Man who should be king (Gore)

[cal04]

Al Gore has published a furious tirade against Bush and his Live Earth concert is next month, but is he considering a last run at the presidency? By Suzanne Goldenberg

Al Gore does not seem like a man about to throw himself into the presidential race. It's not as if he suffers under the delusion that his current unofficial role as prophet to the American left comes anywhere close to the influence he would have in the White House - despite the Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth and the sold-out signings for his new book, The Assault on Reason. Gore knows where the real power lies. "There is not a position that even approaches that of President in its ability to affect the course of events, so I have deep respect for those who choose to remain in the political process," he says.

But he is just not sure he is willing to do what it takes to try to get elected. "The kinds of skills that are rewarded in this new communications environment include some that I don't think I have in abundance," he says. When prodded, he lists a few: "a tolerance for artifice and repetition, an appreciation for clever manipulative strategies". As he gets older, he says, he has "less patience for that".

But try telling that to the netroots activists with their Draft Gore sites, or the man who wrote the song Run, Al, Run, or the anti-war protesters who see the former vice-president as a hero for his earlier attacks on President Bush over Iraq.


(snip)
He has yet to decide which Democratic candidate to support in the 2008 primaries. In 2004 he endorsed Howard Dean, the anti-war candidate who briefly captivated the Democratic party before his campaign burned out in the Iowa caucuses. While Gore says the candidate's stand on Iraq will be crucial in his calculation, he would not rule out support for someone who was a previous supporter of the war if they had a reasonable explanation for their change of position.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections08/story/0,,2093814,00.html

[Double T]

1. C'mon Al Gore! Get into this damn presidential race..............

so that some of us can feel there is a truly credible Democratic presidential Candidate to believe in.

[jwirr]

2. Bad title! Like George Washington, Gore would be the first to

refuse to be king. Both men fought for a democracy - knew what one was and know what it takes to keep one. The only *ss hoping to be a king here is the little dictator.