“A Barely Discernible Horizon”

This chapter details events that occurred in 1999, when Albert Gore Jr., standing on the steps of the Smith County courthouse in Carthage, Tennessee, began his run for president. The Carthage courthouse chosen by Gore for his announcement was not just a place of justice but also a former jail—the last known prison for two Muslim fugitives. Launching his bid to become President, Gore was standing in the same spot where a pair of Arabic authors had failed to win their own freedoms, despite the Qur’anic appeals dispatched to the sitting President in 1807. On the courthouse steps once climbed by these two captives, Gore welcomed an American millennium that was soon to be haunted by scandals of Muslim incarceration. Gazing into the unsearchable future, Gore stood where two forgotten “Mahometans” had been jailed in 1807, even as he greeted a century that would open with outrage over Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

Albert Gore Sr., Liberalism and the South in the 1960s

This chapter focuses on how race and war intersected in 1960s Tennessee to destroy the career of a relatively progressive southern senator. Postwar conservatives used coded racism to lure southerners from the Democratic column and to associate liberalism with African American special-interest-group politics. Al Gore failed to realize that his moderate position on civil rights alienated him from his white voters. No amount of Northern liberal support could save him as the Solid South began its defection to the GOP (Grand Old Party). Gore's defeat represented a generational shift in liberalism. Never again would it be acceptable to rely on an ethical reputation or class envy to secure reelection—liberals would have to find new ways of talking to their constituents and building trust.