That day we felt that we had met a soul brother and a person of rare quality. Since that time Gore has run three national campaigns, been there, done that. In his last campaign for president he was savaged by the press yet still won the popular vote, only to have the election stolen in what has turned out to be an enormous tragedy for our country and the world.
Today Al Gore is still a man on a mission and for him the mission is paramount! He is once again saying that “he has no plans to run.” I believe however that as before, he could be persuaded to change his mind if enough of us ask him to by building a strong and credible draft movement, if he comes to believe that he can win and if he believes that this would be the best way to accomplish his mission. Now this is a lot of ifs, and if along the way he picks up an Oscar and a Nobel prize so much the better.
Lesley and I were among those who participated in the now famous February 8 “Boston” meeting (actually it was Cambridge) with Elaine Kamarck, former senior policy adviser to Al Gore, for a discussion about how best to grow the movement to draft him which seems to be taking shape almost organically around the nation. While none of us talked to the press about it, somehow it was leaked to the AP and reported to the world. Ten days later, we’re still seeing references to this meeting all over the internet and in print media. It has been discussed on cable news shows with the punditry speculating on it’s possible meaning.
I believe that Al Gore today, just as in 1992 is following his heart and his calling and really doesn’t have a plan to run. And I think that he genuinely doesn’t at this moment know exactly where his calling will lead him, but he can’t and shouldn’t stop the burgeoning movement to draft him for the democratic nomination until he does know. I pray that an opening presents itself and that he responds by accepting a draft.
Al, the world and your country need you and we still want you to be the next President of the Unites States.
For information about this growing draft movement go to: algore.org, draftgore.com, and mass4gore.com.
I couldn’t agree with you more! The more I look at the alternatives- the more impressed I am with Al Gore– a politician who actually first of all has principles and then actually walks the walk. He’s got experience–at all levels of govenment and feels to me like the right person for this time in our history. Thanks for the draft Gore info…
of the feasibility of a Gore campaign? I am well aware that the narrative seems to be that if Gore entered the race a lot of air would be sucked out of several other campaigns. The flipside of the forming narrative seems to also be that it takes a lot of structure, money, and frankly time (which increasingly a luxury in today’s presidential politics) to wage a Presidential campaign. The logistics of harnessing the Draft Gore pockets that seem to have sprouted with a campaign seem daunting.
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On top of that, is there any concern that him running would sink a bit of the credibility on the environment he has garnered in the last year? How would you address the smear of “Oh, he was just doing that environmental scare stuff to boost his profile for a Presidential run!” bull that will inevitably spring up?
Tonight I was on a national draft Gore conference call with people representing draft Gore Meetups from 25 states and Canada (Americans abroad) and adding more groups every day.
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I was amazed at what some of these groups have already accomplished. These folks have energy and commitment and a belief that “if we build it, he will run.”
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Our hope is that we will build a large enough draft campaign organization to convince Al to enter by perhaps September or October. And if it is a genuine draft movement, it will be clear that Gore’s environmental crusade is sincere and independent of a plan to run.
Let me preface this by saying I wish we could have an Obama-Gore Co presidency but I would lean towards Gore over Obama who I am currently supporting. That said, I believe that not enough people know that Gore has changed. The movie An Inconvenient Truth as good as it was likely played more to the converted than to the masses who remember Gore for the lockbox fiasco and inventing the internet. These people might now know Gore has changed if he runs again, or they might not now what he has done in his post-presidency.
Al “save the spotted Salamander” Gore and who cares if all the lumberjacks in Oregon lose their jobs.
This thread is hilarious!! The “masses? the masses asks the liberal elitist? Bwaaahahahah.
Al Gore is a complete buffoon and yesterday’s news. Have a glass of Kool Aid and move on.
Don’t you think Al or even the seeds he started won’t be used against you? Your hope of even a thread of American life is over. They are coming after your duelie, your chainsaw, lawnmower and snowmobile all at once.
The post to which you responded obviously wasn’t intended to convince anyone; it was intended to get a rise out someone. I know that he has targeted you, Lasthorseman, to get extra rises out of, but no one pays attention to this guy and even a lot of the Republicans and crypto-conservatives on this site (Peter Porcupine, TomTS, JK, etc.) would find his posts embarrassing. So I think you can pass his stuff silently.
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He feeds on getting a rise. Don’t feed him and he’ll gradually go away because the site will be less fun for him.
Gore wrote a great book saying protecting the environment should be the “central organizing principle of our civilization” (Yes, I read the book back then.), then served as vice president in an administration that did nothing to counter global warming (refusing to sign Kyoto and refusing to regulate SUVs as cars), then in the fall of 2000 called for the strategic petroleum reserves to be tapped because gas was reaching $1.70 per gallon.
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It makes me wonder why so many on the left are eager to see Gore run for president. Have we forgotten our history, or do we want to be fooled twice?
I think you’ve forgotten that this was under the Clinton administration, not the Gore administration. Saving the planet from a climate catastrophe just wasn’t a top priority for Clinton. His focus was to fix the economy and get re-elected. And of course the congress was controlled by the republicans for most of his tenure.
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Gore was not able to get the support for the initiatives and reforms he wanted to institute which is partly why he is building the political will for these now before running for President.
We did sign Kyoto. We never ratified it, a move that’s entirely up to Congress and not the President at all.
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The SUV thing I’m less sure of, but it strikes me as unlikely that the President would have the sole power to perform such regulation. Don’t some laws have to be changed, and wouldn’t Congress have been unlikely to go along with that?
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Finally, you are correct about the proposal to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but you forgot/left out the fact that there were several ideas on the table and Gore’s was the most conservative (aside from, of course, not tapping it at all).
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Which prompts the question: Who’s better for the environment than Gore? Who’s your pick?
Regarding Kyoto, Clinton signed it, but then kept pressing to renegotiate it, wanting the U.S. to get special treatment, and never putting his weight behind it. As to SUVs, a very simple bill would be to regulate them as cars (or raise their mileage). Clinton was the first president since the CAFE program was instituted in the mid-70s who did not increase fuel economy. And, while the Republican congress is a decent excuse, he had a Democratic Congress for the first two years, and burned most of his political capital on balancing the budget (good) and NAFTA (not so good).
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I will grant you that this was the Clinton Administration, not the Gore administration, but, given all the talk about the “co-presidency” back in 1992, I believe that Gore could have pushed for better environmental protection if that had been his top priority.
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As to 2008, I’m leaning toward supporting Barack Obama. He received a 100% rating from the League of Conservation Voters in 2005-2006, and received a 100% rating from the Illinios equivalent when he was in the state senate.
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Al Gore, by contrast, had a lower LCV rating as a senator than did at least half of Democrats (He was typicallly around a 75%.)
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The LCV rating isn’t the only metric of how good a candidate is on the environment, and it has its problems, but in general I’m very skeptical of anyone who claims to be a leader on the environment when he’s not voting the right way most of the time.
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(As an aside, of the other front runners, Hillary Clinton averages in the mid-80s; John Edwards was in the high 70s (which was a bit below average for Democrats nationwide, but on the high end for southerners.)
It’s a long shot that there would even be an opening for Gore at this point–and that assumes he is really interested.
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If so, the long shot would be to wait until Obama Fatigue sets in–we are, alas, addicted to trends–and declare perhaps a month before the NH primary.
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He’d be “new” and would benefit from something of a fresh look, and could ride that into the primaries. Early caucuses and primaries would be make-or-break for him.
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Alternatively–and again, only if he is on the brink anyway–a serious global crisis could be an opening for a man of his stature to declare his candidacy. Whatever his plans, he might feel called to reenter politics under some probably dire circumstances.
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That would be particularly the case if the crisis were an acute environmental catastrophe, one of those moments when those slow quantitative changes to which we are inured produce a sudden qualitative one. But it my also apply for a political or military crisis such as nuclear war in Iran.
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Needless to say I dread rather than hope for such a crisis, but it could provide the basis for a Gore candidacy.
…he should not run for president, and he knows it. He would be tagged as a one-issue candidate (global warming) and the fact that he would be tagged as a one-issue candidate is a detriment.
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What he should do is to continue his efforts in popularizing the issue that currently obviously interests him. He could actually better serve as a cabinet secretary–perhaps Secretary of the Interior–or even a special envoy in international relations on environmental matters, in another Democratic administration.
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One thing that his efforts regarding global warming has done is to encourage climatologists to open up a number of web sites devoted to the issue. The best is probably http://www.realclima… although there are many others. It’s just amazing what one can find about climatology from–you know–climatologists, over the Internet.
and the Al Gore of 2007 is the Al Gore of 2000. In 1992, he had never been the Democratic nominee. I think a lot of people fail to realize what an utterly exhausting, soul-draining experience being a major party presidental candidate is…I get the very definite feeling it is not something Al is prepared to take up again. In fact, I also get the impression that one of the reasons people find him so appealing now is that he has liberated himself from the chains of ambition and no longer has to tailor his speech to what is “acceptable” or mainstream. He has a cause that he deeply believes in, he is currently succeeding beyond his wildest dreams in spreading the word and pushing people to act on global warming–that is who he is now. He is not running for President.