what he said

the following is from Warren Ellis' email newsletter... i don't think i could put things into words any better, so i'm just gonna republish the whole dang thing. [sorry w; don't sue me pls]

bad signal
WARREN ELLIS

So Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace
Prize. And, sure enough, people have
started to clamour for him to run
for President again, presumably on
the notion that Gore has now
transformed into President Bartlet
from WEST WING.

What happens if he loses his mind
and runs? I think he probably takes
out Obama straight off the bat, and
it becomes Gore vs Clinton for the
nomination. And that turns into a
nasty fight. Gore bevels away a bit
of Clinton's base. Bill will counsel
her to go to the left, her instinct
will be to go to the right, and it'll
turn out that Al Gore is still Al Gore
and his political instinct was always
right of Democratic centre, and
the Convention turns into the sort
of chaotic, shambolic hobo-fight-
with-blunt-butter-knives that the
party was desperately trying to
avoid but almost always ends up in.
Whoever wins will be bleeding right
from the start, and the usual
smooth and regimented Republican
convention will turn out its usual
smooth nomination.

Actually, that latter isn't guaranteed
this year. But the GOP is very good
at the nomination palaver, in general.

Does a Clinton/Guiliani race put
New York state into play?

The GOP side is still interesting. Fred
Thompson doesn't get the nom.
McCain turned into a punchline a
ways back. Guiliani has potential
trouble on both his right and left
flanks, but no candidate so far has
really put the knife in to either of
them, which I find interesting.

What do you think?