Even with that handicap we Democrats know Al Gore really did win that election only to have it taken away.

Today, since he has renounced any Presidential ambitions, I believe we see the real Al Gore. He is impassioned, eloquent and funny. This is the man that should have been on the campaign trail. Think of how many votes might have been shifted if the Authentic Self we see today had been on the Campaign Trail.

John Kerry had similar problems. His communication problems were more based around an upper class upbringing and a natural inclination towards concilation rather than confrontation.

Again in private he was, and is, a funny and empathetic man.  According to friends of mine who know the Senator very well, in private he is simply a great guy.

As soon as he made up his mind to renounce his presidential ambitions he gave one of the most eloquent speeches in recent memory on the Senate floor. Suddenly his Public and Private Selves seemed to be reconciled and he spoke with power of an Authentic Voice. Other Senators were moved to emotional responses.

This was the John Kerry we needed on the campaign trail to dethrone The Decider.

The people we see today, the Real Al Gore and the Real John Kerry, were the candidates we needed in 2000 and 2004. There can be no question about that reality. These people would have won decisively.

Were either of them bad choices? No. They each came close to the White House. But in any campaign second place means nothing.

We have to remember that politics is a zero sum game. Our second place finishes have resulted in a country screwed to the wall.

Politics is an adult game with potentially horrific consequencees.

Today we need the most Authentic, experienced nominee to cope with a foreign policy that certainly will be dominated by crisis management. Our nominee must also give us the leadership, planning and execution necessary to overcome problem after national problem at home.

These are huge talents and absolutely necessary.

So what will happene if we don't have the time to truly see in 2008 all the candidates Authentic Self, or lack of it, in a longer primary season? Will we have discover some that have an apparent inability to reconcil their private and public selves? Is it possible that we might make another choice?

One dictionary defines 'reconcile' as : to make consistent or congruous   <reconcile an idea with reality>

The PEW foundation released a survey a couple weekends ago that shows the majority of Americans wanted 'honesty' above all else.  I don't think that survey was worded very well and 'honesty', an  abiguous term at best, was one of few choices.

I say that the people want Authenticity. Authenticity will generate a Candidate Voice that has reconciled internal, external, public and private selves...or show that the Political Self is a result of a shallow 'created' self and that there is no Authentic Self visible.

Either outcome is equally valuable in making a Candidate choice.

[As an aside:To be effective I also believe this Candidate Voice, this Authentic Voice, has to be backed with experience and well-defined plans for the issues of the day. Rhetoric will not win the day in 2008!]

It's easy to fake honesty if you are on camera for a few moments each day. This is the current situation. Each candidate makes appearances to small crowds and a few seconds of a 16 hour campaign day make it to the Evening News.

It's nearly impossible to hide your true self if you are on camera, with the public freely able to view it, for hours and hours. The longer a candidate is on camera the more that camera will begin to tell the truth of that candidate. It is a truism that the camera will reveal the real person if they are on camera enough.

How can we see that persons real self if the The Invisible Primary limits the outcome to a month of voting in 2008 as a result of overwhelmingly expensive paid media and dominance of the national network news shows? What if all the candidates don't get constant national exposure? How can we make an intelligent choice of who can manage the tasks of the coming Presidency? How can we know who will be the best at goverance?

Answer: We can't.

For example, today we have seen Senator Clinton and Senator Obama with fleeting glimpses of John Edwards until the unfortunate news of his wife's health challenge.  Clinton, Obama and Edwards are sucking up the Media Oxygen and leaving the rest of the field to struggle for any national media time. The remaining candidates struggle to appear on the Sunday morning news shows and other smaller media outlets.

If a candidate isn't regularly visible on a national scale can they raise large sums of money? How does that candidate, who is being  drowned out by the media's choice of subjects, break through? How do they become effective combatants in The Invisible Primary?

What would happen if the situation were different? Could the candidate communicate nationally without the editors, producers and reporters taking a few fleeting seconds, a sentence or two, to air? What if a candidate could create their own National News Channel?

Can a candidate break through The Invisible Primary using conventional techniques? What else could be done in that campaign? Yet the mathmatical importance of the national primary...and therefore The Invisible Primary continue to grow.

The next part of this series will focus on February 5, 2008, it's mathmatical reality and the potential consequences.