When the announcements were finished and Gore finally walked onto the stage at GWU’s Lisner Auditorium, he was given a very long and very enthusiastic standing ovation. Gore smiled and modestly motioned us to sit.

Gore covered the thesis of his book—That, thanks to television and the decline of the written word, America’s arena of democratic debate has shrunk to one-way conversations begun and framed by the elite—very thoroughly. He talked extensively on the decline of the importance of reason and fact in political discussions. In a move that could be taken as a comment on potential primary competitors, Gore said that he doesn’t blame those who say "If I knew then what I know now..." regard the Iraq War for their lack of foresight, but he does wonder why they didn’t ask the right questions or look at the obvious facts when they could have made a difference.

Then Gore did something that surprised me quite a bit: He threw out applause lines. He listed down all the top mistakes made by the Bush administration that fly in the face of reason (paraphrase):

The warrentless wiretapping, that was a mistake!

*applause*

The media holding on to information about the wiretapping, that was a mistake!

*applause*

Having Congress pass a law that retroactively legalized illegal wiretapping, that was a mistake!

*applause*

Censoring information about the climate crisis, that was a mistake!

*applause*

It was like a section of a stump speech. Gore was working the crowd, and doing a wonderful job!

After his speech, Gore did a little Q&A. The first question was about America’s drastic wealth discrepancy between the richest and the rest. Gore said that it would be impossible to tackle such a problem until we change the frame of debate. To illustrate his point, Gore said (paraphrase):

Say we have two proposals that are made and given equal time in a healthy, democratic debate. The first proposal, idea A, would spend government money and ensure that every America has basis healthcare coverage, including the millions of Americans who are currently left out of the private system. This would not only help the public welfare and not only save millions in productivity and medical bills, but it would help the private sector who are suffering from international competition, as American companies are pressured to give private health insurance to their employees. Businesses would save money and people would live longer. The second proposal, proposal B, says that we should repeal what’s left of the Estate Tax for the tiniest 1% sliver of the wealthiest Americans. In a reasonable democratic arena, these ideas would be given equal time and we’d choose one over the other. Which would we choose? Healthcare for all, or tax cuts for zillionaires? Gee, I wonder...

*Wry look, audience laughter* However, for some reason proposal B has gotten so much more attention due to who controls the media and who controls debate in DC. We can’t address discrepancies in wealth until we can change the discussion to give these proposals an equal footing.

After the Q&A, the audience lined up to get our books signed. I finally decided on what I would say to Gore as he signed by book. As my copy was slid in front of Gore, I shook his hand and said:

"Sir, I was in Dirksen for your testimony to the Senate. You were wonderful. You’re one of my greatest heroes."

Gore seemed to be taken aback. He looked at me and said,

"Thank you. That’s very kind of you to say. That means a lot to me."

I then said to him:

"Please, at least think about running for President."

Gore smiled and replied,

"Thank you. I am."

I smiled and trotted off the stage. Al Gore continues to impress me and continues to fine tune his rhetoric to take tiny steps towards a run. If you saw him on Olbermann tonight, you saw that as Gore once again refused to rule out a run. But from what I gathered tonight as I spoke to him, Al Gore is thinking about running for President.