What Do You Do With a Broken Party?

Al Gore isn’t running for President:

Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore has accused the oil industry of financially backing the Tories and their “ultra-conservative leader” to protect its stake in Alberta’s lucrative oilsands.

Or at least he ought not to run. I can’t remember the last time a potential candidate accused the elected leader of an allied country of such a thing.

Also, Gore is out of his mind. If oil prices ever come down again, it will be because of “new” finds like Canada’s oil sands. “Screw the consumer” is hardly a winning election strategy.

John Kerry is running for President, but he shouldn’t be:

But late Thursday afternoon, Mr. Kerry began calling fellow Democratic senators in a quixotic, last-minute effort for a filibuster to stop the nomination.

Democrats cringed and Republicans jeered at the awkwardness of his gesture, which almost no one in the Senate expects to succeed.

Kerry literally phoned in his objections, from a ski resort in Switzerland. That’s as tone-deaf a move as I’ve ever seen a politician make.

And now Hillary Clinton can’t even get Molly Ivins on her side:

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

In the space of 48 hours, the three top Democrats for 2008 proved themselves to have all the staying power of a nervous virgin on the set of a porn shoot.

If this is how the Democrats play when not much seems to be going well for Bush, then they’re toast. It’s too soon to predict exactly what will happen in 2008. But if today is any indication, then I can make a confident prediction about this year’s midterm election: The Republicans will gain a seat or two in the Senate, and at the very least hold even in the House.

Year Six of any administration is usually poison for the party. If we had something like a loyal opposition in this country, that would be as true in 2006 as it was in 1986.

But it isn’t. And it won’t be. Mark my words.