RantWorld

Gore's Endorsement Motivations

The timing of Gore's planned endorsement of Howard Dean (to be announced this evening) is impeccable.

I read about the endorsement just minutes after my last post about the need for Democrats to rally behind Dean as soon as possible for the best chance to beat Bush in 2004.

By all accounts we were about to head into a bitter and divisive primary season. The rest of the field would throw increasingly desperate invective at Dean to try to knock him down a few notches. Most likely Dean would survive, but the bitterness would linger and the writers of Republican attack ads would be granted a legion of new anti-Dean sound bites.

Gore's timing is so good because his endorsement now could shut down the Democrat-on-Democrat death match before it even starts.

Dean a Shoo-In Already?

I've believed for a while that barring some really successful Republican dirty tricks, or a "scorched earth" strategy by another sour-grapes candidate, Dean is practically a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination.

A recent post from Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is too good on this count to ignore:

Lazy Congressmen Want to be President

I was researching the environmental record of some of the Democratic candidates today and I came across a sad trend.

Four of the Democratic Presidential candidates who are currently Congressmen are avoiding nearly every environment-related vote in Congress. In at least one case this led directly to failure for a pro-environment measure.