{"id":9311,"date":"2006-12-12T09:44:40","date_gmt":"2006-12-12T14:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9311.html"},"modified":"2006-12-12T09:44:40","modified_gmt":"2006-12-12T14:44:40","slug":"gore-opens-the-08-door-a-crack-says-i-havent-completely-ruled-it-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/gore-opens-the-08-door-a-crack-says-i-havent-completely-ruled-it-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Gore opens the ’08 door a crack, says ‘I haven’t completely ruled it out’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In May, Time magazine reported<\/a> that [tag]Al Gore[\/tag] has been “quietly telephoning some of his biggest fund raisers and telling them to feel free to sign on with other potential candidates.” Gore asked these donors to get the word out, instructing, “Tell everybody I’m not running.”<\/p>\n

A week later, [tag]Gore[\/tag] told<\/a> the NYT’s Adam Nagourney, “I wanted it, and it was not to be.” He added, “Why should I run for office? I have no interest in running for office. I have run for office. I have run four national campaigns. I have found other ways to serve my country, and I am enjoying them.”<\/p>\n

Gore sounded pretty Shermanesque. Now he sounds a little different<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Al Gore is waging a fierce campaign for recognition and an Oscar statuette for his global warming documentary, while reviving talk that he’s pursuing a bigger prize: the presidency. […]<\/p>\n

“I am not planning to run for [tag]president[\/tag] again,” Gore said last week, arguing that his focus is raising public awareness about global warming and its dire effects. Then, he added: “[tag]I haven’t completely ruled it out[\/tag].”<\/p>\n

Those words make Gore the 800-pound non-candidate of the Democratic field.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That seems like an entirely fair description. If Gore throws his hat into the ring, he enters the race as an obvious top-tier candidate and, in all likelihood, the frontrunner for the nomination. There was widespread consternation going into 2004 that Gore might run again — a prospect, at the time, to which many Dems were opposed — but those concerns have largely disappeared. Gore’s stature as a Democratic hero has grown considerably since.<\/p>\n

I’m just not sure about the rest of the country.
\n
\nI think many key players in the party and in the blogosphere have seen Gore become one of the leading — if not the<\/i> leading — progressive voice in the nation. But has the rest of the electorate been as impressed as we’ve been? Perhaps not.<\/p>\n

Just a couple of weeks ago, Quinnipiac released its national “Thermometer<\/a>” survey, which gauged the relative popularity of major political figures. (Respondents were asked to rate leaders 0 to 100 on a “feeling thermometer,” with the highest numbers reflecting the warmest feelings.) Gore’s popularity was lukewarm, at best.<\/p>\n

Gore didn’t do too terribly well. Of the 20 political figures in the survey, Gore did only slightly better than George W. Bush (44.9 to 43.8.), and trailed other likely ’08 candidates (Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Richardson) by quite a bit.<\/p>\n

My suspicion is that politically-engaged Americans have seen and heard Gore quite a bit the last couple of years — giving inspiring speeches, starring in an amazing movie, writing a best-selling book, taking the national lead on a series of progressive issues — and have been impressed. Politically-engaged Americans, however, are in the minority. A lot of other people still have six-year-old impressions of the former VP.<\/p>\n

Now that Gore seems to be opening the door just a crack, he’ll have to consider whether a) those people who haven’t seen much of him since 2000 can be won over; b) whether he wants to try; and c) whether he’ll be willing to endure media jokes about Al Gore 3.0.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In May, Time magazine reported that [tag]Al Gore[\/tag] has been “quietly telephoning some of his biggest fund raisers and telling them to feel free to sign on with other potential candidates.” Gore asked these donors to get the word out, instructing, “Tell everybody I’m not running.” A week later, [tag]Gore[\/tag] told the NYT’s Adam Nagourney, […]<\/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-9311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9311","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=9311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}