Monday, May 08, 2006

Al Gore for President 2008? What is WSJ doing?

Wall Street Journal today is running an article that stokes the fires of those of us who would like to see Al Gore run for the Democratic nomination for President in 2008.

The article itself is interesting (go read it) but I find the source as interesting as the article. The Wall Street Journal? This seems to be a straight news article, not something from the right-wing toxic Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot, but still. What's up?

They have not only published this speculative piece, they pave placed it on their free web section outside the normal firewall most of there stories are behind. They are trying to influence people who don't subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. Since the central focus of the article is the likelihood that a run by Gore would set the Democratic nomination up as a race between the two gorillas-of-fund-raising, Gore and Hillary Clinton, my first thought is that this is an effort by the WSJ to drum up Democratic opposition to Hillary.

But since I always suspect the WSJ of being strongly Republican, does this mean they fear Hillary more than Gore and want Democrats to put up the weaker candidate? Or are they trying to stoke a bruising nomination battle that will weaken whatever candidate the Democrats nominate? If this were in any other national journal, I'd also have to ask if some reporter/editor just felt it was a good news story, but this is the WSJ.

In any case, I think it is an interesting story, as much for the source as for the data it offers. Hey! The Presidential election is only just around the corner in November of 2008, right?

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