Why Are Gore and Kerry Polling Worse Than Bush?

By Jan Frel, AlterNet. Posted May 19, 2006.

Be pragmatic. Take a good, long look at reality, and recognize that even though there isn't a Democrat in Washington who will admit that our political system is profoundly sick and obsolete, in the real world, the Democratic Party is currently all we have. So support it anyway.

That's what I've been telling myself, but boy can it be hard to swallow. Take, for example, the sea of problems Hillary Clinton poses to any political idealist. Hillary Clinton may represent many awful things -- Iraq, corporatism, insane military spending -- but the truth is, millions of Americans may well have health care if she becomes president, and they won't if she loses to a Republican in the next election.

I know it's good when Jack Abramoff sinks six congressmen and a senator; I know it's good when Bush's ratings hover in the 30s. I choke down my speeches about how both of these things are symptomatic of systemic problems and not due to the virtue of elected Democrats. And I am intrigued and hopeful at the prospect of Al Gore running for president, even though I think it's bizarre to engage in the dominant political language surrounding presidential contests -- where the every little move of one human being is treated as representative of the political desires of 300 million. Still, that's all there is. So I'm going with it.

This kind of "pragmatism" isn't any easier when the wider public thinks there's something deeply wrong as well. They clearly aren't buying "John Kerry" or "Al Gore" at this point. A recent New York Times poll has both of them ranking below the worst president in history. Kerry is at 26 percent, and former vice president and presidential candidate Gore is at 28 percent. George W. Bush is pulling in at 31 percent.

There are a lot of numbers in the recent poll that would normally give me cause for joy -- the public hates everything about Bush. Only 13 percent think he's done a good job addressing rising gas prices. Twenty-nine percent are still favorably shocked and awed by his performance on Iraq. The surface-level political analysis making the progressive rounds on Bush's bad poll numbers is that they will automatically translate into success for Democrats: takeovers in Congress in 2006, etc.

But if that were the case, it would be fair to expect that a guy like Al Gore would look like the shiniest red apple in the basket. But to repeat, the same poll has Gore polling below George Bush. The Times called Gore one of "Bush's more vocal critics." What does that mean? Let's be pragmatic.

For starters, it means that Al Gore and John Kerry are big losers in the public eye; they weren't the guys at the inauguration. Even though the results of the 2000 and 2004 elections have been contested and remain in dispute, the truth is that neither Gore nor Kerry ever commanded any kind of massive public support for their positions.

If they had, Kerry wouldn't be still grumbling about those 60,000 votes that he needed in Ohio. But this poll that has Gore and Kerry well below Bush is about more than their being losers. If that were true, we might expect to see an untested national-name Democrat, like say, Hillary Clinton, polling at a higher level -- at least in the 40s. But only 31 percent of Americans say they will definitely vote for her, according to the most recent Rassmussen poll.

Jan Frel is an AlterNet staff writer.

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