Report: Gore Nobel could increase chance of run RAW STORY

Published: Wednesday October 10, 2007



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Print This Email This A Nobel peace prize victory -- which Al Gore has been tipped to win -- could boost the chances of a 2008 candidacy, according to a report in the UK Independent. "Al Gore never quite closed the door on running for president again and his many loyalists are now pinning their hopes on Norway's Nobel committee, in the belief that the prize must be his, this year of all years," the Independent's Leonard Doyle writes, adding that "people close to the former vice-president are convinced that he is looking for an opportunity to jump in the race." Gore spokesman Kalee Kreider, however, told RAW STORY today by email that the former vice president "has no intention of running for President in 2008." "He is involved in a different type of campaign -- one to educate Americans and people around the world about the climate crisis," she added. As a candidate, Gore would certainly be well behind in fundraising, and many of the Democratic heavy-hitters who'd been holding their pursestrings saying they were awaiting a run have donated now to other candidates. According to a recent report in the New York Times, those who said they were "waiting to see if Gore would enter the race" are pegged as "I just don't want to contribute." Supporters now plan to place a full page ad in the Times. "The supporters' group has already gathered about 127,000 signatures this year  10,000 of them in the last week of September alone  and is planning to take out full-page advert in The New York Times as an open letter urging Mr Gore to run," he says. 'We feel that if [Mr Gore] wins the Nobel Prize ... then he can't not run for president,' Roy Gayhart, the man behind California's Draft Gore group, told Newsweek." California Draft Gore, a grassroots political action committee, has hatched a plan to get their reluctant candidate off of theoretical fantasy polls and onto a real-life primary ballot. Capitalizing on a provision of the state election law which allows for any name to be placed on a ballot provided enough signatures in favor of that candidate are secured, volunteers will begin scrambling next week to get 26,500 registered Democrats -- 500 from each of California's 53 congressional districts -- to sign off on the former vice president before a Dec. 4 deadline. If all goes well, Gore's name will appear on ballots throughout the state when California's presidential primary is held in February of next year. "In 2003, Gore asked us to stand down," Gayhart pointed out, but after contacting the Gore camp with their plans this year, the initiative has received no such suggestion this time around. "Everything he's doing appears to be leaving open the possibility." In a May interview with Time, Gore didn't categorically deny he would consider a run, but did say he had "fallen out of love with politics," and that he wasn't "convinced the presidency is the highest and best role I could play."



