The Vice Presidency of Al Gore, 2009-2017

This presidential year is a year of firsts: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, the first serious African-American and female presidential candidates.

Barack Obama is now the presumptive nominee.

I think he is the ideal candidate for our times.

Obama's experience as a community organizer and a professor of constitutional law will be invaluable as we try to mend the torn fabric of the community of nations, our own national community, and our Constitution, all so shredded by Bush 43.

Hillary Clinton is being talked about as a possible vice presidential choice.

Some have said that if Obama does not choose Clinton, her supporters will complain that she was the strongest choice, and that anyone else is inferior.

This argument has some validity, though Bill Richardson and some others are plausible refutations.

I have been thinking, though, that Al Gore would be the best choice.

This would be another first in a year of firsts:

The first person to serve as vice president in two different presidencies.

Gore is certainly the most qualified for the job.

He has eight years' experience in it, and in 2000 he won the popular vote and should have been serving the last year of his presidency as we write this.

But there was that Bush coup we have all been suffering through.

Since 2001, Al Gore has won an Oscar, a Grammy, and a Nobel Peace Prize.

His knowledge of the worst problem humanity faces, global warming, is unsurpassed.

If Barack Obama chose Gore, the new vice president's first and major mandate would be to reverse global warming. He would start to work on (awful phrase) day one.

I am enormously impressed with Barack Obama's judgment, background, eloquence, and even wisdom. He opposed the Iraq war. He ran a true grass-roots campaign and became our nominee. He, as President Clinton used to say, "worked hard and played by the rules." And he won.

And so I offer this idea humbly.