More Gore. The email is pouring in! I have, in fact, been able to locate some Gore haters. A larger number of emails, however, are strongly pro-Gore. An even larger, however, tell a narrative of intense disappointment at Gore’s performance during the 2000 election campaign and, especially, bitterness about his failure to more vigorously contest the results in Florida followed by a period of re-enamorment over the past several years. I think I would put myself into this latter camp, so combining personal sentiments with anecdotal evidence, I conclude that Gore would have no serious bitterness-and-anger problem would he choose to run. Rather, the challenges a Gore campaign would face are about what one would expect — he’s not a great public speaker, the press seems to hate him, and it’s not clear how much money he could raise.
I’ve been a bit surprised, however, to see how prominent a role complaints about the Parents Music Resource Center have played in statements by anti-Gore people. I’ve expended many pixels over the past couple of years defending indecency and so forth, so that business definitely annoys me. I can’t say, however, that I find it especially significant. The censorious impulse lamentable but not, fundamentally, of the same order of importance as questions like war, health care, global warming, etc. I also don’t think we’re going to see a non-busybody candidate in this regard emerge, since one of the things Hillary Clinton’s been up to recently is pushing for regulation of video games and so forth.
Late Update: See further remarks from Reed Hundt and Todd Gitlin.
