{"id":7346,"date":"2006-05-08T10:32:10","date_gmt":"2006-05-08T14:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7346"},"modified":"2006-05-08T10:32:10","modified_gmt":"2006-05-08T14:32:10","slug":"gore-speculation-heats-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/gore-speculation-heats-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Gore speculation heats up"},"content":{"rendered":"

The [tag]Wall Street Journal[\/tag]’s Jackie Calmes has what I believe is the first confirmation to date that [tag]Al Gore[\/tag] is considering<\/a> the [tag]2008[\/tag] [tag]president[\/tag]ial race.<\/p>\n

The demurrals aren’t persuasive to some Democrats, including former Clinton-Gore White House insiders. “I do know that he’s thinking about it. I know for a fact,” a former adviser says. “He’s talked to people about the pros and cons.”<\/p>\n

Among those said to be pushing Mr. Gore are billionaire venture capitalist and high-tech entrepreneur John Doerr and Laurie David, a global-warming activist and producer of the film, and wife of “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” creator Larry David. “When people see this movie, I know they’re going to see the real Al Gore, and they’re going to demand that he run,” Ms. David says. But, she adds, he changes the subject whenever it comes up, and had to be talked into making the movie when she pitched it.<\/p>\n

Mr. [tag]Gore[\/tag] has begun assembling a Nashville, Tenn.-based operation to help with the demands on his time. He has hired longtime friend and top aide Roy Neel to head the office, and environmental activist Kalee Kreider, from a Washington public-relations firm, to handle communications. Mr. Feldman says their work will focus on global warming, not on maneuvering for 2008.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To be sure, the article has all the requisite denials, but that quote from a former Gore advisor seems to suggest that the former VP, at a minimum, is open to the possibility and weighing his options.<\/p>\n

As the WSJ noted, publicity stemming from his movie, “[tag]An Inconvenient Truth[\/tag]<\/a>,” has put his face on the cover of The American Prospect, Wired, and Vanity Fair. Time recently named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people. “His star will never be higher than it is right now with his movie coming out,” Democratic consultant Karen Skelton, Gore’s former political director, said.<\/p>\n

But while this publicity might help encourage Gore to run again, it’s also a reminder of how much fun he’s having outside the political world. Tad Devine, a top Gore strategist in 2000 who hasn’t spoken with him lately, told the WSJ, “He’s in a really good place, and he’s succeeding fabulously. Why would he want to walk away from it all?”<\/p>\n

In all likelihood, Gore wouldn’t. It all comes down to whether he wants to be president and whether he believes he can win. At this point, neither question has a clear answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The [tag]Wall Street Journal[\/tag]’s Jackie Calmes has what I believe is the first confirmation to date that [tag]Al Gore[\/tag] is considering the [tag]2008[\/tag] [tag]president[\/tag]ial race. The demurrals aren’t persuasive to some Democrats, including former Clinton-Gore White House insiders. “I do know that he’s thinking about it. I know for a fact,” a former adviser says. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}