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From One Prize to AnotherWill Al Gore now run for the White House?

By John Dickerson
Posted Friday, Oct. 12, 2007, at 10:43 AM ET
Al Gore. Click image to expand.

Al Gore is a winner. Al Gore was right. One of the best things for Al Gore about winning the Nobel Peace Prize is that the sound bites are finally all on his side. For decades the two-term vice president has been championing environmental causes and until recently often received public scorn and derision. Now he's been rewarded with one of the most coveted prizes on the planet.

This reversal in Gore's fortunes is extraordinary. He's not only seen a rolling vindication of his environmental activism as the world becomes more consumed with combating global climate change, but his prewar warnings about the conflict in Iraq now look prescient. Meanwhile, George Bush—the other political scion with whom Gore will forever be linked because of their bitter election fight in 2000—has followed almost exactly the opposite trajectory. Unpopular and increasingly criticized by many in his own party, Bush's legacy will be the broken war. While Gore is lauded for his prescience and insight, Bush will for some time—perhaps forever—be best known for lacking those same qualities.

So, what does Al do with this prize? Wear it around his neck? Gore is meeting today with advisers to discuss how he will channel the new surge of publicity into the cause. One of those advisers told me the award will not change Gore's political calculation. He's just not running. If anything, the prize only puts more momentum behind his global-warming crusade. "It's a great honor for him," said the adviser, "but it's a bigger honor for the issue. It's huge for the issue. Think about how far things have moved in the last couple of years because of his work."

Of course, this could all change as his phone keeps ringing and the petitions to enter the election keep coming in. Many of those advisers helping him deal with the incoming praise, requests, and gold-plated sucking up—"a pleasant dilemma, indeed," as one put it—could certainly turn around in a moment and plot a political campaign.

Gore will have to face the toughest test of political instinct. His father used to joke that politicians usually listen to the one person in the room who wants them to run for higher office—ignoring the other 99 who are all saying, "Don't do it." Gore may now face the reverse situation. Petitions to draft Gore into the race are already circulating. What makes Gore such a powerful force in Democratic politics is that he is also emblematic of an entire set of arguments. For many, his rise is a natural rebuke of the current president, but it's also become a rebuke of the perverted political process in which style is rewarded over substance. This is an argument that Gore expands on and applies to policy in his recent book The Assault on Reason.

The latest polling in early September from CNN had Gore at 13 percent in the Democratic primary field. But polls this summer in Michigan and New Hampshire showed him nearly topping the Democratic field (though there are some questions about the methodology in Michigan and New Hampshire). The latest Gallup poll shows that while many in the Democratic Party may love him, the general picture is more mixed. Fifty percent of the country has a favorable view. Forty-two percent does not. These numbers are fairly meaningless, though, since the polls were taken before Friday morning's news.

There are many other reasons for Gore not to want to run. He is, by all accounts, happy. He's got a great life full of comfort and a stack of opportunities to do good while enjoying the comforts of fame and international renown. "He is now on a different path," his former top strategist Carter Eskew is fond of saying. Even the most popular politician in the world has to suffer through the drudgery of party dinners and frivolous symbolic speeches. Gore always hated that part of the job. Plus, to win the presidency, he'd have to fight Hillary Clinton—which would be ugly.

Even if Gore doesn't run, there will continue to be a race for his endorsement. Advisers say he might endorse, but he also might not. John Edwards put down the first marker for that. I got an e-mail from the Edwards campaign in the same 5 a.m. e-mail dump that brought the news alert that Gore had won. (As of 10 a.m., he was still winning the suck-up race, with no other competition among his rivals.)

For Gore's critics, today will be a day to rail, reiterating that global warming is a myth and the prize a purely political act. What did his actions have to do with peace? Is he really as great as Martin Luther King Jr., who also won the prize? The tide of popular sentiment will be against these naysayers. Some might have a point, but the majority of them will probably look lonely and bitter. They will be ridiculed for their obtuse views and maybe even parodied on Saturday Night Live as flat-earth wackos. They will, in short, have an opportunity to feel what it used to be like being Al Gore.

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John Dickerson is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. He can be reached at .
Photograph of Al Gore by Chris Radburn/PA.
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Remarks from the Fray:

Nobels, Pulitzers, Oscars, Cannes, who cares, you name it. They have all devolved to the point of silly attempts to bestow more moral momentum on some selected political viewpoint. These awards have little or nothing to do with actual merit or the standards for which they are supposed to be awarded, as has been pointed out ad nauseum each time one of these things is awarded. It slowly but irreversibly reduces the moral value of the award, just as the journalism industry slowly but surely sacrifices its credibility, its only asset, in pursuit of a political goal. The rest of the world sees all this as the obvious reinforcing echo chamber it is, and values it as such.

--Roger Rainey

(To reply, click here.)

While there is a small and vocal cadre of folks who are enthusiastic about Al Gore, it bears mentioning that Gore has managed to choose one of the worst possible issues to indelibly link with his name if he wants to make a serious run at the Presidency: the environment.

While unions are declining in significance as a political force in the Democratic Party, they still comprise the bulk of the 'foot soldiers' that make for effective election campaigns. Winning without the support of the unions as a Democrat is roughly equivalent to winning without the support of the evangelicals for the Republicans. And Gore-style environmentalism is a very tough sell for the unionized laborers who stand to lose good jobs if he pushes his issue too hard.

--Xando

(To reply, click here.)

I have to admit that part of me is rooting for Hillary to win the nomination and lose the election, which would rid the Democrats of the McAuliffe/Clinton machine for good and put Gore in a solid position for 2012. But another four years of Republican administration would damage the country beyond repair - if it's not already.

2008 will go down in history as the biggest missed opportunity this country ever had. With no clear successor in either party, and an angry electorate willing to make major changes and a strong break from the past, the Democrats could have put their best foot forward, someone truly progressive and visionary. They could have corrected the evil inflicted on the party and this nation by the Supreme Court in December 2000.

Those that say that Gore has an obligation to run have a point, but the larger point is that it's the Democratic Party's obligation to ask him to. He has earned the right to a consensus and an uncontested nomination within his party, and the fact that they don't recognize that isn't his fault.

But of course the Democrats aren't even taking advantage of their present position of power. The congressional Dems are running scared and cautious, not wanting to rock the boat for the 2008 nominee, not getting that rocking the boat is exactly what people want them to do. No congress in history was more obnoxious than the Republican congress under Clinton, and they got rewarded for it. The American people are ready for a president who's as radically, unapologetically left as Bush is on the right. And Gore isn't even particularly radical - he's just smart and reasonable and (now) unafraid to say what he really thinks.

It's been said we get the politicians we deserve. Perhaps we don't deserve Gore.

--kalaresh

(To reply, click here.)

There is no way Al Gore is running for President. The Democratic Party will not allow it. Though Gore is more qualified to run than any of the Democratic Party contenders currently in the race, the Party elite have already settled on a candidate, and we all know who she is. Right now Hillary Clinton is on a glide path to the nomination, and there is no way she is stepping aside. The Party does not want the knock-down drag-out fight that a Gore-Clinton race would play out to be, and I am sure that behind the scenes they are telling Gore's people he dare not run, or suffer the consequences. Though Gore would be a better candidate in the long run, he will not risk it. After all, in his current situation he remains popular without ever having to deliver on anything. He can continue jetting around the world making a fortune off of global warming, without ever actually doing anything to reverse it. Al has gone Hollywood, so now he can "Raise Awareness" all the way to the bank.

Al should run. But he won't. Running would take real courage. Instead, he will take the pious Jimmy Carter route, and wag his finger at everyone for the next twenty years. What a big help that will be.

--tjcerveza

(To reply, click here.)

If Bill Clinton-Al Gore was a compelling ticket in 1992, isn't Hillary Clinton-Al Gore more compelling now? As Veep, Gore can back his global mission with the full authority of the US government behind him. He also can lend his influence more directly to resolving Iraq, an issue he was right about both times it has arisen. And in running for Veep, rather than the Presidency itself, he would implicitly tuck his political ambitions behind those of Hillary. Think of him like Robert Duvall, rarely the guy with his name in bold above the title of the movie, but an Oscar winner who is likely to be a better reason to see the picture.

If you are the Democrat who wins the nomination, you would be crazy not to float this idea to Gore. Does any Democrat (other than Bill Clinton) have a more compelling resume than Al Gore right now? Would any candidate better bring out the base? For that matter, would any other possibility make as good a President should duty call?

And speaking of the Presidency, in 2016, Al Gore will only be 68.

--Rebelde

(To reply, click here.)

(10/12)

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