I am in Washington attending the annual meeting of the AAMC (American Association of Medcial Colleges). As some of you know I am the CIO at a medical university in Tampa. The audience is filled of course with well-to-do white malle doctors, so perhaps you might be correct if you thought it would tend to be a conservative, republican-leaning audience.

Today, the last day of the event had a couple of speechs by Fred Barnes (McLaughling Group, Fox News) and Mark Shields (MacNeil-Lehrer, Meet the Press, etc). Both were erudite and professional, and in addition Shields was funny as hell. He ended his speech with "The good news for the Republicans is that if they do just three key things they can win the 2008 election. The bad news is that have no idea as to what any of the three things are..."

Anyway, Sheileds mentioned Gore several times, comparing him to both Eisenhower (calm leader in times of chaos and an outsider) to Nixon (losing VP comes back to win two elections etc etc.

The audience had an opportunity for questions, and I got up to ask Shields "Is it too late for an Al Gore run or draft, and if he got in how would he do?? when a doctor jumped up ahead of me and asked "You mentioned no role for Al Gore in the election, will he run and if so how would he do?" (bastarge stole MY question...hehehe)

Shields said he thought in his personal opinion, and after consulting with ONE member of Gore's inner circle that Gore would like to be president but did want to go through the campaign again. Sheilds said that eveyr candidate he knew said a presidential loss was the defining moment in every candidates life...except for Gore, whom he said is the "single most important, historic political figure of our time, a visionary who was right on the issues ahead of the public. He indicated that Gore could become the front runner or second place candiate within a day of announcing. He was extremely complimentary to Gore throughout, over and over saying he was the best of the best...

Barnes immediately went on the attack, rehashing the "9 errors" in An Inconvenient Truth" and that Gore did not deserve the Nobel and that the IPCC disagreed with him, that New York was not going undewater etc etc. The same ol' silly arse stuff.

What impressed me the most was the palpable fear of Gore, the incredible eagerness to dump on him...it was visceral.

Both pundits agree that the Republicans WANT to run against Hillary.

Finally Shields said that he thinks Gore could get in after Iowa if and only if Edwards or Obama wins. He also said he persoanlly did not think it would happen, but that Gore would have "a huge role" in the 2008 campaign .

I liked Shields before this, now think even more highly of him, seeing him up close. (I was second row, maybe 10 ft away) I almost want HIM to run.

MY bias makes me think Barnes a pompous rote-response conservative moron. Happily he did not challenge my pre-existing perception of him

I would have laughed out loud if I was there, especially if I was close like you were. I might have even done the old "Animal House" cough like Belushi...

"bullshit" "bullshit" "bullshit" "bullshit"

Nice comments by Shields, although I don't see how he thinks Gore could enter after Iowa -- that's way after the filing deadlines for big states like California, New York, and Texas. Won't happen unless Gore changes his mind by the end of this month.