WSJ: What Gore's Nobel Prize Means for Political Climate [View All]

[villager]

Source: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119217994461357186-APaKECrs3OlN6Dc8z3ysHyUeftU_20071112.html?


What Gore's Nobel Prize Means for Political Climate
Greenhouse-Gas Fight

Will Still Face Barriers;
Office Run Isn't Likely

By JACKIE CALMES and JEFFREY BALL


Awareness of global warming may rise after the Nobel Peace Prize awarded Friday to former Vice President Al Gore and a United Nations science panel for their work on the issue. But the prize likely won't do much to remove political barriers to action in the U.S. or overseas.

Moreover, Mr. Gore won't likely take the one action that could immediately alter the political dynamic at home -- entering the 2008 presidential race -- despite an emboldened "Draft Gore" movement, confidants said.

Still, the award will likely put pressure on presidential hopefuls from the Democratic and Republican parties to address the issue. For Democrats, it will raise the value of his endorsement.

"He has all but shut the door" to running for president," said Donna Brazile, who managed Mr. Gore's presidential campaign in 2000, when he won the popular vote but lost in the electoral college after the Supreme Court awarded Florida's votes to President Bush. "But no one who is as viable or as qualified as him should shut the door completely."

Mr. Gore, who earlier this year won an Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth," his documentary about climate change, can turn the speculation to an advantage, as a way to keep his issue in the news.

<snip>


Read more: Ye Olde Journal