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| Roger W. Bowen: An inconvenient truth: We need Gore as president Saturday, December 15, 2007 - Bangor Daily News -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, former Vice President Al Gore warned the United States and China that they will be held accountable "before history" if they fail to be leaders in fighting global warming. Well said, Al, but future historians will be just as likely to hold you accountable about your own abdication of responsibility if you do not enter the 2008 presidential race. Future historians will of course emphasize that Gore actually won the popular vote in the presidential election in 2000 but because of an anachronistic Electoral College and a politically partisan U.S. Supreme Court, was denied the presidency. They will also write glowingly about Gore’s early and strong stance against the Iraq war. And, of course, in noting his Nobel Peace Prize, they will extol his activism in alerting the global community, and Americans particularly, about the impending environmental collapse due to climate change and global warming. But the same historians can also be expected to criticize Gore the environmentalist because he opted out of the presidential race at precisely the time when the world most needed an American president who possessed the gravitas, vision and skill to reassert American leadership in solving what is arguably the most monumental problem confronting the planet. Al Gore may well be waiting for leading members of his party to draft him. If so, Mr. Gore is fooling himself. The leading Democratic Party candidates have already attracted sufficient financial support to suggest that big donors are unlikely to change horses in midstream, not unless they are kicked. Mr. Gore has likely reached the same conclusion and therefore made the judgment that a Gore candidacy would be inadequately funded. He might also have decided that his celebrity glows brighter as a non-politician, and his moral stature soars higher than a presidency could ever achieve. Why re-enter the political morass where compromise of values seems to be an enduring feature of the job? For Gore to enter the contest for the presidency would require sacrificing self for the sake of the greater good. Gore, of course, could not even hint at such a notion, let alone actually advance it, without appearing arrogant. Yet his hesitation to enter the race thus far should satisfy most skeptics that he has no desire to be perceived as the man on horseback or the self-appointed savior of Mother Earth. Gore knows that in order to win the presidency he must appear humble, not at all eager, nor at all lustful for the office that voters awarded him seven years ago. My own view is that simply by his entering the race, a popular draft-Gore movement will take off and serve as the "kick" big money will require in order to support his candidacy financially. His electoral strategy is obvious: The former vice president would have only to discuss the issues near and dear to his heart and meekly proclaim that he desires only the opportunity to restore America’s prestige in the world by tackling the single greatest threat to the world’s and America’s security: global warming. And for the critics who label him a one-issue candidate, who better than Gore to make the case that global warming is an energy issue, an environmental issue, a health issue, a transportation issue, a national security issue, a war and peace issue, a quality of life issue, and a commerce issue. If Gore ran, he would guarantee his place in history as one of the greatest of all American presidents and world leaders. That he would be following one of history’s worst-ever presidents would only solidify his future standing not just among historians, but among most global citizens as well. Run, Al, run! Roger W. Bowen is former president of State University of New York at New Paltz and former general secretary of the American Association of University Professors. He lives in Prospect Harbor. |