Does Moore heart Gore?

Michael Moore is someone you either love or hate, I think. His movies are intrusive and rude, but get at the truth one way or the other. You have to think that inside Moore is a good guy concerned with the path of the country.

Especially now. Read the article.

Live Earth party

AlGore.com sent me an email yesterday saying that he was trying to organize Live Earth parties for July 7. Paul and I jumped at the idea. If you live in the Framingham, MA area and want to have some fun on July 7, sign up!

Do bookies know the score?

It seems silly to even put bookies and presidential election in the same sentence, but sometimes they have their finger on America's proverbial pulse. Check out this story about Gore's chances of winning.

I'll take that as a challenge

Barrie Dunsmore thinks the grassroots movement to draft Gore won't happen, although he thinks it's just what the country needs. To quote:

My guess is that if the leading Democratic candidates all fell by the wayside for some reason or if there were some major national crisis and either of these things inspired a huge, grassroots "draft Gore" campaign, he could be persuaded to give it another try.

Frankly, he doesn't seem to think that is going to happen. And neither do I – even though he may well be exactly the kind of philosopher-king/president this country will sorely need to face the almost impossible task of being the next president of the United States.

The Time article

A few good reading/listening links:

• The Time cover article from May 16. The impetus, actually, of my starting this blog, although I've been contemplating it for months.
  
• Al's first podcast, with Time's Eric Pooley; "about his new book, The Assault on Reason, his crusade to stop global warming, recording a podcast for the first time, and the reasons he has been so careful not to rule out a presidential bid."
  
• A slideshow of Al's "American Life"

It's not just Americans

who want to see Al in the White House. Check out this article by UK Guardian writer Peter Preston. He very eloquently lays out a few really good points about why we need Al back in politics.

Gore diddy

A very nice diddy that plays on DraftGore.com. Take a listen. It's kinda catchy!

Who's with me?

I created this blog knowing full well that I was not the only person who wants Al in the office of the presidency. But I'm glad I can point to others of a similar interest, thanks to William Drenttel, who did my research for me.

1. AlGore.org
   
2. DraftGore.com
   
3. ThePetitionSite's Draft Gore petition
   
4. ElectGore2008.com
   
5. DraftGore2008.org

Additions to this list are more than welcome!

Gore and Geldof

Geldof cursed at Gore. Gore responded with respect. Not only respect, but gratitude for paving the way. Why isn't he the right guy for the Oval Office, again? Because I really can't name one reason.

He's too domestic -- what would happen when he tries to figure out America's role in the global community? I imagine he'd act pretty much like he did with Geldof.

Be sure to check out the Live Earth concerts on July 7.

Hope

He's too smart to rule anything out. He's certainly playing his cards like he's biding his time... Yet another story that points to the possibility that Al will finally get to serve the years we elected him for in 2000.

Global warming -- an optimist's view

As I keep saying when the weather is unseasonably cold here in Massachusetts: "Where is global warming when you need it?" I say this, of course, in utter jest, but there are some slight not-all-negative effects of global warming, as illustrated in this story. I'm glad the article has the decency to add: "This is all speculative, even a little facetious, and any gains are not likely to make up for predicted frightening upheavals elsewhere."

It's a family thing

It would be hard to ignore the influences of your dad's obsession (argue with that word if you'd like) if you were one of Al's daughters. So Kristin didn't. She co-wrote a documentary called Arctic Tale, narrated by Queen Latifah, this summer. Check out the story.

Quick summary for those who don't want to click (there's not much to read there anyway):

the lives of a female polar bear and a female walrus from birth to parenthood, and focuses on the Arctic climate changes supposedly brought on by global warming.

Supposedly? I thought we were beyond arguing the point, but whatever.

Cannes welcomes Al

He's in Cannes this week, it seems, taking a little break from the anti-Bush book and pushing instead his Live Earth concerts and environmental message (in general, I suppose).

I'm glad he's taking a little break. He's been hitting that proverbial pavement so hard for a month now; I wish him the best as he sits down with a few people to network, which is apparently the goal of the Cannes Lions 2007 54th International Advertising Festival:

Each year, over 10,000 visitors from the advertising and allied industries attend this event to celebrate the best of creativity across all media mix, discuss industry issues and network with one another. Over 25,000 ads from all over the world are showcased and judged at the Festival.

Al may even hit one of the screenings and get to (GASP!) relax for 2 hours. Not too much (wouldn't want to give any critics any reason to say he's past his prime and needs an afternoon snooze or anything of that ilk), but just a bit of a down time.

Sounds like the festival is also a great education tool for Al's Current TV.

Gore talks about Assault on Reason

Straight from his lips to your ears...

Hardball: Can Clinton be stopped?

So Clinton is up in the polls today. Big whoop. They'll change again tomorrow.

I can't figure out how to embed the video or even link to it, so I'll summarize. The Hardball video says basically that if Gore jumps in, Clinton's done for. If he doesn't, apparently, she'll get the Dem nod, but not win the election.

I'm listening to the audio in another window as I write this. I'm kind of yelling, I'm not afraid to admit, at the roundtable. They say that Hillary will get (all) the Democratic women votes. NOT SO! I know plenty of women who aren't going to vote for her. The fact that she owns breasts is not enough of a reason for a lot of intelligent people to join her bandwagon.

Also, why on Earth would the Dems nominate a candidate they don't think will win? At that point, the party's not in it for an extension of the public debate -- they're in it to get their guy (or gal, one of these days) in the White House.

Sorry, Hillary. Maybe in another 8 years.

So now we're reviewing forewords?

Apparently we are. The new (written last year, presumably right around the time he was working on Assault on Reason, Gore took a crack at redoing (and thus reprinting) his 1992 book, Earth in the Balance.

Read the review of the new foreward. I'm on page 50. It's hard to put the book down when I finally get a few minutes to read it. It's interesting reading the perspective from 15 years ago.

Robert Shrum's criticism of Gore

Shrum was the senior strategist for Al's 2000 presidential campaign. He's written a book called No Excuses. The specific criticism:

For instance, Shrum considered Al Gore to be well-suited to the presidency, but he criticizes him for tendencies to exaggerate on the stump and to appear uncomfortable in his own skin. Shrum also believes that Gore also "yielded too often to the temptation" to prove he was the smartest person in the room — which is not appealing to voters.

I think he's over that "uncomfortable in his own skin" issue -- just watch how he holds himself in his movie. As for the need to prove he's the smartest person in the room, why wouldn't you want this in a president? Obvious jokes about Bush notwithstanding, I kind of need my president to be a WHOLE LOT smarter than I am. People at the head of companies and countries need to be the smartest people in their respective rooms. How else can a society move forward, unless it is to have its leaders be smart?

Daily Howler's commentary on Dowd

Snarky. I like snarky. Read.

I'm sure this isn't the book's only point...

...and yet everybody seems to be talking about the way Gore dismisses entertainment news. So here's yet another post about it.

I think the people that criticize Gore are missing the point, as the aforementioned blog post points out. I don't think he's saying there's no place for entertainment news. I think he's saying that America shouldn't consider it the most noteworthy news and certainly shouldn't let it pass for political news. He's trying to engage Americans to get back into the conversation that matters. Because, let's face it, who got their Hollywood tummy tucked this week doesn't matter in the grand scheme of the world.

I'm not sure Gore's saying, "Let's do away with all frivolous entertainment," because, let's face it, everyone needs their vegging time, whatever that may mean to them. But he's saying, rather, let's put that junk in its place and consider it junk food, not filet mignon.

Gore Watch

A Google search on "Gore watch" yields a good blog post on how the media really doesn't even get Gore's message about them (dig on them?) in his Assault on Reason.

Reminds me a bit of Diane Sawyer's GMA question about his weight: "Down in Brazil, your former campaign manager has said, 'If he drops 25-30 pounds, he's running.' Lost any weight?" Gore laughed it off then said, "But listen to your question!" Nice slide, Al.

The winning ticket

will be Gore and John Edwards, I think. That's my prediction. Or hope. Or whatever you want to call it.

Barack's too junior, but will come into some major spotlight over the next 8-12 years. He's a great guy, believes all the right things, I ADORE his wife, but I think he's not tested enough to win. Give him a few years and you won't be able to NOT vote for him. I'd love for Barack to be our first African-American president; I think he just has to ripen first.

Hillary's too, well, Hillary. I think a great many people won't vote for her (thereby making the race closer than it has to be; the Dems don't want a close race) because she's dramatic and class, but not in a way that make people love her. Or, to put it another way, she's one of those women you love or hate and I'm not sure that is enough to stand up to whomever the Pubs put up. That being said, I think it's about freaking time a woman got this far into the race. She knows the ropes of the White House, which is a clear asset. I think her role in this election isn't to win the nod, though; I think she's in this election to shake up the election-weary voters and people who don't usually vote.

Who else do we know who knows the White House from the inside...? Lemme think... ;-)

Speaking of pontificating on the future, Paul (my fiance) thinks Gore will be pulled by his ears up to the stage at the Democratic National Convention and voted onto the ticket there. He thinks Al needs to be drafted. That being said, Paul's not known for his accurate predictions...

Why I think Fox News isn't worth the space the channel takes up on TV

NewsHounds (whose description is "We watch FOX so you don't have to") had an interesting post about how they are portraying Gore and the Iraq War and bending words around.

Thank you, NewsHounds.

And the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy host is...

You guessed it. Al Gore to present green awards. Seems appropriate... Now to get him some good jokes.

Just want to take this opportunity to examine the main "personal" complaint against him in this 2000 campaign -- that he was stiff. Watch his movie and you'll see a very animated, passionate, even comical man. Those who thought he was stiff weren't paying attention as closely as they should have been, I think.

And, by the way, even if he was (a great argument segue, I know!), what's wrong with a stiff president? So we elect Commander in Chief Goofball instead?! IMHO, if "stiff" is the worst thing you can call a man running for president, he's a guy you'll want in the office. At least he takes the job seriously.

Patriarch Bartholomew and Gore

He's everywhere lately -- an international foray into Turkey allowed Gore to talk to The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Patriarch Bartholomew, who Al referred to as the "green patriarch." Never before have I written that word three times in one sentence... the editor in me is embarrassed. ;-)

Why aren't more religious leaders getting into the environment discussion? It seems to my Lutheran mind that religion and taking care of the planet we're charged with protecting go hand-in-hand.

I feel like a little They Might Be Giants all of a sudden...

Smart PR

Public Relations Campaign Team for Al Gore’s Oscar-Winning Film ''An Inconvenient Truth'' Named Public Relations Professionals of the Year by the 31,000-Member Public Relations Society of America. And that's just the headline... I hardly need to expound, but I will just say that the "limited release" movie caught some sort of wonderful wind and blew through the country with just the right amount of scientific data and heavy-hitting argument that the nation needed to kickstart the mainstream's interest in solving the "climate crisis."

Incidentally, I'm familiar with PRSA and they run a pretty good ship. I've been to a Boston chapter's meeting and am personal friends with that subgroup's president for 2007. It's quite an award.

Lappe is baffled

Francis Moore Lappe wrote a review of The Assault on Reason, in which she claims that Gore has missed the boat by saying that wealth and democracy are enemies. I'll defer my opinion until I've read the book. I have a feeling, though, that I'll disagree with her...

Al on The Daily Show

Here's Al on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Whenever he's on, and he's the only guest they do this with, I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong), they cut out the middle sketch segment and give Al both the 2nd and 3rd segments of the show. They know how important he is... He was on last June, too. I have both episodes saved until forever on my Tivo. :-)



Again, I lifted it from Al's Journal.

Al on Good Morning America

In case you missed it, from May 21st:



To be fair, I stole the vid from Al's Journal.

What the hell was that question about how much weight he's lost at the end? Puh-lease. Al, I'm crying with you. Your point, as I understand it without having read your new book yet, is that the non-news has been made up to look like news; maybe Diane Sawyer should be made up to look like what she falls back to being -- a tabloid columnist. I applaud Al for his control with Diane.

Bypassing the 'filter'

I just saw this post by Time blogger Ana Marie Cox. The video is horrible -- really. Don't even waste your time clicking on the play button. But the post itself makes basically the same point I just made 2 posts ago. (I did, for the record, write my post before I saw Ana's. :-})

In the meantime...

Well, we all have our favorites as things stand right now. Mine is John Edwards. He has a few strikes against him, but I think he's got a great head on his shoulders and seems to know what the race is all about (he should, since this isn't his first bid for the White House) and how to get around the pitfalls. I think he's done a great job so far understanding how to get the word out about his message, including a YouTube channel (as many of the candidates have now), and a Web site that gets people involved, including links to his Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Flickr pages. His campaign gets it -- use the tools available to you and you can change how politics are run in America.

Gore's people are probably just absorbing and learning... and maybe (I hope!) picking a running mate as the months roll by. Be it John or someone else (Barack?), I trust Al and the people surrounding him to pick another winner.

How the world would be different

If you pay for an online subscription to the New York Times, you're in luck. As an abstract to the article:

Bob Herbert Op-Ed column on his interview with Al Gore, whom he calls perhaps most qualified person in country to be president; speculates on what might have been if Gore, who got most votes in 2000, actually became president; says his new book The Assault on Reason takes blowtorch to Bush administration; says Gore, asked why he is not running for president in 2008, says he lacks tolerance for triviality and artifice necessary in politics today; says he voices contempt for notion that important and complex matters can be seriously addressed in sound-bite sentences or 30-second television ads, which is how presidential campaigns are now conducted.

We know he's right, of course... we just hope he's not right about this forever, though. We're the ones who have to dictate, in this new media world, how we get the information we want. Why do we abide by the junk food approach to politics? Why do we refuse the meat and potatoes? Is it just too much work for us, as citizens? How sad... And how about we start to change that?!

This election will be different from the last one, and certainly worlds different from the election that Gore won in 2000. Social media, podcasts, blogs, YouTube, iTunes, self-publishing -- they've all taken a great tack in the political sphere. Isn't it about time the Internet-enabled citizens of this country start to take back what's ours? The message is no longer for the marketers of the world to dictate -- it's ours to control now.

Read The New Influencers if you want to be inducted into the social media realm. The book is aimed at business marketers, but why can't we apply those lessons to political "marketers" or to mainstream media? Why do the mainstream media outlets need to tell us what we need to learn about the candidates? Why are 30-second media bytes necessary anymore?

Full disclosure: The author of The New Influencers, Paul Gillin, is my fiance. It wouldn't take a lot of work to figure that out, but I thought I'd make it easier on you. :-)

Athens presentation of An Inconvenient Truth

Al's in Greece talking to them about how to save our planet. Spread the good word, Al! Read the article.

In all that he's involved with, he's still giving the speech himself to selected audiences. Let's hope he gets enough presenters trained (who can then teach other speakers) on the facts of the issue before we elect him next year, eh? I mean, er, before he tells us he's running and gets all wrapped up in the campaign.

Live Earth locations

So, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are in and will play in London. According to the MSNBC article, "Other shows are slated for New York; Tokyo; Shanghai, China; Johannesburg, South Africa; Sydney, Australia; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Hamburg, Germany; and Istanbul, Turkey."

Live Earth on all 7 continents

I was wondering how Gore and Co. were going to get people to play, not to mention attend, a concert on Antarctica, but they did it.

Mags go green

Do you think Gore just had really good timing, or do you think he really got the mainstream interested in saving the environment? >Read the article about green magazines.

New York Times review of Assault on Reason

"Al Gore has decided to lay it all on the line with a blistering assessment of the Bush administration." Read the review.

Your input, please!

I'll be the first to admit I don't have a really firm grip on the intricate goings-on of the national political scheme. I'm not a pundit or an analyst. I'm just a citizen, a Democrat, a woman.

I'm hoping that this site attracts people much smarter than me and gets them to talk to each other. Good comments will be pulled out for separate posts so that the dialogue can grow.

Al Gore has every reason in the world to be hesitant to re-enter politics. This country's systems kicked him where it certainly hurt in 2000. But I'd like to gather people above all that and let him know there are plenty of people who think he'd help our broken country and it's displacement in the global community.

Earth in the Balance -- Get it while it's still a deal!

If you don't have it already, go spend $3 for Earth In The Balance. Gore just updated the foreword last year; it was originally published in 1992. I plan to crack open my brand new copy just as soon as I have a few spare minutes.

Timing

as they say, is everything. As I see it, there's no need for Gore to declare anything at all right now, as most of the country already knows what he stands for and what his major areas of interest are. He would just be wasting his money and his energy.

What he's doing now -- building chatter about his new book, The Assault on Reason, stretching once again his political muscles, biding his time -- will get him where he needs to be (if not just where we need him) by January 2009.

Clinton foresees Gore in the race

Now even Bill Clinton thinks Gore will run. A Gore-Obama team sounds good, too.

Gore vs. Guiliani

Mock polls are unusual animals. This one pits Gore against Guiliani, with Gore winning 45% against the former NYC mayor's 42%. Here's a tidbit:

In a mock head-to-head, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton got 45 percent to Giuliani's 44 percent, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama tied Giuliani with 42 percent and former Vice President Al Gore, who also is not in the race, got 45 percent to Giuliani's 43 percent.

Welcome to GoreForPresidentNow.com!

I think the man needs a nudge from the people who support him and who back his policies. Let's show him that politics doesn't need to be a dirty word. Let's show him that he's the one we elected in 2000 and that it's high time he served as our president.