In 2008, Al Gore will be elected the next president of the United States. He will win the popular vote with more votes than he took in 2000 and he will win the electoral vote as well including the states of Florida, Tennessee, and Ohio. That is, of course, if he chooses to run. Before discussing this further, let’s review Gore’s 2000 bid for the White House.
“While I strongly disagree with the court’s decision, I accept it. I accept the finality of this outcome,” were the words that ended Gore’s fight to be president in 2000. It also ended the hopes of millions that their votes would count. It was a dark day for the United States and the world. Gore had won the popular vote and very likely won the electoral vote as well. Had it not been for the Supreme Court’s intervention, he would have been president these past six years. Gore ran a tough and smart campaign and in the final analysis, in the moment of truth on election day, more people voted for him and he achieved his highest ambition at that time. Conceding to Bush was certainly heartbreaking and in “An Inconvenient Truth” Gore said: “Well that was a hard blow. But what do you do? You make the best of it.”
Gore did. He made the best of it. In his words: “It brought into clear focus, the mission that I had been pursuing for all these years and I started giving the slide show again.” The slide show, as he calls it, is his campaign to end global warming and his presentations about it. In the past few years, he has given the slide show thousands of times in countless cities across the United States and world. He has truly become a passionate spokesperson for the cause of recognizing that not only is climate change real, it is here.
Fast forward to 2007, Gore has had an incredible year so far. In February, he won the Academy Award for “An Inconvenient Truth” as well as being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. In May, Gore’s book The Assault on Reason was released. In July, Gore was instrumental in the effort to produce the Live Earth concerts bringing together two billion people on all seven continents. What will the rest of the year bring?
Can all of these activities be leading to something? Can they be precursors to a presidential bid in 2008? Gore has been questioned time and time again in the past six months about running for president and he continues to say: “I don’t have any plans or intentions to be a candidate again.” Even when it has been put to him in terms of the powerful impact being president would have on addressing global warming, Gore has stuck to his guns that he has no intention to run. He has even said, “I’ve kinda fallen out of love with politics.”
Were he to run, it would not only be possible that he would win, it would be probable. No one else in the running has his experience in politics. No one else has his credibility to move our nation and our world forward toward solving the climate crisis. No one else has the experience of having run a successful campaign and winning the office as he did in 2000.
Al Gore speaks of the “uncommon moral courage” necessary to rise up and solve the climate crisis. Were he to find that courage within himself and throw his hat in the ring in 2008, he would definitely be victorious.
