RochesterConservative.com

By Seth Swirsky

When you really think about the crop of Democratic candidates for president, it’s clear that their best hope to win in 2008, is not even on the playing field. That current, non-candidate is Al Gore. He’s the only one who can match the experience, accomplishments and gravitas of Rudy Giuliani and yet, the left ignores him.

Do Democrats think that nostalgia for the Clinton years will propel Hillary to the presidency? More likely, when voters remember the scandal-plagued, triangulating double-talk of both Clintons, they will be less likely to want to return to those years.

Barack Obama? In a world that has become more difficult to navigate, does the left think that a not-even-one term senator is the right person for the job? Against a person with Giuliani’s credentials, it wouldn’t even be close.

John Edwards? The one-term senator known more for the price of his haircuts, couldn’t even carry his home state of North Carolina as the Vice Presidential nominee in 2004. But, somehow, in ’08, he’s going to beat Giuliani? I don’t think so.

And then, there’s Al Gore.

He served in the House of Representatives for eight years, followed by eight years as a U.S. senator, followed by eight years as Vice President of the United States. In 2000, as the Democratic nominee for president, he won the popular vote by a plurality. Oh yeah, in 2007, he also won an Academy Award and the Nobel Peace Prize.

Seems to me, his resume is more formidable than the top three current democratic candidates combined.

But the Democrats wouldn’t know gravitas if it hit them over the head, so infatuated are they with the style of their candidates over their substance. How many times have we heard Barack Obama referred to as a “rock star”? Or about the “star power” Bill would offer on the campaign trail if Hillary is the nominee?

The American people won’t be considering “star power” when Rudy Giuliani asks either Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama what they were doing when he de-fanged the Mafia and cleaned up New York City during his years as a U.S. Attorney and two-term Mayor. Their answers would make the choice in 2008 easy: Mrs. Clinton was a First Lady (of the state of Arkansas, then the United States, with only the defeat of healthcare to her name) while Barack Obama was, self-admittedly, doing too many drugs.

And then, there’s Al Gore. His impressive accomplishments, at the very least, blunt the Mayor’s obvious achievements.

Since Bill Clinton damaged the Democrat Party with his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky almost a decade ago, there have been precious few, if any, Democratic candidates for voters to look up to and admire. Do Democrats hold their heads high when they think of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and how the Democratic Party is now thought of as the party of surrender?

Are Democrats proud of statements by John Kerry to the effect that American soldiers were somehow stupid or else they wouldn’t have ended up in Iraq? Are they proud of leaders like Dick Durbin, who compared our troops to Nazi’s or of Nancy Pelosi for choosing to meet with the Syrian leader while he was sending his troops into Iraq to kill ours?

And then, there’s Al Gore. He’s someone all Democrats already take pride in for a variety of reasons.

Whether you agree with his Global Warming stance or not (I don’t), or whether you think he should be wearing earth tones or not, Al Gore is by very far the most substantial candidate the left has and yet it continues to ignore him.

As a conservative, I’m glad.