Michael,
It was hell getting to the Staples Center today, in marked contrast with the ease with which everybody traveled around Philadelphia at the Republican convention. I have a theory about this, which I came up with when I wrote my book about the collapse of the Bush White House–when things are going wrong for a candidacy, everything goes wrong. With Bush the Elder, it always rained when he had big campaign rallies in 1992, and the Houston convention spun out of control. For Gore, the confusion surrounding the Staples Center and the confusion of the folks here in Los Angeles who are supposed to let you know how to get from Place A to Place B may be a mark of a similar spiritual difficulty emanating from a confused Gore camp. Sounds silly? You’ll remember it in November.
Of course, as you say, a politician should make a speech his or her own–and if that means writing it from scratch, then so be it. But your boss Clinton did not write them from scratch. He worked off laboriously prepared drafts. Gore, by contrast, is writing his own, according to Newsweek, in part because his staff was feuding over the content of the speech. This suggests that our friend Eli and the legendary Schrummie may not be playing well with each other–and given what we know of Gore’s personal political instincts, if I were a loyal Democrat, I’d be shaking in my shoes. As I am not a loyal Democrat, I am smiling slightly.
I too am looking forward to the Clinton speech tonight, but for different reasons. The very fact that the president evidently feels the need to defend his role in peace and prosperity indicates just how much the Bush attack has not only offended him, but has surprising political purchase.
