The push to get Gore to run heats up (The Draft Al Gore for Pres. Movement)

Boston Globe ^ | April 4, 2007 | Scot Lehigh

[Red Steel]

They've found their candidate.

They've got volunteers.

They've put up a website. Several of them, in fact.

They are raising money for ads.

Signatures are pouring in. Across the country, meetup groups are said to be, well, meeting up.

They are the faithful trying to lure Al Gore into the presidential race, the people behind sites like DraftGore.com and Mass4Gore.com.

Things are going well, they aver -- at least as far as they can tell.

How big is the effort? Hard to say.

"We have 12,000 or so on our signup list," says Monica Friedlander, an Oakland, Calif., communications manager who works regularly on the effort.

Interest surges each time Gore makes it into the headlines in a big way.

He's done that twice recently, first in February, when "An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary about Gore's long efforts to spur the country to action against global warming , took home an Oscar. Last month, he made national news when he urged Congress to address the issue.

"The traffic picked up tremendously in the weeks before and after the Oscars, and it spiked in a very similar way after his Congressional testimony," says Friedlander.

Certainly the petition the group has posted is also attracting more and more signatories. Its message is pithily summed up in the first few lines: "Dear Vice President Gore: Americans from every corner of our nation are calling on you. Please listen to our plea and run for the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States in 2008."

"We were at 25,000 sometime in January," Friedlander says. "Now we are at 64,000. We hope in another couple of months to hit 100,000 and hopefully take it to a tipping point where it starts growing fast by itself."

In pursuit of that tipping point, the group

[neverhillorat]

Want to hear a joke? ALGORE

[Neu Pragmatist]

Ha ! Do it Fat Albert !

[mkjessup]

Hey Al?

Stay out of small planes, especially Beechcraft King Air A100s, ok?

[stillonaroll]

Run, Al, run! The Green Party needs you.

[Ieatfrijoles]

12,000 in Oakland that know how to sign their name? Put up the INQUIRY sign. The stewards are gonna have to take a look at this.

[bruinbirdman]

What’s the URL of that petition? I want to sign it.

[bruinbirdman]

Draft Al Gore for President in 2008 Petition

[I see my hands]

He detests waste-girl too much to chance being humiliated by her. And even if he got the nomination.. after a second failing they will actually tattoo the letter "L" on his forehead.

Nah, he knows defeat when he smells it and he likes things fine just the way they are.

As if I have any idea, lol.

[volunbeer]

I’d like to sign it also. I think Gore scares almost as many people as Hillary.

[SmoothTalker]

I will gladly sign. I would love for that idiot to get into the race. It could only help us.

[napscoordinator]

I don’t want him to run. He is the in guy right now. Lost by a small amount and the way the country is going, he could be elected. Why FREEPERS don’t understand this is beyond me. Just because we don’t like the guy does not mean that the rest of the country does.

[Brad from Tennessee]

If Gore runs he will delay announcing as long as is prudently possible. Currently he is getting priceless publicity. School kids are forced to watch his movie, he appears on the Weather Channel on a weekly basis, HBO is now showing “Update with former Vice President Al Gore”—updating his movie. He’ll milk the run-up to the Nobel Prize. Once he announces, FEC rules will put a damper on a lot of this and the news media will have to treat him as a candidate—running against their anointed goddess—rather than as a crusader. Late last year USA Today ran a highly critical op-ed on Gore that showed his links with Occidental Petroleum, his anti-Green past and extravagant lifestyle. NYT ran a piece a few weeks ago questioning the “science” behind Gore’s movie. Even the Nashville Tennessean has run stories lately about Gore’s astronomical electric bills and his zinc mine. I think these were warnings from the media to Gore to stay out of the race. If Gore jumps in he upsets the whole apple cart. Gore and Hillary could cancel each other out and either Obama or Edwards could get the nomination. Anything could happen.

[highlander_UW]

I don’t want him to run. He is the in guy right now. Lost by a small amount and the way the country is going, he could be elected. Why FREEPERS don’t understand this is beyond me. Just because we don’t like the guy does not mean that the rest of the country does.

It's the green party that's looking to draft him...if he runs on a green ticket he'll split the dem vote...that, and the guy is insane seem enough to reduce his chances of actually becoming president.

[MHT]

Isn’t Nader thinking of running Green again?

[hosepipe]

American women are glaringly dumb enough to want Hitlery as president BUT NOT DUMB enough to want Al Gore.. Al Gore hasn’t got a ghost of a chance even though he sounds gay.. He has that sissy queer sound to his voice..

[MHT]

I was at lunch last week with two liberal women who were bemoaning the "awful" war in Iraq and "oh, the corruption!" at justice. Then they went on and on about how awful it would be if Hillary and Obama destroyed each other. That might lead to Edwards winning the nomination, and they "just didn't know".... Oh, the problems of being a liberal Dem when there's nothing there but personalities.

At that point, I mentioned that I heard there was someone else who was thinking of running, and I just couldn't remember who it was. They got all excited--Oh, who? A couple of minutes later, I said, "I remember now. It's Al Gore." They both lost their enthusiasm and one said, "Well, he'd have to lose alot of weight first." And they both laughed.

In other words, I don't think that even liberals take him seriously.

[highlander_UW]

He may be, I don’t know...but last I read it was the Greens and not the dems that was calling for Gore. I suppose the dems are happy with Hillary and Obama...isn’t that scary?!

[SAJ]

Great comment!!

Reprise it again during Kentucky Derby week, won't you please!

[jonrick46]

This is the dream ticket—for the Republicans! If this narcisist, Gore runs, the electorate will not tolerate what carbon trading will do to their lives.