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Too Big for the White House

Can Superstar Gore Still Run for President?

By Marc Pitzke

The news that Al Gore has won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize has added fuel to speculations that the political superstar and climate change icon will run again for the White House. But Gore is too big for the grubby intrigues of electioneering -- now more so than ever.

It's now or never. His fans, who still brood on the election debacle of 2000, have been waiting and hoping for this day for months. "It's like waiting for Grateful Dead tickets to go on sale, back in the day," Eric Schiller, an activist with the California arm of America for Gore, one of several groups urging him to run for president, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

For activists, the Nobel Peace Prize practically forces 2000's presidential loser to make another bid for the White House. "America and the Earth need a hero right now," activists implored Gore in an open letter that took the form of a full-page advertisement in the Wednesday edition of the New York Times. "Someone who will transcend politics as usual and bring real hope to our country and to the world."

But that is precisely the catch. Al Gore -- almost-president, climate change icon and now Nobel Peace Prize winner -- transcends politics. He has done so for a long time, and now he certainly hovers far above the swamp of an election campaign, with its mudslinging, tedious debates and populism in the provinces. He is of a far different caliber: a statesman who was never head of state.

At his last appearance before a large audience, Gore happily sat on stage with the Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Someone like that no longer concerns himself with questions about his position on the abortion debate or which taxes he wants to cut.

Alas, hopes for a Gore presidency will remain unfulfilled -- and no less so now because of the fact that Gore is being awarded for having done the "most or the best work for fraternity between nations," as dictated in Alfred Nobel's will. It is the ultimate comeback from his humiliating defeat in 2000. Still, regardless of how artfully he has issued his non-denial denials of his desire to run, entering into the trench warfare of a new presidential campaign would be a step back for him.

Gore is a master at shedding skins: In just seven years' time, he has gone from being the election loser of the century to being the poster boy for a new Green Generation. He has transformed himself from being a preachy pedant who got on the nerves of voters with his know-it-all attitude to being an entertainer who was overwhelmed by applause and standing ovations and even cracked one-liners as if he had been born on the show business stage when he recently won the Oscar for his documentary on climate change, "An Inconvenient Truth," and an Emmy for his cable TV channel Current. His reinvention has been a political metamorphosis unlike any other.

'He's Distorting the Science'

Not everyone sees it that way, though. The tenor was clear from the subject of a talk show on the Republican Party-aligned Fox News: "Does Al Gore Deserve to Win the Prestigious Peace Prize?" The station invited the obligatory Greenpeace man onto the show, but also James Taylor, a notorious climate change denier from the ultraconservative Heartland Institute.

"He's distorting the science," Taylor quipped, discussing Gore's second coming as an environmental activist. "He's raising an issue that does not threaten us scientifically, yet threatens to take away our standard of living for our children and our grandchildren."

Still, such criticism has done little to affect the popularity of "An Inconvenient Truth" in the US and abroad. Nor did the ruling by a British court this week, claiming there are factual inaccuracies in the film Gore has spent more than a year promoting around the world. The ruling could require that schools showing the film also balance what the court described as Gore's "one-sided" views. "Al Gore's Inconvenient Judgement," jeered the headline in the Times of London's coverage of the court decision. But that won't be enough to break the halo Gore's disciples see floating over him.

These disciples are no longer limited to the eternally disgruntled Democratic Party troops who stood at his side in Florida when his presidential hopes died, first in the counting drama of Palm Beach and then before the Supreme Court. Troops who still whisper about the "stolen election" today. Gore, one of the walking wounded, retired from the public view, grew a beard and began his reincarnation.

In the early summer of 2006, he returned, clean-shaven and slimmed down -- and with "An Inconvenient Truth" in his luggage. Instead of fighting for votes, he now fought against the "planetary emergency" -- it was a crusade and psychotherapy all in one.

It was a different, looser, funnier Gore who suddenly leapt out at you. "My name is Al Gore," was his stock greeting. "I used to be the next president of the United States of America." He sold out stadiums faster than Madonna and won over in the process a whole new and much wider audience.

Gore became a beacon of hope for a disgruntled society. He managed something that otherwise only retired world leaders have succeeded in doing: He outgrew politics and became a meta-political rock star.

Global Crossover Hit

Hollywood jumped on the climate bandwagon. The celebrity media fêted him as a pinup. Thousands of globally connected Facebook kids linked to him as a "friend." Then he released an unofficial election manifesto -- his latest book, "The Assault on Reason," in which he delivers his verdict on the system that brought about his failure, US President George W. Bush and his own weak party and its lack of ideas.

No wonder that in this insipid election campaign there is a yearning for a voice like his, unspoiled by loyalties, obligations to lobbyists and spin-doctoring. "Run, Al, Run," demanded a headline in Rolling Stone, the bible of the MTV generation. Over 136,000 people signed an online petition for his candidacy. His spokeswoman Kalee Kreider had to constantly wave aside these calls: "He has no plans or intention to run for president."

No plans, no desire -- and neither the money nor the necessary logistics to dislodge archrival Hillary Clinton from her position as frontrunner for the nomination, just three months before the first primaries. In internal party polls Gore is only running fourth behind Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. But he has long had too great a standing to try to play the role of the underdog.

So he will leave it at the Nobel Peace Prize. But there's nothing shabby about that. After all, he's the only Nobel laureate who has an Oscar and an Emmy. Jimmy Carter has a Grammy (for his audio book "Our Endangered Values"), and Santana named a song after Nelson Mandela. Gore has a fan base that covers all ages, genders and countries. He is a global crossover hit.

He's also the ideal candidate -- but for what?