If Al Gore Doesn't Run

Tomorrow I'll be at LiveEarth in New Jersey, and the world's attention will once again be on Al Gore and his crusade to bring attention to, and action on, the issue of Global Warming. He will be praised, attacked and ultimately, the questions will turn to -- will he run?

Just last week, the blogs were abuzz with the news that Gore had canceled a trip to Asia and many thought it was because of a White House run was in the works. But that wasn't the reason -- he has a training session for his powerpoint.

I believe that Al Gore can enter the race as late as October and be viable and in fact, win the nomination. I believe he can raise $50 - $75 million in under thirty days online. I believe in Al Gore.

But I also know there is a chance, a good chance, that he won't run. And what would that mean?

It would mean that the politics as we now know it, and to a certain degree accept it, has taken a good man out of the race. It means that the runaway train of the cost of waging a campaign has claimed another victim. It means the politics of personal destruction, the complicity of a slack media, the negativity of the whole process, have all combined to take the right man at the right time and sideline him.

Sometime on Saturday, I will see Al Gore and my thoughts will go back to a rainy November night in 2000 when I was driving home from New York City and a recording session. I was in Connecticut and the radio signal was fading in and out. Gore was the winner, the loser, too close to call.

What we ended up losing that night was what Al Gore lost -- faith in our system. Faith that in the end all the votes would be counted and faith that ultimately, despite the attacks and the back-stabbing, faith that in the end, there was ultimate fairness in our democracy. Al Gore lost that too that night, I'm not sure he will ever completely get it back.

When you listen to Al Gore and speak with him, as I did most recently about his new book, you understand that above all, he is a good and decent man. He understands the battle he has chosen to fight and chooses to focus on the positive. He has a sense of humor, a passion and an intelligence we need.

Ultimately, I suspect Al Gore and Tipper will sit alone one night, the two of them and make a decision. Ultimately, it will be a personal one, not a political one. They two alone of all of us know what it is like to run, and to lose. They two alone, will decide.

Al Gore could be our next President. Or Al Gore could pass. If he walks away, we all lose. We need to respect him for his decision and then, it will be up to us to fix the system that is so broken, the right man doesn't want to run in it.

We need to demand real campaign finance reform -- there is no reason why anyone should ever be able to give any candidate more than $100.

We need to set term limits for our elected officials.

We need to consider eradicating all T.V. advertising from the process.

We need to shorten the election cycle down to months not years.

And we will need to do all that in the face of what will be mammoth opposition from the forces who like everything just the way it is thank you very much. Forces that work for themselves, not for us I might add.

We need to understand that there in front of us is the man who could change our country, and our world. We need to understand that Al Gore, a man who believes deeply in his country and all that is great about it, is looking into the abyss of another Presidential run -- a run that would take place in bad system and he just might decide to walk away.

What a shame that will be.