The Al Gore you never saw
October 12th, 2007 – 7:58 AM by Dennis J. McGrath
|
The news that Al Gore is now a Nobel winner is sure to be applauded by his biggest supporters and to be greeted derisively by his severest critics. Who are they in Minnesota?
Looking back at the presidential election results for 2000, when he narrowly won the state over George Bush, is a good starting point.
Gore carried Minnesota with 47.9 percent to Bush’s 45.5 percent (1.17 million votes to 1.11 million). Ralph Nader had 5.2 percent. You can find all the results from that election at the Minnesota Secretary of State’s page here.
Gore’s biggest base of support was in the Fifth Congressional District — essentially Minneapolis. He clobbered Bush there, winning 62.5 percent of the vote to Bush’s 28.1 percent.
Gore did the worst in the Seventh District, which covers the heavily rural northwestern quadrant of the state. There, he managed only 39 percent of the vote to Bush’s 53.7 percent.
Perhaps the most telling results from that election were in the Eighth District, the broad swath of northeastern Minnesota, including Duluth and the Iron Range. That is hardcore Democratic territory, heavily unionized and passionate about politics. Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar wins reelection easily, usually with more than two-thirds of the vote. But there is also a strong God-and-country, Reagan-Democrat streak among voters.
Gore won the Eighth that year, but he failed to persuade a majority of the voters. He received just 49.2 percent to Bush’s 43.8 percent.
When I think about Al Gore and his connection to Minnesota — and trust me, that’s not often — I go back to a campaign stop he made in St. Paul in 1994. I remember that night because Gore was so out of character.
He was actually funny.
Whether you love him or hate him, you’ve got to admit that Gore could make your teeth hurt with his mister-know-it-all pontificating and lecturing. It was his fatal flaw as a politician — an inability to make even his supporters feel warmly about him, to like him, not just agree with him.
But on this one night at the St. Paul Radisson Hotel, a different Al Gore showed up. He was vice president then, and he was trying to help the flagging U.S. Senate campaign of Ann Wynia (running against Rod Grams). It was just days before the election.
|
Gore was recovering from surgery for an injury suffered while playing basketball — and he might even have been on crutches still. There were about 300 Democrats in the ballroom. The Republican Party made fun of Gore’s visit, listing this among the top 10 reasons he was in town: “The Democrats had to find someone who makes Ann Wynia seem charismatic.”
Here’s what I wrote at the time about Gore’s speech:
Gore had even more fun with his reputation, ripping off a string of jokes at his own expense.
How wooden is he? When doctors operated on his leg to repair a ruptured Achilles tendon, they found termites, he said.
How wooden is he? His ability to perform his job despite the leg cast and crutches provides hope for millions of Americans who suffer from Dutch elm disease.
How boring is he? “Al Gore is so boring his Secret Service code name is Al Gore,” the vice president said.
Ok, granted, it’s not Jon Stewart-funny. But he was loose, and he displayed more humanity than ever before. People in the crowd — and remember, these were loyal, loyal Democrats — were dumbstruck at the Al Gore they were witnessing.
Then he ran for president on his own, and … well, you saw the debates.
Ok, the floor’s now open for discussion about Gore and his latest reincarnation. Go to it.
20 Responses to "The Al Gore you never saw"
1) Lock Box vs. Stategery, what’s the verdict now?
2) Should we start a pool to see how long it takes for Gore to be accused of Anti-Semitism after winning the Nobel Prize?
3) CNN right-wing talking heads keep asking what global warming has to do with world peace. In case someone here is to repeat this point, I will explain.
Kyoto was a environmental blueprint, to be sure, a plan to deal with climate change. It was also a diplomatic blueprint. It bound nations under a set of common rules - it affirmed the principles of internationalism and international law in a post cold-war world.
It was meaningless when the US decided not to be party. Other essential polluters would not sign if it meant an uneven economic playing field vs. the US. Unanimous consent was possible on the issue of the environment, if the US were behind it and working for it.
The American people, businesses, and especially the US Senate, haven’t been interested in the past. This has hindered international diplomacy in a period of world history where democracy is comming to the developing world and unification is proceeding on a scale not seen since the US expanded west.
Gore is perceived to have changed the minds of the public, and especially of business. Whereas a decade or two ago the ‘tree huggers’ were cast out of the Democratic party as too darn liberal, now the GOP has co-opted environmentalism in the name of Christian stewardship and out of a fear of missing the boat (not unlike American business).
I think the Committee is engaged in wishful thinking, personally, and that the Senate will continue to obstruct any kind of real international order wherein the US is a mere equal partner at every turn, except perhaps (hopefully) regards arms races.
But Kyoto or something similar by Unamanimous consent would be a major feat of diplomacy and a symbol of world peace, and Gore certainly worked feverently towards that end.
I think Gore is a very good president-elect. He’s the longest serving president elect, little recognized fact. Carter was a much better ex-president than he was a president. Perhaps Gore is a better president-elect than he would have been a president.
He can’t beat Clinton’s money. He shouldn’t try. He doesn’t want to be Veep, and neither does Hillary. I think Gore-Hillary is the best ticket potentially available to the party, but it’s way too late now with the primaries coming so early.
Justin,
I think you could drive home your point if you just added one or two more chapters to your posts.
Ok, Al Gore as Nobel Peace Prize Winner. That makes it official. The Nobel Award Show is now like every other award show… Worthless except to your own out of touch with reality peers.
And Kyoto would do more harm than good. Remember it lists China as a developing nation. Excluding it from the requirments it places on the US.
MMM…. More lead toys anyone??
If Al could go out to Death Valley and spew his global warming BS out there, and do it with a stright face, he may actually get credibility.
But doing so would also prove him wrong.
The earth is 4 billion years old. Do you know when global warming started? About 3.9 billion years ago. Long before Detroit ever started making cars.
The Nobel peace prize is nothing more than another Hollywood award. Complete and utter crap!
Global warming - what a joke!
Al looks more compelling in hindsight because we have 7 years of W to compare to an imaginary Gore presidency. It is odd indeed that he inspires so much passion now; he certainly didn’t rouse much excitement during the 2000 election. Had that not been the case, there likely wouldn’t have been a Nader candidacy & very well might have been a President Gore rather than another President Bush.
Al is a hypocrite. A limosine lib with a couple mansions to boot.
I think he has been smoking too much of his son’s weed. The only thin Al did to improve productivity has to do with inventing the internet.
Booooooring…
Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize has put that award in the same category as any of the other entertainment awards. What a shame he can bring junk science and exagerations to be elevated to a level that has commanded such recognition. Just keep the masses dumbed down Al and they will continue to believe your hype and lies.
Wow. This is almost as much of a joke as the terrorist Arafat getting a nobel peace prize. So now killing jews and making fictional alarmist propaganda films qualify are awarded the peace prize. Who next, Michael Moore and Osama Bin Laden?
Al Gore is a joke, just like this award. Not to mention the way all of these “scientists” completely ignored the Scientific Method and came up with this “truth”, just blows my mind.
It’s just a way to try to shift billions of dollars from one industry to another.
Um Al, could you please tell me how we measure global mean temperature to within 1/100th of a degree C with such absolute certainty, based on shoddy incomplete non homogeneous surface data? And Also Al, what mean temperature is the correct one for ol Ma earth? ‘Cause in the past she’s fluctuated pretty wildly all on her own. Thanks.
I’m a little astounded at how many die-hard denouncers run around this website. Or maybe it’s the same geek with different handles? At any rate, even our illustrious “Decider” has decided that global warming is real. Striking that so many posters are behind the curve?
Perhaps y’all will be voting for the next great white hope from Arkansas? He’s right up your alley. That guy proudly affirmed he doesn’t believe in evolution.
Um, Sash it’s maybe warmed .5C in the past 150yrs. This is based on a very spurious data set known as meteorological station data. This data set is everything I described above. It was never meant to measure a global mean temp.
Al Gore’s film is riddled with flaws. How ’bout the biggie…he says a 20ft rise in the sea level can be expected in the next century, the IPCC (co winner of the prize) says 1ft…which is how much it rose this past century and about the same rate since 2000yrs ago. Climate science is not settled by any means, nor is human induced climate change.
Next time you need ice for that cool-aid you’re drinking, get your butt up to the Arctic quick-like, cause their ice is disappearing fast.
Tom, all -
Feel free to keep nitpicking at stats and unit measures. Helps you to ignore what’s happening around you.
I didn’t think the warming trend was in question, but rather whether it’s due to pollutants or not?
Justin - as much as I supported Kyoto — it was NOT a fair, level-set of common rules. That may have been necessarily so, since the polluters are also disproportional. But that seems to be the single biggest reason Bush wouldn’t support it.
The seventh dist. is owned & operated by Clear Channel. Many of Bush’s remaining 27% diehards reside there.
Referring to Kyoto is beside the point. America failed for several years to exert leadership. Many people and mainstream scientists believe there is an oncoming crisis and that humans should try to minimize it. Bush should either resist the entire premise and convince people why it’s based on faulty reasoning or he should help lead the world in a survival mode.
Those have been the two options during his presidency. He’s coming around, but he’s very late in the game.
Kyoto is laughable.
Global warming is food for the masses. Don’t think, just keep eating. green house gases, ozone, Katrina, co2 levels, hurricanes, floods….full yet?
Now, the Nobel Prize.