Seems to me that Gore is just biding his time while the other six dozen candidates fight it out amongst themselves (when they can stop agreeing with each other on everything, anyway). Where's the real benefit in declaring himself a candidate this far away from the election? America already knows what Al Gore is all about, so he doesn't need to expose himself to the endless chatter and media criticism that the others have to face on a daily basis. He keeps popping up on talk shows or interviews every couple of weeks, just enough to keep his name out there and stir up some interest. When the moment is right, and the herd has thinned out a bit, my feeling is that he'll enter the race and immediately become one of the top two or three frontrunners amongst the Dems. He's already won one presidential election, and I think he'd immediately gain the support of at least the 51% who voted for him the first time around, plus countless defections from former Grand Oil Party voters who have seen enough and independents who were silly enough to take Bush at his word last time.

Or maybe I'm just hoping that's how it happens...

I think he was deeply hurt, as many of us were, by the Supreme Court's supreme error of giving the election to the catastrophic "president", George W. Bush.

The people voted for Gore, but the elitist neoCons on the court, all 5 of them, overruled the people.

Gore is getting over the hurt, anger, indignation, and is coming to grips with it.

He will run so we can reboot the American operating system. The neoCon virus crashed our good system.

I'd vote for Al, I'm just afraid that they'll kill the poor with pollution controls.
California: 300 dollar tabs, spend up to 500 bucks fixing before you get an exemption.

Florida: 36 bucks

Brad said:

"But with Democrats sure to take a well-deserved pummeling for their ill-considered capitulation to Bush over Iraq War funding ..."

As well they should!

But so should any republicans who voted not to end the invasion, occupation, genocide, and the murder of innocents for oil in Iraq.

Any opportunity I have to remove war mongering democrats or republicans I WILL!!

To be taken in by "support the troops or not by your vote" was and is a brain dead canard that only the most perverse of humanity would cave in to.

Any movement from today on into the '08 election that targets democrats and republicans who voted to continue the debacle in Iraq by not voting to stop it cannot speak words that will reach my hearing.

I don't get it. Many of the top CEO's in the Country have begged him to run. The will of the people is for him to run...80% according to CNN.

It seems to me if he does not announce soon he is blowing his chance.

Also, he said a very disturbing thing Larry King..."Why should I run I'm enjoying my life" That was a very telling comment to me as you don't run for your self you run for the PEOPLE.

Because we need the best man for the job. We need Gore.

Would like to see Al run. Problem is, is he part of the DLC crowd?

We need a man of Al Gore's integrity to lead this nation. He knows that and will capitulate to the demands when the time is right.

Don't think he will run, doesn't want the hassle.

Here in Nashville, where Al lives about 3 miles from my house (his is a little bigger and a little more environmentally friendly...) we don't think he'll run.
Right now he can focus on global warming, which he sees as his issue, and he can ignore the rest of the nation's and the world's intractable problems, and he can still be recieved as if he were the Prez by many of the world's people.
And it's a lot more fun (and profitable) living like he does now than running for prez.
We all think (and often hope) that he could still be drafted...

shw

I say maybe, or i hope so, for the reasons above, with emphasis on the fact that we elected him once. i THINK he could just be my choice in the primary, but i could be fantasizing again. He would have many allies, and does. Some say he caved to the supremely rapturous court, but he says he had nowhere left to go. what a feeling!
i wouldn't blame anyone for not going through that torture, jumping into that snake pit, once, even...
do it Al, do it!

We need a leader...someone with integrity to clean up the mess in DC....have investigations that lead to conclusions not cover ups....

While I'd like to hear what he has to say as a candidate, I think he would be making more than a few enemies in the party if he jumps in late.

Sorry - last comment should say - Brad in Seattle - not THE Brad

Gore is ‘running’ his campaign in a new, nontraditional, creative way for this highest of offices/a dream of his….without all the funding, staff, security, interference from media, talking heads, scrambling for office space, all the while being out there in the public, around the world, with his Oscar winning movie, global warming slides (from the 1000 people selected to present them around the country while educating folks), visits to talk shows, TV appearances, lectures, maybe a Nobel Peace Prize in October, appearances getting his NEW book out there, opening MC for Tribecca Film Festival, and the upcoming JULY 7/07 on 7 continents LIVE EARTH concerts.

What fun is THAT!!!….certainly a new way to get his name out there, keep it out there, and have none of the hassles of doing things the old way. How refreshing! He's getting things DONE, instead of languishing in a weak-kneed, rudderless Democratic Congress thinking they're getting bills completed only to be vetoed, having hearings and investigations that don't come to conclusions/indictments/expressions of the will of the American people.....AND don't begin the IMPEACHMENT of Bush/Cheney for war crimes; abandonment of the people & the environment; torture; spying; and illegal, corrupt practices of stealing elections. HELLO!

Yes, I think he'll definitely run! America is imploding, and he knows he can’t stand by and watch that happen. I predict it will be August….still plenty of time, folks! Take a breath, slow down and realize he doing things differently & rationally AND there will be an avalanche of support from NH when this happens…after all, plenty of folks here see New England's carbon footprint-ranked-4th in the world-as a HUGE problem. We can't imagine NH without snow, skiing, maple syrup, those colorful, turning leaves, and sparkling summer cool evenings on the lake!

We need only concern ourselves right now with WHO among these candidates would best fit with him as his VP on domestic issues and carry a Gore administration to resounding heights with courage, integrity, wit and creative ideas! Put your energy into WHO you could help NOW to bring their QUALITIES to complement Gore's moral imperative. America needs healing & leadership from the inside out to the world and Gore is THE MAN to do it.

I think he will run. I would if i was treated like that back when i first tried and WON (but still got shot down by The Powers That Be). On the other hand he expressed that he would not run, that he feels complacent right now.

So, for the first time in US history, the next president may be choosen based on the weather. If 2007 sees a lot of hurricanes, draughts, snowstorms etc. i guess Mr. Gore will be "pressed into service", grabbing him by his morality and sense of duty. And if the 2008 hurricane season has only one storm like Katrina (even if it not hits) and Mr. Gore made his position and plans on global warming clear to the public he will be sweept into office.

Because, although the US population is not very enlightend, even the dumbest redneck understands the his taxbreaks, anti-gay laws and church incentives are absolutely worthless when his house is blown away, his wife drowns and his children and grandchildren will hate him for what he did and did not do...

I think Al Gore is the only democrat who can win the election even if electronic vote tampering is still going on in 2008. He won the popular vote in 2000 and Florida as well, only the supremes interfered before that could be proven. I also believe that Kerry won in 2004, but that the results were overturned electronically - it's the only explanation for the great disparity between the exit polls and the final outcome. I want to have the president we should have had in 2000. We need someone with intelligence and integrity like Al Gore. I voted that he will be a candidate because I HOPE that he will, for the sake of our great nation and the rest of the world. I also hope that, with the help of great people like Brad Friedman, by 2008 we won't have to be concerned about election results being fiddled electronically anymore. Thank you for your tireless efforts, Brad.

Gore's data on the environment has been disputed by well known scientists. He wants to tax everyone heavily to pay for what may not even be a controleable issue. Pollution is a real issue, but as to global warming, its causes are still to be determined. But, meanwhile the looming tax.......I think he's a phony and just as bad as the rest of the capitulating Dems. Someone should ask him if he'd reopen an investigation of 9/11, now that's the litmus test of any presidential candidate. Would he send govt. collegues to jail? Probably not. Check out Ron Paul who would.

I think Gore is really hesitant to enter the race, given his experience in 2000 and the importance, celebrity, and fun he is having now. But neither Clinton, Obama, nor any other candidate in the Democratic field seems particularly impressive, and Gore's patriotism and concern for the issues in this crucial time, plus the fact that he would be far and away the most credible Democratic choice, will ultimately cause him to run.

My yes vote was composed mostly of hope, because I really do not have any insider information that would support a yes vote that Gore will run.

The dems hurt themselves and all advocates of war sanity this week, and thereby they hurt the presidential candidates. I mean, those candidates will get closer scrutiny due to less trust now. That will hurt Hilary more than Obama. Biden is toast IMO.

Gore would bring a better chance of the dems taking the presidency. Which is the only way this Iraq war will end now, as we have just seen. And Gore will have the strength of character to stand up to the neoCons.

As it stands now, I would vote for Gore or Kuchinich or Obama, in that order. But I could not support anyone who voted for the war at any time.

So, I offer zero criticism of anyone who voted no, your vote is absolutely just as valid.

I think the real question isn't "Do we think he will run?" but rather, "Do we want him to run, and will we vote for him if he does?".

These last few years, He's been showing us what a TRUE leader does, illustrating problems and presenting solutions, giving us (and Congress) the courage to make "unpopular" decisions, that turn out to be what everybody wanted to begin with, but no elected figure had the balls to say: Iraq was a distraction and a assured debacle from the get-go (Sept. 23, 2002, http://www.commonwealthc...02/02-09gore-speech.html), Bush is a growing fascist threat (okay, my words, not his!) (Nov. 9, 2003), and of course, Global Warming is the REAL problem (twenty years ago!).

Gore is a true leader, but as others have pointed out, he's been burned badly, and he understands that the fixing our nation needs will require such dramatic changes that he will need a mighty mandate to get them to happen, and for that, he will need to be DRAGGED into this election, by popular demand.

There is a true grass-roots Draft Movement growing up around him currently, because there are a LOT of people who feel he won before, and he is even more compelling now. If you feel strongly that he SHOULD run, join up, say so, and I am sure at the end of the day, he will answer the call.

Mac Hathaway

Mass4Gore.org
DraftGore New England (DraftGoreNE.com) (my site, needs updating!)
DraftGore.com
AlGore.org

Gore has said in the past that if Hillary ran, he would too. The only way that statement makes sense is he doesn't think the Clintons are good for US. I agree with him on that. Ron Paul is looking better to me. Got a feeling I don't know the whole story on him.

Pam says he'll announce in July.

I'm just saying...

He will run if we the people persuasively and energetically draft him.

Gore has made it abundantly clear. He isn't running, period! We need to stop asking about someone who isn't a candidate and carefully examine the ones who are. We need to stop being passive consumers who are sold the so-called "electable" candidates, code words for corporatist candidates who will not take on the military industrial complex and the neoliberal global project embodied in NAFTA and the WTO. Compare where candidates stand on issues that truly matter to the vast majority of the electorate--the middle and working classes--by examining what they say or don't say on their web sites. I think you will find that Dennis Kucinich, on issue after issue, is head and shoulders above the rest.

Gore will run. HE WILL WAIT UNTIL SEPTEMBER OR OCTOBER (NOBEL PEACE ANNOUNCED). The dots are there, just connect them. Timing of Oscars, his new book and the Nobel Prize.
Just look at what the National News Media did to him after appearing before Congress last month to testify on global warming. First page in both NY Times and Washington Post, calling him a "failed candidate for President". They hate him. The longer he can stay away from formally announcing, the better off he will be.

He will run, he will win and I hope he takes Wesley Clark with him as VP. Together,they will clean up Iraq, restore honor and morality to this country and return it to a Constitutional Republic as intended by our Founders.

I said "I don't know" while hoping he does run.

I don't know, because I think Al is torn. And I understand that. I know he and his family were personally crushed after the 2000 debacle. But I know he's a good man who loves his country, and would make he sacrifice if he thought it was the only way.

I hope he does run. If he does, I would hope that all the people now urging him to run will stand firmly behind him, and stand up for him when the media tries to do what they did to him in the 2000 elections...silly things like earthtones, the faux "I invented the Internet," etc. ad nauseum. If he runs, we have to call he media on it, loudly and publicly, EVERY TIME they print or broadcast stupid lies. (Yes, I'm talking to YOU, Maureen Dowd. And you, Margaret Carlson. And Tweety, and the rest of you)

I voted yes - partly out of hopefulness, partly out of my belief that we the people will demand it of him and he, good citizen that he is, will agree, albeit with reservations. Of all people, Al Gore can see how badly the American people and, indeed, the people of the world, need him in the White House, undoing the depredations and destruction wrought by the worst president ever.

The savage press certainly show they aren't Liberal.

I don't know if Gore will run, but he keeps saying he doesn't 'anticipate running'. That sounds a little more on the 'not running' side to me.

We await the final word from "Big Al".

I would desperately love to see Hillary or Obama in the White House --- to have a (choke on cliche) 'benchmark' in history to show that our country could accept a minority as president.

But, I still feel the anger of being cheated by the criminals who pushed our true president aside in 2000. I feel such a surge of joy to think that we could put Gore where he belongs and bring 'integrity' back to the Oval Office! A Gore/Clinton ticket or a Gore/Obama ticket would be doubly thrilling.

Of course, putting any democrat into the White House seems impossible when the republicans have destroyed our election system...

I don't think he'll run; instead, like Jimmy Carter, I think he used the Office as a stepping stone to better things.
A draft is a possibility, and if we had fewer qualified candidates I think it would have happened already, but I don't sense the will or the fervor out there.
Too bad: I'd SO like to see a GORE/DEAN ticket romp home

I voted Yes, then read the comments. I see plenty of company in the "I voted yes mainly because I HOPE Al runs".

If he does not run, I am going to go with Edwards.

I want someone who gets the fact that the right thing to do is get us out of Iraq. And I'm not convinced that Obama or Hillary get it.

I also voted yes and hope The Goracle will run. I heard something interesting last night on the tweety show. It seems Gore has been talking to Bloomberg of New York about a crossover ticket. The journalist (Sorry can't remember which one) said that Bloomberg would run on the independent ticket and Gore on the dem ticket, but when push comes to shove that they would collaborate for a whole new approach to a presidential campaign. I just don't trust any of the current dems running, except mavbe Gravel but he is as old as McCain. Kucinich also but with his New Age rhetoric he turns a lot of people off. It seems that the truthsayers that run for truth and putting America first are treated as nuts in the cmsm. All I know is that if Gore does run I will work my ass off to get him elected. Happy Memrial Day to all Patriots of this country and especially to all the faithful here at Brad Blog! Support our Troops Bring Them Home NOW! Peace.... Oh and ITMFsA!

It really doesn't matter who runs or wins. Your system
is so corrupted by $$$ that you should rename your country Bot and Payed 4!!!!

While I think he could win, I have my doubts. His long association with Armand Hammer and Occidental, the compromises on the environment, labor rights, and other key democratic issue make me uneasy. He talks the talk, but once in office will he follow through? I remember how often I was disappointed with Clinton--he said the right things, but when it came time to make decisions, too often those decisions came down in support of the DC insiders and big business.

The only candidate I have respect for and who I believe would follow through on his talk is John Edwards. If Gore decides not to run, and Edwards does well in the early primaries, then perhaps a grass roots campaign will begin to build behind him. Listen to what he has to say versus Obama and Clinton. He and Richardson would make a combination that could win and change the course of the nation.

I don't know. Neither does he. But I hope he does.

Hey Al,
I think Cynthia McKinney would make an excellent VP. Let's get that all over with, with one fell swoop!

I think Al Gore is not running because:
1. He is not ego-driven
2. He doesn't have to be the "most powerful man" in the world
3. He HAS a nice life
4. He knows what a crock American politics is
5. He had it right when he told Jon Stewart that the line between news and entertainment has been blurred by the media (do ANY of us know what the TRUTH is anymore?)
6. He can be of greater service outside the D.C. web
7. He can say whatever he feels like saying without worrying about not getting donations from "big money" corporations who insist on something in return
8. He is intelligent and actually thinks before he speaks
9. He is a nice guy
10. The country is better served by someone who has been behind the closed doors and can share with the rest of us what he knows.

Mike, #34:

Tsk, tsk, tsk. That should have been "bought and paid for." Oh yeah, and that was a stupid and trite comment that added little to the discussion. We are trying to fix that which you bitch about, bitch. Gore is free at this point. He has no master, other than himself and his conscience.

A bot is an invasive insect and payed is in reference to renumeration for services rendered. Large multinationals have infested the system and now they are being payed back for their investment in the so called representatives of the people.
It is truely sad that your great country which was once a beacon of hope in the world is now universally reviled.
What happened?

Gore won't run because most people know his solutions aren't real solutions. At his best, Gore spreads awareness, that's it. Here's an example:

You are not helpless in the fight against global warming. Gore goes inside a Lowe's Home Improvement store outside Nashville, Tennessee, to show you the five things you can buy that will help solve the climate crisis…and save you a few bucks!

Compact fluorescent light bulbs: These energy-efficient bulbs cost less than $4 and are produced by major corporations like GE. If every household in America switched five regular lightbulbs for five fluorescent bulbs, it would be the equivalent of taking 1 million cars off the highways for a full year.

Outdoor solar lighting: These yard or patio lights cost less than $20, and they don't burn any electricity or produce any CO2.

Programmable thermostats: Though these thermostats cost from $50 to $100, they can actually cut your heating and cooling costs. Set the setting so it's a little bit cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer when you're not in the house. A difference of 2 degrees can reduce a home's CO2 emissions by up to 9 percent over the course of a year.

Air filters: Changing the air filters in your heating and cooling systems regularly can knock 2 percent off of your CO2 output each year.

Electric hot water heater blanket: Hot water heaters use a lot of energy and generate a lot of CO2. A blanket costs less than $18 and can cut your home's CO2 emissions by almost 4 1/2 percent.

Gore says that when you're shopping for major home appliances, look for the Energy Star label. "This is a signal that you're getting an environmentally efficient appliance that's going to save you money at the same time," he says.

Nothing about oil...interesting. Sure I'll vote for him...he is totally out of touch with the real changes we need to continue the human race, and he promotes our current "bigger, better, faster, more" ideals while gently speaking about their repercussions as if they don't apply to him. The only reason he might actually get elected is because he supports the psychosis held by most Americans that suburbia will survive peak oil.

Remember the A-Team...Gore's the Face Man

I don't think he will run, though I frankly would like him to. He doesn't seem intrested. And although he has never given a straight yes or no, he has strongly hinted indirectly many times that he has no interest in getting into the poitical circle again.