An odd comment from Kevin Drum:

in the postwar era, with the exception of Nixon, no one from either party has run for president, lost, and then eventually come back to win. I suspect there's less to this myth than meets the eye."

Say what? Reagan ran in 1976 and won in 1980. Bush ran in 1980 and lost in 1988. Gore ran in 1988 and... almost won in 2000, though admittedly these were two different Al Gores. As this comment is in reference to John Kerry, the fact that he's a senator would make an election to the presidency more unusual than the fact that he lost in 2004. Now of course what Drum probably meant was that someone won the nomination, lost the presidency, and then came back to win. No one since Nixon has done that, only Hubert Humphrey has tried as far as I know, so that statistic is not particularly useful.

As for the article itself. I cannot imagine the Democratic Party giving Kerry another chance, given what a slam dunk most Democrat-types thought the 2004 election would be. Al Gore is an interesting case in more ways than one. He did win the popular vote in 2000, but if he were to run it would be the third Al Gore in three separate tries. I'm not really trying to say that as a slight to Mr. Gore. In some ways I can relate to Gore in ways that I can relate to no other high-profile politician and have a personal affinity for him even when I don't like him very much. But anyway Bush was very much a different in 2004 than he was in 2000 as Washington changed him, so I don't consider Gore's alterations to be in-and-of themselves indicative of a whole lot, but the current bombastic version of Gore is not the version of Gore that would have the upper hand in 2008.

And I think that Gore knows this. I don't think he particular cares because despite all the ways of crazy he seems now, he does seem somewhat at peace with the presidency being out of his reach.