As is gobsmackingly obvious (to Obama supporters, at least), the bitterness of the struggle for the Democratic nomination between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is due primarily to the poisonous combination of Clinton's superhuman, Clinton-like ambition and yes, her sheer tenacity (the like of which is usually seen only in psychotic wolverines possessed by the devil). Clinton has come on strong, pushed the envelope, torn it into a million pieces and shoved it down the throats of legions of hapless voters, who are now rabid with HILLARY FEVER! Remarkably, even after Clinton's approximately sucky showings in Indiana (sorta sucky) and North Carolina (WAY sucky), she's still "FULL SPEED ON TO THE WHITE HOUSE!" And now, with the Clintons' gargantumous, rapture-inducing win in West Virginia, all that's left is Kentucky, Puerto Rico, being $20 million in the hole, hypnowanking and/or strong-arming a couple of committees and a few (hundred) superdelegates into rubberstamping a coup and then: sweet, pyrrhic VICTORY! All together, now: "Whoop-de-doo!"

The stress of this never(ever)ending fight has pushed seemingly rational Democrats (and even normal people) to come up with solutions designed to avert an electoral disaster resulting from an excessively Democrat-like Democratic convention. After all, a house divided cannot win!

And so we find ourselves hurtling headlong into the mayhem, the madness that is to be the Denver convention! Everyone knows the BLOODBATH that awaits -- Michigan "obliterating" Florida -- and that's just on the inside of the building. Outside, zombie conservatives posing as crazed, leftist militants will be running all the amok they can get their zombie hands on! We will see -- brought to life by GOP black magic -- environmentally-friendly, 'green' houses overturning gas-guzzling but otherwise innocent SUV's! Latte-based molotov cocktails will be hurled through the storefront windows of local Club For Growth-approved businesses  -- HORRIBLE! The forces of darkness are already moving the pernicious pieces into place! Has the great and powerful Limbaugh -- his malignant bulk oozing and undulating about the confines of his expensive, leather studio chair -- not called for 'Operation Chaos'?!

In short: the survival of the Democratic Party (taken together with its at times loose and disaffected association of various political allies and affiliated interest groups for purposes of this argument and its corollaries) is at stake! Some now whine, "WE. MUST. AVOID. THIS. AT. ALL. COSTS. BUT. HOWWWW?"  The answer has been right under our noses all this time, we foolish fools.

How to avert such a disaster?

Well...  AL* is still around, isn't he?
* not Sharpton

"Of course he is!", you exclaim. "He can just endorse Obama before the convention, 'cause everybody knows he wants to anyway, and he'd rather pull his own head clean off than see Hillary steal the nomination, and his ONE endorsement packs more power-packed punch than an entire hemisphere's worth of ordinary DNC-type automaticsoopermegadelegates, and--"

Hey, hold up, y'all! I think you done turned a corner you ain't even got to, yet!

For you see, we're not talking about endorsing at all. We're talking about a Denver convention move so daring, so mind-blowingly masterful it threatens to defy logic itself!

Consider if you will this compelling bit of shrewdness in a piece by Hooman Majd at the always enjoyable Huffington Post:

But imagine this: what if Barack Obama, if unsuccessful on the first ballot, rather than continue to fight for the nomination, meets with Al Gore, yes Gore, and tells him that he would willingly throw his support behind a 'Draft Gore' campaign, and become his vice-presidential running mate. One cannot imagine a scenario under which, with Obama's and his supporters' (and delegates') support, Al Gore would not become the nominee on the second or a subsequent ballot, even accounting for a last-minute furious fight by a Clinton campaign known for its fury.

Now, as we all know, a Clinton's plain-old fight is bad enough, but their furious fight? I don't think we want us any of that! I know I don't. The solution, then: Presidential nominee Al Gore and Vice-Presidential nominee Barack Obama. The Obama/Clinton 'Dream Ticket' is not a realistic, effective way of holding the Party together. What is? Simply this: Obama's being awarded the VeePee slot because he managed to secure the nomination by only every conceivable measure. Yes, yes, we all know THE METRICS™: most states won, most popular votes, most pledged delegates, most superdelegates,  most spares picked up bowling (well, maybe not that one), most cash raised, most hell raised (oops, that would be Hillary), most supporters ever (...crammed into a '59 Volkswagen Beetle -- World Record!!! Yeaaahhh!!!). But frankly, if he could do no better than this, he's lucky to even get vice president.

Why Al as the presidential nominee, though? My dear friends, we now come to the chewy, nougat-filled center of the issue at hand: typically trite top-of-the-ticket thinking will NOT deliver victory in November! Sen. Clinton cannot pull this off! Her 'negatives', even within her own party, are nowhere near positive enough! Thus, Gore is the only possible choice.

"B-b-but...", you stammer, "Al Gore didn't even run this time... surely he wouldn't just take the nomination away from Obama...?". Still you refuse to admit the irresistible pull this plan will surely exert on Mr. Gore? No matter. You are hereby pummeled into rhetorical submission:

But one cannot underestimate the effect, sitting in the convention hall in Denver and watching the future of his party, and potentially his country, being decided and his being offered, on the proverbial silver platter, the opportunity to likely become the forty-third president of the United States a mere two-and-a-half months later, can have.

Precisely. Let me be clear: Our only hope of rescue from the rocky yet also hard place in which we find ourselves between, now lies in the hands of the person of one man: the Oscar-winning, forty-somethingth near-President-elect of the United States -- Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.

The beauty of this approach, you will agree, is that by virtue of its utter implausibility, it is possible to actually unite the Democratic Party and at the same time, prevent an Election Day thumpin' of BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS (hyperbole not included). This is achieved by graciously and wisely denying the nomination to the so-called rightful nominee AND by giving said nomination to a man who, as far as anybody knows, no longer gives a half-assed damn about having it. (Of course, Mr. Gore's being given the nomination assumes that Hubert Humphrey will have already turned it down on account of he's dead and all.)

This, then, is the 'happy ending' of which we all dream: upon his and President Gore's taking office, Vice President Obama gets a well-deserved pat on the head, a cookie (yes, one of those big ones the size of a dinner plate) and is then allowed to slink over to VEEPCOM and begin building his experience for a more realistic run in 2016.

Thank you, Sen. Obama -- and hey, better luck next time.