February 12, 2008

Gore Won't Endorse This Time

For better or worse, Al Gore will not endorse anyone in the Democratic primary race. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama hoped to cash in on Gore's cachet, but the former Vice President and erstwhile presidential candidate has decided to stay above the fray:

He's the most prominent Democrat yet to take a side in the presidential election, but two sources close to Al Gore tell us not to expect the former vice president to endorse either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama any time during the primary season.

The sources say Gore talks with both Clinton and Obama, and is on good terms with both. But with Sen. John Kerry and Bill Clinton both aligned to a candidate, Gore has a role to serve as the neutral elder statesman in the party.

This makes sense. As a party leader, he has to stay neutral if he wants to facilitate the transition after the nomination is decided. A former VP would rarely endorse any particular candidate in a primary, especially in a competitive one like 2008.

Oh, wait. Isn't this the same guy who stuck a knife in the back of his former running mate Joe Lieberman to endorse Howard Dean in 2004, just before the Dean flame-out in Iowa? And now he has an opportunity to help out his other former running mate by endorsing the Clinton Restoration, but takes a pass?

Loyalty, thy name is not Gore.

CNN reports that Gore wants to position himself to broker a peace agreement between Hillary and Obama when the time comes in Denver. Funny, I thought that job would fall to the man Gore last endorsed, Howard Dean, who now chairs the DNC. Dean may now feel a little bit of what Lieberman felt when Gore didn't even bother to warn him that he was going to endorse the putative frontrunner.

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