Mark Halperin insisted Thursday that he wasn’t just stirring the pot when he injected the notion of an Al Gore 2016 presidential bid into the political conversation.
The Beltway pundit had sent out a stream of tweets Wednesday listing Gore’s strengths as a Democratic candidate. Appearing on “Morning Joe,” Halperin argued that Gore is a clear alternative to Hillary Clinton, the presumed frontrunner in the race despite not having made up her mind about a presidential run, who Halperin said has shown herself to be vulnerable during her recent book tour.
That prompted “Morning Joe” co-host Willie Geist to ask “Are you just stirring the pot or is this based on some reporting you have?”
“I’m not saying he’s going to do it,” Halperin responded. “I’m just saying if he did, he brings enormous strengths within the Democratic Party to capture the anybody-but-Hillary support if she continues to be dinged.”
“He has won the Iowa caucuses,” he added. “She hasn’t.”
The rest of the “Morning Joe” crew then spent several minutes pressing Halperin to reveal whether he had any conversations with people close to Gore that informed his tweets.
“Is the catalyst for those conversations from someone in the Gore side of things saying ‘Oh, yeah he’s interested,’ or the catalyst being that you were just looking for somebody to be a nemesis to Hillary Clinton?” Thomas Roberts asked.
“People besides me who know Gore better than I do say that there is a vacuum right now and that she is extraordinarily vulnerable,” Halperin said. “But she is not vulnerable to Bernie Sanders, she’s not vulnerable to Howard Dean, I don’t think. She’s vulnerable to somebody who’s got what Gore has. Again, he’s won Iowa, he’s won the national popular vote, and he has a history with [the Clintons] that could animate a run.”
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Halperin needs to do this to stay in the news. Dim mild-mannered Republican journalists don’t make it on charisma or insight.
You are being far too generous in calling him a journalist.
The take away from this little exchange is…Halperin has done zero reporting on this theory of his. That is why he continued to misdirect every time he was asked if this was based on some reporting he has. Because its not. Its so much easier to just make stuff up than it is to actually research something.
The fact that such a pathetically self-serving hack could maintain his position of inside-the-Beltway influence is one of the signs of the living death of American journalism. It totters on, zombie-like, shedding bits of rotting flesh with each shambling step.
The notion that a guy who has been completely absent from American electoral politics for fourteen years by his own choice has any chance of entering the race at the age of 66 is a ridiculous turd that Halperin pulled out of his own ass.
He’s also dead serious about keeping the spotlight on himself. Without attention, Mark Halperin will start to physically fade away, like Marty McFly at the end of Back to the Future.
I hear that Joe Lieberman isn’t really busy these days, so how about a Gore/Lieberman ticket? Just think what that would bring to the table! They’d save a fortune on bumper stickers, alone.