[The Montreal Gazette, Canada]

Liberation, France

Why Al Gore is 'Up

Against the Wall' …

"It was as if the Norwegian committee had an ulterior motive: to embarrass President Bush and propel his unfortunate rival of 2000 into the White House. … but there are some wounds that never heal. Another electoral failure would be too heavy a price to pay."

By New York Correspondent Isabelle Duriez

Translated By Elise Nussbaum

October 14, 2007

France - Liberation - Original Article (French)

Will Al Gore run for President? No sooner had the Nobel committee announced that it was awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the former U.S. Vice-President and the U.N. Panel on Climate Change, than the question was on everyone's lips. It was as if the Norwegian committee had an ulterior motive: to embarrass President Bush and propel his unfortunate rival of 2000 into the White House. Al Gore, who has never completely ruled out running, now finds himself up against the wall: He must choose between benefiting from his new stature to continue to promote the battle against global warming, or return to the political arena and use his voice to engage the United States from the White House.

This dilemma is remarkable for a man who left Washington in the wake of George W. Bush's victory broken, discouraged and jeered by his own supporters. After the weeks-long vote recount in Florida, Bill Clinton's Vice President finally lost after the Supreme Court decision to declare the governor of Texas the winner. The Democrats have still not forgiven him for conducting a boring, even soporific campaign. So Gore therefore packed his bags for Nashville, Tennessee.

Freedom of tone. It was a salutary exile, since he returned with a youthful passion that at 59-years-of-age won him the Nobel Prize. Diving into his old files and fond of science and technology, he dug out the dusty slide show on global warming which he had presented as early as 1989. His passion for the environment isn't new: This he owes it to his Harvard professor Roger Nevelle, the first scientist to have monitored the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Elected to Congress in 1976 at age 28, first as representative then as a senator from Tennessee, he organized the first Congressional hearings on the climate in 1981. In 1992 after writing the best-selling Earth in the Balance, he was preparing to make a documentary when Bill Clinton called on him.

And there he was again in 2001, in front of his slides, the man who was so proud of having predicted the Internet revolution. The slideshow became an hour-long presentation, the chair he set up to demonstrate a rise in CO2 levels has been replaced by an elevator. He toured campuses and was soon filling halls in Japan and China. Then in Hollywood, passionate eco-activist Laurie David proposed making a film out of it. No one would bet on it. After all, who would go to see a documentary full of numbers presented by the "pedantic" Al Gore? The success of An Inconvenient Truth was like a bolt from the blue. Americans has discovered both the dangers of global warming and another Al Gore. The one talking about rising sea levels and the greenhouse effect is as passionate, engaged and witty as the Presidential candidate was awkward, stiff and cold. "Hello, I'm Al Gore and I used to be the next President of the United States," he jokes to his audience. "But there's no real or fake Al Gore," he explained at the time. "I'm just freer now."

Far from the political consultants and opinion polls that devoured him in 2000, Al Gore has found a freedom of tone that he cherishes even more now that people are listening. When he is accused of not having spoken out on the environment during his campaign, he replies, "I feel that I spoke out frequently, but the media wasn't convinced that it merited attention." Since the release of the film, he has trained over 1,200 people to present his report, and last summer he organized a series of rock concerts and released another book, The Assault on Reason, with George Bush as the main target.

With an Academy Award and a Nobel Peace Price, he now has a global audience. But does the man whose fans call the "Goracle" in reference to his prophetic predictions about the climate and the Iraq War - which he denounced in 2002 - really want to return to politics? "Politics is behind me," he's answered for months ... while leaving the door open. "Al Gore neither has plans nor the intent to run," said his advisers. But he never unequivocally said no. "I've put so much pressure on Al to run that he's almost got aggravated with me," confided former President Jimmy Carter, himself a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Draftgore.com , a group of 136,000 partisans, has taken out a full-page ad in The New York Times calling on him to fulfill his moral obligation: "Your country needs you, as does your party and your planet."

Hillary the Inevitable. Even without being a candidate, Gore gets 13 percent of the vote in the polls, just behind Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. And everyone is watching his weight: Donna Brazile, his campaign advisor in 2000, predicted that if he loses weight it means he will run. If need be he could quickly mount a campaign. A consultant for Google, a board member at Apple, a co-founder of Current TV and chairman of the General Investment Management investment fund, he has the contacts and access to money. But advisers like Michael Feldan demur, saying, "He spends all of his time on the climate crisis and this great honor will further enhance that effort." If the Democratic candidates had failed to arouse any enthusiasm, he wouldn't have hesitated, but Hillary Clinton seems inevitable and Barrack Obama favors emissions trading . But above all, there are some wounds that never heal. Another electoral failure would be too heavy a price to pay.

CLICK HERE FOR FRENCH VERSION