing who communicates the best and convinces the American public of the validity of their ideas is important right now.

One of the big questions is with a foundering economy, will our future be ruled by people who believe in higher taxes, less free markets, more government controls, and larger entitlement programs? Or can we take some tentative steps back toward the fiscal responsibility of free markets, reasonable tax rates, and cutting back on government expenses? McCain is hardly the ideal candidate to carry this standard, but the contrast with Obama and Hillary is stark.

Candidate Gore would be a joke--and, Democrats, don’t think we won’t be breaking out the fat-Elvis and Unabomber-bearded year in the wilderness pictures to solidify the image. Make no mistake: for better or worse, the anti-Gore campaign would be brutal, personal, and utterly effective. He would be treated as a joke and he would lose by a far wider margin this time out, essentially destroying not only his presidential hopes, but much of his political influence. The McCain campaign would likely be civilized, but the commentariat drives a good chunk of the conversation these days and the YouTube videos would be hilarious.

If the goal of the election is to entertain me, piss off all the workers who have stayed by candidates Obama and Clinton, and take much of the substance out of the debate, then by all means bring back Gore. If the idea is to debate ideas and visions of America’s future, then, please, leave Gore at home.