Al Gore For Prez?

[Enforcer Talen]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article ... -1,00.html

Let's say you were dreaming up the perfect stealth candidate for 2008, a Democrat who could step into the presidential race when the party confronts its inevitable doubts about the front-runners. You would want a candidate with the grassroots appeal of Barack Obama—someone with a message that transcends politics, someone who spoke out loud and clear and early against the war in Iraq. But you would also want a candidate with the operational toughness of Hillary Clinton—someone with experience and credibility on the world stage.
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In other words, you would want someone like Al Gore—the improbably charismatic, Academy Award–winning, Nobel Prize–nominated environmental prophet with an army of followers and huge reserves of political and cultural capital at his command. There's only one problem. The former Vice President just doesn't seem interested. He says he has "fallen out of love with politics," which is shorthand for both his general disgust with the process and the pain he still feels over the hard blow of the 2000 election, when he became only the fourth man in U.S. history to win the popular vote but lose a presidential election. In the face of wrenching disappointment, he showed enormous discipline—waking up every day knowing he came so close, believing the Supreme Court was dead wrong to shut down the Florida recount but never talking about it publicly because he didn't want Americans to lose faith in their system. That changes a man forever.

It changed Gore for the better. He dedicated himself to a larger cause, doing everything in his power to sound the alarm about the climate crisis, and that decision helped transform the way Americans think about global warming and carried Gore to a new state of grace. So now the question becomes, How will he choose to spend all the capital he has accumulated? No wonder friends, party elders, moneymen and green leaders are still trying to talk him into running. "We have dug ourselves into a 20-ft. hole, and we need somebody who knows how to build a ladder. Al's the guy," says Steve Jobs of Apple. "Like many others, I have tried my best to convince him. So far, no luck."

"It happens all the time," says Tipper Gore. "Everybody wants to take him for a walk in the woods. He won't go. He's not doing it!" But even Tipper—so happy and relieved to see her husband freed up after 30 years in politics—knows better than to say never: "If the feeling came over him and he had to do it, of course I'd be with him." Perhaps that feeling never comes over him. Maybe Obama or Clinton or John Edwards achieves bulletproof inevitability and Gore never sees his opening. But if it does come, if at some point in the next five months or so the leader stumbles and the party has one of its periodic crises of faith, then he will have to decide once and for all whether to take a final shot at reaching his life's dream. It's the Last Temptation of Gore, and it's one reason he has been so careful not to rule out a presidential bid. Is it far-fetched to think that his grassroots climate campaign could yet turn into a presidential one? As the recovering politician himself says, "You always have to worry about a relapse."

For now, at least, Gore is firmly in the program. He's working mightily to build a popular movement to confront what he calls "the most serious crisis we've ever faced." He has logged countless miles in the past four years, crisscrossing the planet to present his remarkably powerful slide show and the Oscar-winning documentary that's based on it, An Inconvenient Truth, to groups of every size and description. He flies commercial most of the time to use less CO2 and buys offsets to maintain a carbon-neutral life. In tandem with Hurricane Katrina and a rising chorus of warning from climate scientists, Gore's film helped trigger one of the most dramatic opinion shifts in history as Americans suddenly realized they must change the way they live. In a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, an overwhelming majority of those surveyed—90% of Democrats, 80% of independents, 60% of Republicans—said they favor "immediate action" to confront the crisis.

The day that poll was published, in April, I spent some time with Gore, 59, in his hotel room in Buffalo, N.Y., during a break between two slide-show events at the state university. Draped across an easy chair, he looked exhausted—not as heavy as he has been (he is dieting and working out hard these days) but flushed and a little bleary. He was in the throes of an eight-show week—4,000 people in Regina, Sask.; 1,200 in Indianapolis; 2,000 near Utica, N.Y.; a flight to New York City the night before for a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; then back to Buffalo this morning for a matinee for 4,000 and, soon, an evening show for 6,000. I congratulated him on the poll and mentioned the dozen or so states that—in the absence of federal action—have moved to restrict CO2 emissions. Gore wasn't declaring victory. "I feel like the country singer who spends 30 years on the road to become an overnight sensation," he said with a smile. "And I've seen public interest wax and wane before—but this time does feel different."

So Gore is turning up the pressure. He has testified before both houses of Congress, recommending policies and warning the lawmakers that the Alliance for Climate Protection, his nonprofit advocacy group, will be running ads in their districts next year. He has been meeting privately with the presidential candidates (but won't talk about the meetings or handicap the race). He has trained a small army of volunteers to give his slide show all over the world. And on July 7, he will preside over Live Earth, producer Kevin Wall's televised global rock festival (nine concerts on seven continents in a single day), designed to get 2 billion people engaged in the crisis all at once. Since Gore is sometimes accused of profiting from the climate crisis, it's worth noting that he donates all his profits from the Inconvenient Truth movie and book to the alliance. He can afford to: he's a senior adviser at Google and sits on the board of directors at Apple. He's also a co-founder of Current TV, the cable network that was an early champion of user-generated content, and chairman of Generation Investment Management, a sustainable investment fund with assets approaching $1 billion. "I'm working harder than I ever have in my life," he says. "The other day a friend said, 'Why don't you just take a break, Al, and run for President?'"

That night, at the University of Buffalo's Alumni Arena, there was a moment when Gore seemed to be doing just that. After the people—students, middle-aged men and women, retirees—took their seats, images of the earth appeared on three giant screens, and a natural-born teacher took them on a two-hour planetary tour. He was playful, eloquent, fully restored from his afternoon lull. He has given this presentation some 2,000 times yet still imbues it with a sense of discovery. He laid out the overwhelming evidence that human activity has given the earth a raging fever, then urged the people to respond—"If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate the baby's flame retardant! If the crib's on fire, you save the baby!" Yet he was optimistic. There's still time to act—two decades at most, according to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—and by rising to meet the challenge, this generation will achieve "the enhanced moral authority" it needs to solve so many other problems. Then, suddenly, Gore was laying American democracy itself on the couch, asking why the U.S. has been unable to take action on global warming, why it has made so many other disastrous choices—rushing into war in Iraq, spying on Americans without search warrants, holding prisoners at Guantánamo Bay without due process.

[Anguirus]

I had a conversation with a PoliSci professor at my school who thinks Al Gore is the best hope for the Democrats. She thinks he's still thinking about a run, but I'm not so sure.

It would certainly be an interesting development.

[Patrick Degan]

Gore had his chance. He blew it when he didn't fight in December 2000.

[The Original Nex]

Gore had his chance. He blew it when he didn't fight in December 2000.

What recourse do you have when SCOTUS has already handed down a decision?

[jegs2]

IMO, Edwards is the best chance for the Dems to re-take the White House. He'd sway a lot of undecided and GOP folks who are disenchanted with the current administration.

[Glocksman]

IMO, Edwards is the best chance for the Dems to re-take the White House. He'd sway a lot of undecided and GOP folks who are disenchanted with the current administration.

At the risk of derailing the thread, I disagree.
Both from what I've seen and from my own personal preference, Bill Richardson is the remaining Democrat capable of pulling that off.
Some other Democrats, such as former VA Governor Warner, would have been able to do so as well, but for whatever reasons, he decided not to run.

Given a choice between Rudy McRomney and Bill Richardson, I'd hit the 'D' button on the touchpad with a big smile on my face.

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

Before he lost the 2000 election I would have said We couldn't go wrong with Gore, who knows, maybe before he lost in '00 we really couldn't have gone wrong with Al, but since then he's said and done a lot of things that make me think we should look elsewhere for a president.

I think Edwards and Obama both have strong chances for the win if the democrats can get behind one or the other soon enough. And either one would make a fine President to boot.

[Durandal]

IMO, Edwards is the best chance for the Dems to re-take the White House. He'd sway a lot of undecided and GOP folks who are disenchanted with the current administration.

Are you kidding? The guy's a mal-practice lawyer. He's easily one of the worst Democratic candidates.

[Enforcer Talen]

Before he lost the 2000 election I would have said We couldn't go wrong with Gore, who knows, maybe before he lost in '00 we really couldn't have gone wrong with Al, but since then he's said and done a lot of things that make me think we should look elsewhere for a president.

Strange, I look at it in reverse. Ok in 2000, but amazing now.

[mingo]

Problem is that Gore, like Mario Cuomo before him, doesn't want to be nominated, he wants to corinated. Just answer the fucking question Al, "ARE YOU RUNNING OR NOT?" Stop dancing around it, if you don't want to do say so, if you do, step up to the plate. I personally don't think he an win, but give it a try if you're going to. Otherwise, tell the truth, "Hey I'm just pimping my book." and move on.

[Stormbringer]

Before he lost the 2000 election I would have said We couldn't go wrong with Gore, who knows, maybe before he lost in '00 we really couldn't have gone wrong with Al, but since then he's said and done a lot of things that make me think we should look elsewhere for a president.

Strange, I look at it in reverse. Ok in 2000, but amazing now.

Making a serious run for President is a lot different from the semi-serious political activities he's involved in now. He's doing fine as a media personality and a talking head; that's not hard as plenty of ex-politicians can attest. The question is whether he has even gotten the political skills to avoid the mistakes of his previous presidential big.

Of course the big money donors are already committed, which makes a damaged-goods, ex-veep and losing contender an absurdly long shot. If he hasn't committed before now, he's likely to never be able to be a serious contender.

[CmdrWilkens]

Before he lost the 2000 election I would have said We couldn't go wrong with Gore, who knows, maybe before he lost in '00 we really couldn't have gone wrong with Al, but since then he's said and done a lot of things that make me think we should look elsewhere for a president.

Strange, I look at it in reverse. Ok in 2000, but amazing now.

Making a serious run for President is a lot different from the semi-serious political activities he's involved in now. He's doing fine as a media personality and a talking head; that's not hard as plenty of ex-politicians can attest. The question is whether he has even gotten the political skills to avoid the mistakes of his previous presidential big.

Of course the big money donors are already committed, which makes a damaged-goods, ex-veep and losing contender an absurdly long shot. If he hasn't committed before now, he's likely to never be able to be a serious contender.

I don't know that so much. The money folks all have the cash to jump onboard his ship pretty quickly and if it looks like he is going to announce and has the kind of numbers he is already pulling then they might jump to him hard and fast. Gore has connections through pretty much the entirety of the liberal wing and some of the centrist bits of the Democratic party and if there is no clear winner emerging between Clinton and Obama then he has all the ability to jump in late in the game saying "I have all the best qualities of both these guys with none of the liabilities."

Simply put he has Obama's anti-Iraq stance combined with more party connections than Clinton along with a crap load more experience and a strong connection to the entire envrionmental crowd. All the while he will never have to put his views on the line defending votes in the Senate nor can he be outmanuevered there by stupid Democratic leadership or by the Bush mechanism. For that matter being out of elected office the WH commenting on anything he does is bonus points because it automatically admits to some degree that his stature is such that it must be worthy of presidential attention.

Now I do believe that he is much happier working the way he is now and NOT having to have all his decried on Fox News but if he changes his mind in the next 6-8 months he loses nothing since he hasn't spent a penny yet is sitll in third place which means he becomes a fresh face on a campaign that is a year old at that point and everyone who gave money early can't give any more unless its to another candidate. So waiting could play into the burnout game with voters who are disgusted by the fact that we have campaigns open now when the first primaries aren't for another 9 months.