What Should Gore Do Now?
Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change." Here's the press release.
Over the past week, all the U.S. media could talk about was how winning might affect Gore's chances in the U.S. presidential race. To me this demonstrates just how badly our media is misjudging the race, Gore's significance, and our current historical moment.
There's no reason to think that winning the prize would have any positive effect on Gore's chances if he did run. Does the American public care about the Nobel, a prize awarded by a bunch of ... foreigners? Wouldn't winning a "peace" prize brand Gore as weak on national security? Doesn't it show that he thinks he's better than us? Who would want to get a beer with a Nobel Peace Prize winner? Wait, did he just sigh?
If he entered the race, Gore would run headlong into the same dim-bulb, theatrics-obsessed political press that did him so much harm in the 2000 race. He'd also run into Hillary Clinton's political machine. He would own the climate change issue, so other candidates would have to start attacking him on it and distancing themselves from it. He'd be forced to spend his time discussing one piece of frenzied ephemera after another, instead of focusing on his animating passion. He'd end up in a bruising, demeaning battle, and winning some peace prize wouldn't shield him. The process of electing a president, like so many things in the U.S. today, has become small and petty. It shrinks, cheapens, simplifies, and plasticizes those who take part in it, and Gore has already learned.
No, it would be a disaster for Gore to enter the race at this point -- not because he might lose, but because he has transcended U.S. partisan politics. He has become a figure of global stature, one of a tiny fraternity of private individuals in the world capable of driving historical change from outside the confines of any institution. What many Americans don't realize is that the rest of the world is not obsessed with the serial, lurid distractions that compose our political dialogue. Our national conversation is dominated by the resentful bile of core of nationalist, reactionary, authoritarian ding-dongs, but it's not like that when Gore goes overseas. In other countries, they don't care about his electrical bills or his waist size or his clothing choices or his lack of that most important qualification for leader of the free world, the ability to act like a regular guy.
Gore can't act like a regular guy. He's smart, and he talks like a smart person. He's earnest and committed. He cares. He wants to help save the world. Inside the glorified high school of U.S. politics, those qualities make him a square, an easy subject of mockery. But outside the U.S. they are assets. Gore can help bring governments together; he can get powerful financiers, corporate titans, rock stars, and energy scholars in the same room. He can help shape policy and public opinion across globe, not just in the U.S.
We are at an inflection point in history. These are times of immense consequence. The world will either unite around the problem of climate change and start pulling as one in the direction of survival and sustainable development, or grim years lay ahead for all of us. We must learn, as a species, how to share our collective resources more equitably and how to become happier without using more stuff and creating more waste. We must decouple our health and fulfillment from our ecological impact.
That's the project Gore's involved in now. He is called to higher things than running for president.
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I did not vote for Gore in 2000. I proudly voted my first choice. I voted for the Green Party candidate and would so again. The Gore of 2000 is not the Gore or 2008.
He should have run. But, I think it is too late for him to run now. He could be a compromise choice at a brokered convention, but we won't see that. Hillary will be the nominee.
What I wish he'd do is gather with Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders and other progressive leaders and either join the Green Party or form a new Progressive Party founded with the principle of never accepting corporate campaign contributions period, regardless of campaign finance laws. At least that party could not be co-opted. The Democratic Party needs to be replaced with something genuinely progressive and liberal and labor supporting. It is not capable of being reformed from the inside.
Certainly Gore would have the moral authority to campaign for direct election of the President, public financing, runoff-elections and proportional representation to bring genuine democracy to America.
However, he's far too loyal a Democrat to do any of these things.
The 2000 Gore of the DLC would have been a disappointement as President. Remember his campaign to reform health care "incrementally"? Granted, he wouldn't have been the tragedy Bush has been. But that's not the Green Party's fault. Gore didn't even fight for his own victory, prefering the American people continue to have a misplaced and unwarranted faith in their "democracy".
The danger of him running in 2008 is that he would go back to the DLC Gore of 2000. Now he can remain a mythical, "what if..." figure.
I do think the should have run and could have won. It's a tragedy that the 2008 Gore didn't run as the 2008 Gore. It's too late now. We'll never know which Gore would have run.
Maybe President Hillary Clinton will appoint him to the cabinet as EPA head, and make him the czar for climate change policy.
I think the democratic party has a real chance for unity this election,
Hillary's early lead will help to get all candidates behind her for the run to the WH once she wins the primary.
Al Gore knows this, and so does Obama.
They want a change of parties in the administrative branch, and Gore staying smartly out of the race will help to solidify
their and our chances.
Al Gore hasn't transcended anything. He should run for president because his country needs him too, period. If he doesn't want to serve his country when it most needs him, then he will be diminished in the eyes of a lot of people no matter what he has done on climate change.
Sorry linaya, I do not need him.
I am amazed at how many people want VP Gore to run...
I hope he is as well, and I hope it influences him to go for it.
He has the remarkable position of being able to call the shots in this entire enterprise. He could actually tell the media to screw off, and people would love it. I hope he jumps in and tears it up just for the fun of it.
He has to be amazed at how strong support for him is. The horse race would be a pain in the ass, but it would not last forever. He just needs to see the finish, and do it.
Hope to God he does.
I don't see how Gore couldn't win the primary.
How many people that voted for Bush would now vote for Gore?
How many people that voted Gore, would look back and think they made a mistake?
How many people that voted for Nader would now vote for Gore?
I think he would win by a huge landslide....
Oops I meant the general, not the primary lol.
(blushing)
The right wingnuts will turn up their slime machines to eleven, as evidence by the huge numbers of trolls posting to these Al Gore threads. You can always tell which issues and people are a direct challenge to their fantasy world by how vehement their posts are.
Nothing brings out the trolls like an Al Gore thread, not even Hillary, whom the righties really are pulling for in the closet.
Unless there is some sort of significant bottom-up, grass-roots movement for Al to run I think it is probably too late in the game for him to get in the race even if he wanted to. At this point--without the grass roots swell--it would turn out to be a clusterF with the Clintons. Image the foder for the Republican party--former VP against former first lady, with all the attendant old dirty linen being brought out on both sides.
I also just don't see the fire in Al's belly to run. If so he is doing a good job of keeping it hidden. The 2000 race isn't something he wants to revisit. With Hillary I have a feeling that the 2008 Demo primary might turn out to be a mini-sampler of the 200 national.
Of course his winning the Nobel is bringing out much "Will he Run" talk--and for good reason. I am suprised that Obama, Richardson or Edwards haven't tried to embrace Gore more. He isn't announced for Hillary in any way, shape or form. In any event, Nobel or not, I don't see Al tossing his hat in the ring primarily for the reasons I give above--as well as a few others.
What people can accomplish when they are united as one is truly amazing. That takes leadership and the intelligence to realize that one person cannot do it, but galvanizing people together will accomplish great things. I think that Al Gore has learned how to do that because of what he has undergone over the last years. He is not a savior but a leader.
We need you. Please run Al!
Al is a shoo-in fr POTUS and the Repugs and Hillary know it and they are filling the blogs with phony platitudes for the Nobel Prize winner and patronizingly telling him 'He'd be more effective outside of politics' and 'you might even lose' or ' you'd be a god Secretary of State' under Obama Hillary'. Is this beyond Ad Nauseum?
What idiot is buying those phony platitudes from Repugs pretending they are Democrats.
With all the controls the Repugs have over the MSM, after all the corruption of Republican Congressmen from slime solicitors of sex in public toilets to giving blank checks to a satanic Bush to rob, rape, destroy and kill agendas, any democrat can win in 2008 with a landslide.
And Al has been anointed the Savior of America. It's not his choice to run and win, it's the need of America's survival that demands he lead us out these 'Dark Bush Ages' into a modern Renaissance of Humanism and Enlightenment for the good of all the planet's inhabitants, man, animal and plant life.
I dreamt of the day when on January 29, 2009, The Evil Bush has to relinquish the mantil of the POTUS that he stole from Gore in 2000. That will be the Day of Resurrection in many, many ways.
Bush fixed 2000 and Nader screwed Gore. Now that very Nader-herd is rooting for Gore to run in 2008! Bush/Nader, peas from the same pod!
On topic, Al Gore has got accolades beyond his expectations but very well deserved. Now that he has brought about awareness, he should translate words and information into concrete actions. I am happy he was at the CGI this year which already has $6 Billion pledged to a cause that is Gore's future
The Nobel prize was an apt culmination to a couple of decades of untiring efforts! Congratulations Sir and best wishes ...
I agree that the current resident in the white house is absolutely EVIL. I do not think that Gore will run and do not think he would necessarily be elected if he would run.
I think you are writing off the Rethugs too easily.
As long as V.P. Gore has recognized that he should not be "handled" by Bob Shrum or others plus ignore and abandon the DLC completely, I believe a man of passion, intellect and righteousness would emerge. And, he would win a majority of the country not just the dems. He is the only person to win a presidential election and not serve. It's time to reverse the Bu$h/Cheney B.S.! Run Al RUN!!!!
Although I understand the viewpoints of this and many comments made here. Al Gore, well I love the idea of a nice guy running for President, someone that really cares. Someone that has had time to sit back and look at the foreign policy crisis we are in, and the Global Climate Crisis we are in. His latest book is on reasoning and thinking, well we need some of that here, actually we need alot of that here.
If he would have been given the Presidency like he was suppose to, instead of being cheated out of it, our Country wouldn't be the state it is now. We need him and most of all if he does run, and I pray he does. We all need to embrace him and do everything we can to get him in there. I think he and the people of America would be amazed at how much suppport he would have.
Whether or not Al Gore runs for president, he will only grow in stature, forever a Nobel laureate for his tireless work on behalf of environmental sanity.
The Dear Leader, on the other hand, never mind his imps and minions, will fade to a vaguely unpleasant odor, remembered if at all as a dimwitted, insubstantial petty tyrant who ruled sometime in the early centuries of American history: "Oh, you know, what's-his-name!"
Gore does not have a duty to run. Hasn't he done enough already?
Nevertheless, we Americans have a duty to elect some non retard to the presidency.
Hillary is not a retard!
Perhaps Billary is not a retard, but she is certainly part of the current congress cabal, and that IS NOT GOOD.
The headline of this post is very Democratic. No Democrat should take a risk, take a stand, or take a leak for fear that Ann Coulter will call him a fag or Hillary will murder him. Enough already. No more fear.
Well, the insane nattering of the pundits is in full bloom. I think half of 'em would like to see Mr. Gore go for it just in order to shred the guy. Most of these cretins you'd not cast pearls before. Honestly.
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