For former nominee, an unanswered question
WASHINGTON -- The last time Al Gore stood before a Democratic National Convention, he embraced his wife, Tipper, in a seemingly endless kiss of joy after claiming his party's presidential nomination.
When Gore takes the podium at the Democratic National Convention next week, there will be no joy in the FleetCenter. Like an invitation to a wedding that got canceled or a ticket for a flight that never took off, Gore is destined forever to represent unfulfilled hopes and bitter disappointments.
Still, one of the lingering questions to be answered next week is how Gore will be received by his party's delegates -- with gratitude for once giving them hope, or resentment over their dashed expectations.
There is no justice in politics. Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and both Presidents Bush already have plans for state funerals in the works, while Gore makes former supporters sad just to see him.
A few years ago, it seemed possible that Gore, who beat George W. Bush by a larger popular-vote margin than that of John F. Kennedy over Richard Nixon, would continue as leader of the Democrats, a shadow president awaiting renomination and a chance to retake the place he felt he had earned back in 2000.
But while Gore may have scaled this Everest once, Democrats weren't going to let him stay at the summit: He would have to go back down, grab a new oxygen tank, and start climbing all over again.
Gore almost did just that. But in the spring of 2003, shortly after appearing on "The Tonight Show" to try out some self-deprecating jokes and ending up debating host Jay Leno over whether the United States had to attack Saddam Hussein, Gore pulled out of the 2004 race.
At the time, Bush was riding high and Democrats were looking for a new direction. As it turned out, the new direction -- staunch opposition to Bush's Iraq policy and a populist attack on Republican tax cuts -- ended up looking a lot like Gore's old direction.
Gore played a role in preserving that direction by making blistering attacks on the Bush administration long before any candidate except insurgent Howard Dean felt comfortable doing so. Gore essentially invited Republican spite to send a signal to his fellow Democrats.
Still, it's not clear that they feel any gratitude.
Amid all the hoopla over John Kerry's choice of John Edwards, the populist North Carolina senator, for the vice-presidential nomination, party leaders invoked Gore as a cautionary tale -- the ghost of populism past. Overall, there seem to be more Democrats discussing Gore's mistakes than bemoaning the fact that he got edged out of the presidency.
Such disrespect for a retired leader is consistent with past practice among Democrats, where former standardbearers are dispatched like old Chevys being sent to the auto graveyard.
Failed Democratic presidential candidates are often invoked as cautionary tales and figures of derision. Former nominees Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, and George McGovern might as well be Moe, Larry, and Curley in the eyes of Democratic strategists, who are always yearning for a new product to push.
But consider the contrast with rival Republicans. Former senator Bob Dole lost the presidency by a larger margin than Dukakis and is revered as an elder statesman. Landslide loser Barry Goldwater is hailed as the father of modern conservatism, a necessary progenitor of Ronald Reagan.
A certain amount of consistency and solidarity is built into the Republican ideology: Past leaders are seen as pieces of a bulwark against government activism spanning the decades. Defeats tend to get chalked up to an admirable fidelity to principle: Dole and Goldwater stood up for what they believed, while voters got bamboozled by the more politically dextrous Bill Clinton and Lyndon Johnson.
The Democratic ideology is built around causes that excite the imagination of the faithful like castles in the clouds. The party's presidential nominee, often a new face, is merely the latest vessel for hopes and dreams that will long outlive them. And like most vessels, they get scrapped when no longer of use.
Gore is surely aware of this. He is also cognizant of his unusual position in history -- one of only two people to win the most votes in a presidential election and not become president. Indeed, the stress of not being president seems to be showing in his thickening body -- and, Republicans would contend, his surprisingly contentious public statements.
Gore's convention speech next Monday just before Jimmy Carter's is likely to be far more argumentative even than the populist people-against-the-powerful speech he gave four years ago. Gore isn't going gently into the darkness that surrounds most former Democratic presidential nominees. His fury at the Bush administration, juiced by his regrets, is an alarm bell that keeps ringing.
Democrats seem to have awoken to Gore's cry, even if some of them are now ready to turn off the buzzer.
Peter S. Canellos is the Globe's Washington bureau chief. National Perspective is his weekly analysis of events in the capital and beyond.
