Elections go to the candidates who are carried along by the most compelling narrative. People vote for the story that grabs them. How often have we been told that the media locks in on a certain story about a candidate (Kerry is a flip-flopper; Gore plays fast and loose with the truth; Bush is a straight-shooter) and after that it only accepts interpretations of events that fit into the story line and declines to report on events that disrupt the established perception. George Bush won two elections because the myth of the Lone Gunman faced down the Eastern Dandy.
There is a story I'm sure most people are already familiar with. The receptors are already in place. It's just a question of pouring the candidate into the mold that already fits him like a glove. The story goes like this: The legitimate leader, groomed for the job, is forced into exile by a usurper. There follows a period of near-catastrophic misrule during which everyone suffers but the usurper's minions. The exiled leader hangs out in the wilderness where he gains New Wisdom. Reluctantly he returns from exile and restores balance and health to the kingdom.
The story is both ancient and universal. Whether through the intellectual route of Joseph Campbell or the straight-to-the-heart magic of Disney Studios, it has deep and compelling resonance.
Remember how people used to call Bill Clinton "Elvis"? It was mostly in jest, but it said something about the man. It said "he has humble roots, he has soul and charisma." It stuck because it was somehow appropriate. And remember the sense of fresh air and relief as Bill&Hillary&Al&Tipper danced on stage to the sounds of Fleetwood Mac? Soul had returned to the White House.
Suppose people started to call Al Gore "Simba." Just as a friendly, half-kidding moniker. Now suppose it passed into common usage. (Hey, even George Costanza understood the importance of a good nickname. That's why he wanted to be called T-Bone.) Effect #1: It would help dispel any vestigial perception that Gore is stiff and wooden. It would spotlight Gore the animal, the guy who passionately kissed his wife at the 2000 Democratic convention. Effect #2: it would draw an ineradicable line between the candidate and the narrative that is already waiting for him like a mantle of kingship, the story of a just leader, a treacherous usurper, a returning exile, a restored sense of peace and security. That's a very deep and powerful narrative, already embedded in the heart of anyone who has seen the Lion King and been open to its magic. All that's needed is to indicate by simple word association that this particular narrative fits this particular man. Effect #3: it would enable the media to drop the old meme and embrace the new Gore, lending gravitas and legitimacy to his often ridiculed effort to "reinvent" himself. Like Bush's "Prince Hal" narrative, it reframes Gore's awkward stage as a time of growth, a time of learning in the wilderness, a time in the crucible of exile from which he has emerged with renewed vision and strength.
And what Gift for the People would candidate Gore bring with him out of the wilderness? What is the issue with which he is most clearly associated? Visionary ecology, restoring the balance. What was the title of his first book? Earth in the Balance. What is the over-arching theme of the Lion King? Restoring the balance. What is the one issue that transcends partisan interests? Global warming.
Global warming is the meta-issue that nobody is yet talking about and Al Gore owns that issue. He is, in effect, the only grown-up in the room while everyone else is squabbling over scraps, over stuff that won't even matter when the cataclysmic changes overtake us. It's the only issue that hasn't been kicked around and slobbered all over to the point where it's just an indistinguishable mash of tired rhetoric. It's simple. It's big. It's shiny. It's new. It's tailor-made for New Deal Democrats in need of a goal towards which to mobilize. It's JFK's Moon and FDR's Depression all rolled into one. It has fear and endtimes cliff-hanger drama for those who respond to that kind of stuff, but more significantly it poses the kind of practical problem that Yankee ingenuity thrives on, engaging the optimistic, sleeves-rolled-up, can-do spirit that made this country great. It's a whole a new organizing principle just waiting to emerge from the wings like Simba returning from exile, like the sun rising after a long and agonizing night, clarifying everything, putting the jackals of pettiness to flight. Put that issue on the front burner along with the man who has indisputably been its voice in the wilderness and people will respond, people will start to notice we don't have time for foreign wars or culture wars or anything but the very serious task at hand. And there's a nice poetic symmetry, isn't there, not to mention archetypal resonance in the idea of Gore coming out of the wilderness with a vision, reclaiming the office that is already his by right, and restoring balance and harmony to our troubled land, like Simba redeeming the pridelands after Scar's disastrous misrule.
Update [2006-8-20 20:25:11 by ailanthus]: I recognize from some of the comments that there is a certain and legitimate squeamishness concerning the idea of kingship. This nation was after all founded on the values of Enlightenment rationality emerging from the mythic grip of monarchy. In my view the aim is not to expunge the mythic dimension from our institutions, but to see that it doesn't get confused with the rational. The fact is there are two kinds of aristocracy. There's the creepy economic aristocracy of grasping and reactionary privilege. That is the aristocracy (by any other name) we have been suffering under. Then there's the natural aristocray of the spirit, where those with true self-sacrificing nobility of soul take the lead in addressing humanity's most intractible dilemmas. I make no apology for invoking that aspect of royalty. If a singer from Memphis can be acknowledged as a king, I see no reason why a man who has resourcefully pitted himself against humanity's most daunting threat should not be accorded the same level of respect.