Al Gore won. He won an Oscar, he won an Emmy, and he won the presidency (if you still believe in democracy).
Now he has won the Nobel Peace Prize, the most well-regarded award on the planet. What’s next? The man could sing a duet with Britney Spears and win a Grammy. He has the experience, spending a large part of his life fighting to clean up trash.
In the end, though, Bush will receive the greatest standing ovation. The day he packs his bags and walks through the White House doors for the last time, the world will simultaneously applaud for an hour.
I can only hope Gore will be there to change the welcome mat in the front. And this time, it might actually have the word “welcome” on it.
Gore met with advisors on Friday to discuss how to best use his Nobel to help the cause of global warming. Afterward, he adamantly stated that his political future remains the same. He will not run for the presidency — regardless of petitions, phone calls, and the pleading of one small writer at a college newspaper.
The big question now is, “Why not?”
Draftgore.com, a grassroots liberal group, published an ad in The New York Times on Oct. 10 imploring him to take one for the team. The ad stated:
“You say you have fallen out of love with politics, and you have every reason to feel that way, but we know you have not fallen out of love with your country. And your country needs you now — as do your party and the planet you are fighting so hard to save.”
The party needs Al. The current front runner, Hillary Clinton, is a terrible mess of contradictions. She has become a staunch critic of the war in Iraq, yet was a sheep-like supporter from 2002 to 2005, and even walked parallel to Sen. John McCain when he advocated a large military escalation.
Clinton now speaks passionately about universal health care, but it is hard to listen to her words with the gorilla of health care contributions scratching itself behind her.
By contrast, history will show that Gore, the enemy of the people, was vocally against the war from the very beginning. Unlike other politicians, he took a moral flu shot and avoided the fever of the time. On September 23, 2002, he unflinchingly argued against the Bush Doctrine and its jingoistic unilateralism.
Gore may have been boring, but he was never blind.
He also has one of the most powerful arguments for running — he is the only American alive who has won the national popular vote for President, but never walked through the White House doors as president.
When the vote was close in 2000 and the following months were a political feud, I, like many Americans, wished Gore would just sit down and be a good loser. Really, would it make that much of a difference in our lives one way or the other?
Time has proven it has. America is a mess, and much of it can be tracked directly to a few Florida votes.
No one can blame Al Gore for not running again. He is a man who has devoted his life to educating people on cleaner living, and politics is a mud-slinging, bare-knuckled brawl.
I, for one, wish he would. There are millions of Americans who want to see their nation through clear eyes again, and an Al Gore nomination would clean our lenses. It would correct the historic injustice of the past eight years.
As Al Gore has stated, America is entering a period of consequences.
The conclusion in the Draftgore.com letter says it all:
“Mr. Vice President, there are times for politicians and times for heroes. America and the Earth need a hero right now — someone who will transcend politics as usual and bring real hope to our country and to the world. Please rise to this challenge, or you and millions of us will live forever wondering what might have been.”
They’re right. I will always wonder what might have been — whether Al Gore runs or not.
