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Al Gore 2004: In the Shadow of History
By Mike Bayham
September 19, 2002

Once upon a time there was a Democrat from Tennessee who sought the presidency, which was about to be vacated by the retirement of a popular two term president with an ambiguous legacy. Three other candidates joined this man in the race with his principal challenger being the son of a former President from New England. Even though the other two candidates ran at the back of the pack, their presence in the election would have a considerable impact on its result.

In any case, the Tennessee candidate ran first in the popular vote but a controversy had arisen that had thrown the decision to one of the branches of the national government. The election of the new president would not be settled on election day but would be dragged on for weeks while the public and the government were uncertain on who the new president would be. Despite having received a plurality of the vote, the Tennessee candidate was denied ascension to the presidency. His partisans howled that a dirty deal was struck by members of the group that secured the presidency for his main opponent. In disgust, the defeated candidate ended his long tenure in political office though he vowed to make another run for the position he felt he was unfairly prevented from attaining in the election.

Four years later the favorite son of the Volunteer State challenged the incumbent president and defeated him, making the previous victor a one termer just as his father had been when he occupied the White House.

If you think I am referring to the election of 2000 and the possible future election of 2004, then you are incorrect. The presidential contest I am talking about was played out in the 1824 race when Andrew Jackson first ran for the presidency and was eventually defeated in an election decided by the Congress in favor of John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts. In the next election, Jackson went on to beat his opponent from 1824 by a decisive majority.

Obviously the 1824 race and the 2000 campaign have many general parallels for the story at the beginning of this column can be applied to either election. That the Tennessee Democrat came back in the next election and defeated the incumbent is a piece of history that Al Gore hopes to see repeated in the 2004 election and could be a reason why the former Vice-president has reportedly told aides this week that he has decided to challenge Bush in the next election.

Gore is slowly reemerging in the national political scene which can be inferred as an indication that he intends to make a third bid for the White House in 2004. Gore has also stepped up his criticisms of Bush and has mocked his handling of the economy and the fiscal situation in the Beltway at various Democratic campaign events.

But before the former Vice-President has his "Gore in Four" bumper stickers printed, he should take into consideration the counsel of a rather astute political historian named William Jefferson Clinton.

Prior to the 2000 primaries, Bill Clinton assessed Gore's political position in an interview that did not make the Vice-president and his campaign very pleased. Clinton, who even his most hardened critics must admit is one of the most educated presidents, stated his honest belief that Gore was in the same position as the person who was vice-president in 1960. That politician was none other than Richard M. Nixon. Of course, Nixon went on to lose that race and Gore did not take the comparison between him and the nefarious Nixon, whose defeat happened under equally controversial circumstances.

However, Clinton was correct in his analysis since the scenario in 2000 where a sitting vice-president under a well liked president was being opposed by someone from the opposite party originally from the northeast (unbeknownst to most people, the last president from Texas was born in New Haven, Connecticut). History has not been terribly kind to sitting vice-presidents that have presidential ambitions with George H. W. Bush being the only vice-president that was directly elected to the presidency from his office since Martin Van Buren.

Ironically, Old Kinderhook and "Poppy" Bush would share the same fate come reelection time. In almost all of the instances when the vice-president was elevated, it was because history was even less kind to the incumbent president who had died in office.

Even in defeat, the Clinton spin on Gore's candidacy is still valid. Nixon, having lost another election only two years later in his bid for governor of California, shrewdly decided to sit out the 1964 election, when his party was engaged in a schismatic civil war, and walked into the 1968 election as the front-runner and eventual winner.

Instead of "lowering" himself to employing Nixon's patient strategy, Gore has apparently decided, possibly based on delusions of grandeur, that he is capable of following in the footsteps of Andrew Jackson, who unlike Gore, actually carried his home state in his failed run for president and was a genuine war hero.

The former vice-president can compare himself to the seventh president all he wants, but as a person who has studied the hero of the Battle of New Orleans (Chalmette), I can state with a strong degree of confidence that Al Gore is no Andy Jackson. However if Gore runs and loses in 2004, he can take solace in joining the ranks of two time losers Tom Dewey and Adlai Stevenson.