There seems to be increasing talk that Al Gore may be pushed into running for President again. He has a book and a film coming out later this year and he is likely the most popular potential candidate in the netroots.
But even if he doesn't run, his dedication on shedding light on global climate change, not to mention being one of the few to stand up against the abuses committed by George Bush, gives me hope for the future. Seeing someone that still is fighting for the people hopefully will give the courage for other Democrats to start speaking up as well.
Geraldine Bell, February 5, 2006
The Observer-
Celebrity took an unusually nerdy form at this year's Sundance Film Festival. The man everyone wanted to meet, talk to and be seen with wasn't a film star or daring new director. It was a politician, who is in his sixth year of retirement and more famous for what he didn't achieve than for what he did.
Al Gore has been to Sundance before, but never as a leading man. This year he was appearing in An Inconvenient Truth, a 90-minute star-vehicle documentary. If 'former vice-president turns movie star at the age of 57' sounds improbable, remember that this is also Al Gore: famously wooden, inauthentic in front of a crowd, closed down in the face of a television camera. Al Gore, who ran a plodding campaign for the presidency and whose main response to accusations that he came across as pedantic and patronising was to wear more earth tones.
Yet An Inconvenient Truth sold out at Sundance and received standing ovations. The Q&As with Gore following the screenings were packed. 'The reception he got was extraordinary,' says the film's producer, Lawrence Bender (Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting, Kill Bill). 'He was a phenomenon at Sundance. He seemed larger than life.' Those who failed to get into the movie made do with catching up with Gore at parties, where he was hanging out with his wife, Tipper, and Larry David, the creator of Seinfeld, and the husband of An Inconvenient Truth's executive producer, Laurie David.
Guggenheim intercuts slides of melting glaciers in the Himalayas with shots of Gore pulling his bags through airports, like a travelling salesman of the intellect, or sitting in dreary hotel rooms downloading yet more statistics on to his laptop. In between explaining that the hottest 10 years since the mid-1880s have all occurred since 1990, and that coral reefs are dying, Gore talks personally and candidly about events that have shaped his life, among them his son Albert's near death at the age of six. Albert was walking away from a baseball game in April 1989 when he was hit by a car and thrown 30ft through the air. He scraped another 20ft along the pavement before coming to rest, apparently dead. A couple of nurses happened to be passing, and happened to have emergency kit with them, and they kept his vital signs going until the ambulance arrived. In the months that followed, the Gores were consumed by hospitals and rehabilitation. The experience made Gore question what he wanted to do with the rest of his life and led to his writing Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, a meticulous review of what he calls these days the planetary emergency. It is often said to be the best book written by a serving politician.
Furious with Hillary Clinton for her contortions over the war in Iraq and her accommodations with the right over abortion, the net-roots consume an enormous amount of bandwidth discussing whether Gore will stand and how to persuade him. But a Gore candidacy isn't only a net-roots preoccupation. In December Gore gave a speech about the environment to the faculty and alumni of Stanford and invited Silicon Valley business leaders. He was introduced by Terry Tamminen, the top environmental advisor and cabinet secretary to the Republican governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. 'The number one thing President Bush says he will do to address global warming?' Tamminen asked his audience, to roars of approval. 'Wait two years. President Gore will fix it.'
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