Thinking about how it might have been different for the Gores--and us

When the news came out about the Gores separating, I started thinking about the election of 2000. I liked Al Gore back then, and wouldn't have been sorry if he won although I did vote for George Bush, having just registered as a Republican. Gore won the popular vote, but not the electoral vote. And he would have won that if even his own state had gone for him. But let's imagine he'd won.

1) The bitterness he felt toward the Clintons for not supporting his candidacy probably would have eventually melted away, but he would have made sure Bill Clinton, and possibly even Hillary sat on the sidelines for his 8 years.

2) We still would have had the 9/11 attack, and because the WMD drum beat had been building primarily by the Democrats (go back and look at Kerry, Clinton, and Kennedy) in the late 90s I'm guessing . . .

3) we would have been at war in Afghanistan and Iraq just the same--and maybe even more quickly and with no opposition from any Democrats, since Gore was their man . . . not even that young, inexperienced Senator from Illinois. President Clinton had missed an opportunity to capture Osama, so Gore would have been gleefully going after him. What a prize that would have been for him.

4) It's possible the war may have come to an agreeable end because it would have had full support of his party, giving less reason for the enemy to keep fighting.

5) But possibly it could have dragged on and on, due to bad intelligence, mismanagement of resources, etc., stronger al-Qaeda. That doesn't change with presidencies. Our current president has hardly paid any attention to it after making it a campaign issue.

6) We still would have had Hurricaine Katrina in 2005, and since all the disaster planning and red tape were directly in the lap of NOLA's mayor and the state governor, there would have been no difference there--not even in the billions of aid received afterward.

7) And if the long war continued, by the election of 2008, the country would have been so sick of "Gore's War," it would have elected a Republican--probably not McCain--and we never would have heard of Sarah Palin and she could have finished her term as governor of Alaska. Maybe Tom Tancredo or Fred Thompson.

8) The whole global warming fiasco would have proceded on a much more scientific, less hysterical routes, with Al Gore busy elsewhere, and no school child or college student would have been forced to sit through that dumb film. He probably wouldn't have been investing in carbon exchange businesses--serious conflict of interest for a president.

9) We still would have had the current recession because that was brought on by pushing people into mortgages (CRA) who really couldn't afford them, and then bundling and selling the bad debt, and that began in the Carter years, and was completely bi-partisan, badly thought out politics. Although the recession of 2000-02 might have lasted longer if Gore had been president--Democrats are reluctant to cut taxes to goose the economy.

10) John Edwards wouldn't have been a v.p. candidate in 2004, nor a presidential candidate in 2008 (would have been Leiberman), so he wouldn't have been messing around with and impregnating the videographer. So perhaps his marriage could have been saved, too.

11) No one would have heard of Barack Obama, in fact, Illinois might not have even reelected him to another term. I don't know who the Republican president would have been in 2010, but I know he would be making a lot of trips down to the Gulf and would not have hastily stopped all drilling with no information on the current problem, he wouldn't have been having show trials of CEOs, there wouldn't have been a deficit building stimulus package, and although like all Republicans he would have thrown more money at social programs, he wouldn't have taken over private health care. In short, if Al Gore had won in 2000, we wouldn't have the Obama years.

12) And finally, the Gores' marriage would have survived--at least I can't think of any presidential couple who divorced after 8 years in the White House--not even the Clintons who had good reason.

It's possible Tipper thought their marriage was maturing---into green dung heap

Forty years of standing by her man, and having their funds and lives co-mingled. And this is what it comes to . . legislating carbon caps, funding carbon research, investing her money in phony balony carbon exchanges like CCX  (worth trillions) while building and managing  huge homes, becoming a movie star celebrity, and denigrating her country. An aging, overweight, has-been hypocrite vs. your freedom and a huge settlement before it all collapses.  Which would you choose?

Or, and this is still my first guess, there's someone else. Counselor Mona Loeser in today's WSJ said, "It's extraordinarily unusual for a man to leave a marriage without having somebody." I heard my pastor say that in 1977 after 30+ years of marriage counseling. But he went a bit further--said he'd never known it to happen. I do know of one case--happened a few years ago--a man I know left his wife just to get away from her nagging and criticism, and there was no one else. But somehow, after 40 years, I would think the Gores would know how to deal with that.