Having talked in confidence to two of Al Gore's most devoted fundraisers, who have been told they are free to support other candidates, Tumbler is now pretty sure the former vice-president and new movie star is not going to run in 2008. The Gore boomlet is running its course. Despite getting as much publicity as The Da Vinci Code, Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth was ninth in box office takings in its first week of general release. Only one Democratic congressman, a Virginia maverick called Jim Moran, has come out passionately in support of a Gore campaign, and party chairman Howard Dean's paean of praise for Gore as a model Democrat, "demonstrating exactly the kind of courage and moral clarity" needed by the party, was to be expected. Remember that Gore's last foray into national politics was to endorse Dean for the 2004 primaries, just before Dean's primal scream imploded his campaign. Still, if Gore is lobbied in the summer of 2008 by a desperate party as the only person who can stop Hillary from taking the party over a cliff, he might reconsider. He would have three conditions. First, he would have to see enough guaranteed campaign funds: $200m minimum. Second, he would need just about everybody else in the party except the Clintons to join the appeal for Gore to play saviour. Third, he would want some private polling on his chances by a team he trusts. There are so far only two relevant polls, and neither one is comforting for Gore. A Hotline poll taken in April saw Hillary beating Gore among Democrats by 57-29, and a Fox poll in May showed Gore losing to John McCain in a presidential election by 36-48, and to Rudy Giuliani by 37-50.
Snow White's game plan
Democrats with bitter memories of that sad election year of 1988, when they nominated Michael Dukakis and lost to Bush the elder, recall that their lacklustre team of candidates was known as the "seven dwarfs." It looked this year as if another sad seven might be applying for 2008, only this time with Hillary as Snow White. But with the conventional wisdom saying that Snow White is too widely seen as the wicked witch to win, the list of hopefuls keeps on growing.
Hillary's team knows full well the animosity toward her on the left and the doubts she raises among southern Democrats, so they have a two-track game plan. First, after she wins re-election in New York in November with around 70 per cent of the vote, she will trumpet her skills as a Democrat who wins with Republican support—upstate New York is staunch territory for traditional Republicans. Hillary plans to promote a new narrative (which bears Bill's fingerprints) that the Republicans are heading for a split between their traditional moderates from the country clubs and main street, and the religious, conservative rednecks who have seized control of the party. Hillary will present herself as the modern centrist candidate best placed to exploit this split, to win moderate Republican votes and recapture the White House. Her other strategy is to win credit for tackling the Dems' policy deficit. Later this summer, expect a new Democratic agenda, now being drafted by Bill's old springboard, the Democratic Leadership Council, and the more liberal Centre for American Progress (run by Bill's old White House chief of staff John Podesta). Hillary persuaded the DLC-affiliated Will Marshall to bring in Podesta's team, along with two moderate groups, the New Democrat Network and the Third Way.
The danger of fobbing off Volk
Prominent among Republicans for Hillary will be the conservative New York banker Jeffrey Volk, who worked in the Nixon White House and who helped write Reagan's economic platform in 1980. Volk was in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina devastated the city. When he tried reaching the White House, he was fobbed off with voicemail. He called the federal emergency management agency but was sent to voicemail again. Then he called his senator, and got action, support and thrice-daily calls from Hillary's office to check he was OK. Volk has now raised $100,000 for her re-election campaign.
Don't mention the war
Bill is certainly battling hard for Hillary. At a May closed-door session in Austin, Texas, of the Democracy Alliance (a group of 80 rich Dems recruited by strategist Rob Stein, each of whom are committed to donating $1m), Bill blew his top when questioned about Hillary's support for the war, and whether she should follow John Edwards's example and publicly recant. "Never look back, never," he argued, after raging that this was just the kind of question Republicans liked to plant to divide Democrats.
Bernanke's clangers
The Washington media are already sniping at the new Fed chairman Ben Bernanke as not big enough for Alan Greenspan's masterful shoes. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius called him "inexperienced and accident-prone" after an incautious remark about inflation to a news anchor at the White House correspondents' dinner. Bernanke is already playing a very second fiddle to the new master of the US financial universe, incoming treasury secretary Hank Paulsen. And it can only get worse for Bernanke. He has cancelled the Fed's annual 4th July party on the central bank's rooftop. One of the most treasured networking events for the media elite, it is also a great place to watch the big fireworks display that celebrates America's birthday. Bernanke will suffer for this.
