Oh, Al Gore, you have renewed my hope with the patriotic elegance and fervid expression in your delivery of yet another Speech of the Century. You are the very embodiment of the archetypal idealist who storms into the room to declare that truth, justice and the American way will be upheld, if you have anything to say about it; and even if you have to stand on that Senate floor reading recipes for god-only-knows-how-many-hours, by god, those ideals WILL prevail!
You MUST be our next President, Mr. Gore. It is your sacred duty; you are, in my estimation (lowly, admittedly, but I make up in passion what I lack in influence), the ONLY person alive today with the moral rectitude and principled intellect to command this battered vessel in its precarious journey through waters so lethally littered with flotsam by your would-be predecessor.
Am I being too florid? Are my heartfelt utterances of passionate partiality being undermined by love of my own voice? Let me speak more plainly, Mr. Gore:
For you in a bid for the Presidency, I would LITERALLY walk over hot coals. Lie on a bed of nails. Lie on a bed of hot, coaly nails. WHATEVER IT TAKES, I will do it, Mr. Gore. Only say the word, say you will wrest away from the despicable, repugnant criminals the power they have for so long wrongly attained and held... and I will be your faithful servant, in any capacity necessary. Stuff envelopes? Gladly. Walk precincts? With bells on, Mr. Gore. Make telephone calls in endless hours of soporific repetition? With pleasure.
Only say the word, Mr. Gore, and I will spend the rest of my days working for your cause till that fateful day in November of 2008 when you assume your rightful place as the President of the United States of America. Whatever you need, if it is in my power to provide it, you shall have it. Deliver us from this evil, Mr. Gore. America lives in darkness, and you are such a brilliant light...
Forgive me; there's just something about the angelic tenor of your voice as it speaks words you yourself wrote in impassioned inspiration that makes me unable to speak in any but the most convoluted and faux-classical prose.
I thought I'd got over you, Mr. Gore. Weeks passed without a word, a hint of your inclinations or lack thereof toward another run at the Presidency, and I thought, "Well, maybe he really WON'T run in '08. Maybe I'll have to content myself with Feingold. He's an admirable man, a staunch liberal - I guess I can get behind him."
But then you spoke.
You MUST, Mr. Gore. I know you gave this country most of your life, and perhaps you feel it was enough; certainly, it was far beyond the call. But please, please, your country needs you still. We haven't the right to ask, but I join my voice to those crying in the wilderness for your guidance out of it.
I'm probably being hopelessly naive; the machinery of the current Democratic leadership will probably be launched to defeat your before you even begin. In which case, Mr. Gore, throw off the shackles of that corrupt machinery and declare yourself an Independent candidate. Oh, the irony; you would run in the footsteps of the very man whose candidacy helped to derail your first bid for the Presidency - and you would WIN, Mr. Gore. You would win.
I'm just a moderately informed citizen of this country, and happily uninitiated in the ways of backroom politicking in Washington, D.C. So you may well shake your head at my naiveté and enthusiasm, but before you dismiss me, consider this: I am one of millions - yes, MILLIONS - who would like nothing so much as a chance to put you in the Office in which you ought to have resided, to replace that Pretender to the Presidency who subjects us all to his smirking arrogance on a daily basis from that Oval office. Hire some polling. Just... test the waters.
I promise, I am right about this. I haven't felt this kind of conviction since the day in 1992 when I knew that you and Bill Clinton would prevail over the first smirking Bush to occupy the Presidency. I knew it then, I know it now. But, happily, this time I am not only certain of your victory, but also of your honourable intentions and actions once you reach that victory.
Mr. Gore, your country and, indeed, the world itself, need you. Badly.