An Interesting Proposal

Over at Consortiumnews.com, guest essayist Brent Budowsky has an interesting proposal for the 2008 Democratic ticket. He suggests a unity ticket featuring Al Gore in the top spot with Anthony Zinni running as the veep.

Budowsky reasons that Gore could rally the Democratic base while Zinni could give the ticket the Middle East bona fides that would lure Independents fed up with republican policy in that region.

This is indeed an interesting approach, I must say. With Gore's work on global warming since the 2000 election, he should be able to stave off any challenge from the left in the primary, and keep the left from splitting off in the general, where roughly 100,000 of their votes for Ralph Nader in Florida cost him the election in 2000, although I think Florida will be a continually harder prize for Democrats to win unless seniors get seriously fed up with republicans, but that's another story.

Gore and Zinni also both took the smart position on Iraq before things went to shit, as well. From Consortiumnews.com:

On Oct. 10, 2002, responding to those eager for war, Zinni said, “I’m not sure which planet they live on, because it isn't the one that I travel in.” Warning that President Bush and Vice-President Cheney were underestimating the difficulty of establishing a new government in Iraq after an invasion, he said, “God help us, if we think this transition will occur easily.”

Gore was equally prescient, warning in a speech on Sept. 23, 2002, “that the course of action that we are presently embarking upon with respect to Iraq has the potential to seriously damage our ability to win the war against terrorism and to weaken our ability to lead the world in this new century.”

The war in Iraq isn't likely to make any new friends in the next couple of years, so these positions should sell pretty well to independents.

But I think that the one thing that intrigues me the most about this possibility is that somebody is finally talking about winning with Democratic ideas rather than trying to find a way to fracture the republican coalition. It's not wedge politics, in fact, it's the opposite. This ticket has the opportunity to run as a reform, tough on defense, smart global policy ticket. That appeals quite a bit to me.

Anyway, go read the whole thing here.