Craig Crawford's Trail Mix

If John Edwards and Barack Obama had done a better job challenging Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, Al Gore could have leveraged his just-announced Nobel Peace Prize into a bid of his own. But the scenario for a Gore run, as imagined by his supporters months ago, simply did not materialize.

Their theory was that by now Clinton’s baggage would be weighing her down in the polls, leaving the Democratic race in flux with no obvious frontrunner. Had Edwards and Obama not waited so long to directly exploit Clinton’s weaknesses, the Gore scenario could have played out.

But instead they spent most of this year pretending she wasn’t there. For Gore to run now would mean taking on a Clinton campaign machine that is much stronger than his fans had expected to see. It looks like Gore will have to be satisfied with the Oscar and the Nobel as his consolation prizes.