www.time.com

An Early Eye On 2008
By VIVECA NOVAK

Monday, Jan. 31, 2005


The good news for John Kerry is that he didn't pull an Al Gore. Instead of moping around after the election, putting on weight and growing a beard, the 2004 Democratic nominee is back attacking Bush's health-care plan, skewering his nominee for Secretary of State during confirmation hearings, and booking a comeback interview on Meet the Press. The bad news for Kerry, if he wants to try again in '08, is that there's a boatful of other Democrats already testing the waters with the party's top fund raisers.

Among the earliest to start dialing around: Wesley Clark, who entered the '04 race just a few months before the first primary but quickly stumbled with a flip-flop on how he would have voted on Congress's Iraq-war resolution. Now he is telling potential supporters, according to one he called, that he "learned from his mistakes, he knows it takes more time and preparation than he put in--and that his wife is fully on board," which wasn't true the first go-round.

Other Dems seriously considering a run are Delaware Senator Joe Biden, who almost entered the race in '04, and Virginia Governor Mark Warner, who is trying to elevate his national profile as he debates a presidential bid. New Mexico's Bill Richardson is seizing every hobnobbing opportunity as head of the Democratic Governors' Association and is "definitely thinking about it," says a source close to him. Indiana Senator Evan Bayh is lining up a finance team and arguing that he can win in some red states.

Recent Veep contender John Edwards has been on the phone to thank supporters and say he will be back, but "he didn't impress anyone" with his work on the trail last year, a moneyman says, and may be a tough sell. And then there's Hillary Clinton, who remains publicly focused on getting re-elected to the Senate in 2006. Many insiders take it as a given that she will be in the '08 lineup and will be the name-recognition champ to beat. Yet, says a top Democratic fund raiser in New York, "there's a real unease" about her ability to win a national race. Which is what these other wannabes are banking on. --By Viveca Novak

From the Feb. 07, 2005 issue of TIME magazine

They neglect to point out the fact that, unlike Kerry, who truly lost the election, Al Gore won the election of 2000, unarguably in the popular vote, and almost certainly in the electoral vote as well. That might give any person cause to become withdrawn and gain weight. Gore handled what happened with extreme dignity and grace, and I think it's disgusting that a magazine of the stature of Time would print such garbage.

Let's have at 'em, guys! Charge!

Cheap shots. And hey, I kinda liked the beard...

I LOVED the beard . . . But I guess it's not "presidential" or something. Not these days, anyway. :rolleyes:

Did someone say bearded Gore?

PRESIDENT AL GORE is my president with or without the beard and by the way I always thought he looked great with the beard as without.

As for "TIME" I wouldn't waste mine reading that trash, I would even use it for my bantam cages. :angry:

Time isn't trash, AGIML. You've got to read some of the mainstream media or where would you be? They actually tend to be fairly middle of the road, and often come down against Bush. If you only read left-wing stuff, you'll be really out of touch, especially because they're guilty of slanting things, too.

It seems everytime AL GORE is mentioned in "TIME" or there is an article about him they are trashing him about something. I have every "TIME" article from the 2000 election before and after and the one from November 2002 and they didn't really seem PRO-GORE to me.

I have also read plenty of PRO-Bush junk in "TIME." :bad:

Actually, in the run-up to election 2000, I was reading both Time and Newsweek because I get Time at home and I was in physical therapy then and they had Newsweek there, so I was reading that, too. Newsweek was overwhelmingly pro-Bush throughout the whole fiasco, including the letters to the editor (which says something about their readership). Time, on the other hand, was quite pro-Gore during that, and the letters ran overwhelmingly in favor of Gore and against Bush. But you're right about more recent issues. They do seem to go in for the cheap shots like the one I posted at the top.

While what they said about Al is almost sophmoric, If there is one good thing about this article, it is that they got John Edwards real bad in a real political sense, which is a good thing. They are 100 percent accurate there. "He didn't impress anyone", they said about Edwards.
That is the important part to take from time magazine.The quicker he is forgotten, the easier the run for Al Gore will be. There

Time magazine's new issue will feature a look ahead at the Democratic front runners for 2008. You can find the article here:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...moid=rss_nation

Unfortunately, it makes no mention of Al, except for this snide bit in the opening paragraph:

"The good news for John Kerry is that he didn't pull an Al Gore. Instead of moping around after the election, putting on weight and growing a beard, the 2004 Democratic nominee is back attacking Bush's health-care plan, skewering his nominee for Secretary of State during confirmation hearings, and booking a comeback interview on Meet the Press."

I sent them an e-mail "Letter to the editior" to tell them that I think they are making a grave mistake by not including him. If anyone else would like to do the same, use this address:

letters@time.com

Who knows? Maybe they'll chose one of our letters to print in an upcoming issue. They notifiy you in advance if your letter will appear.