by Frank James
Former Vice President Al Gore's appearance last night on CNN's Larry King Show was a fairly predictable hyping of his Live Earth concert on Saturday to raise awareness about global warming. (Madonna's going to perform a song she wrote for the occasion, he said.)
One of the best and less predictable moments, however, came after King asked Gore about Michael Bloomberg who appears to be contemplating a presidential run.
What made the moment interesting was that it seemed like Gore was going to say that even though he liked Bloomberg, he couldn't vote for or endorse him if the mayor's entry in the race made him a spoiler, giving the victory to a Republican in a scenario similar to the one Gore played a starring role in seven years ago.
Gore didn't say this. He ended his thought prematurely. But it sure seems like that's where he was headed.
Maybe he thought it would sound like sour grapes. It was Ralph Nader in 2000 who many observers believe siphoned away the winning votes from Gore in Florida, leaving that race too close to call which led to the abbreviated recount and, eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court decision delivering the election to President Bush.
KING: Harry Truman proposed it in 1948. What do you think of the potential candidacy, one more political thing and then we'll get a break and Kevin will join us, of Mike Bloomberg.
GORE: Well, I like Mike Bloomberg. And I like his -- what he's said and what he's done on the climate crisis. But (if) he ran as an independent I wouldn't be inclined to support him if -- well, I don't know. You know -- it's -- I'm not sure he's going to run. I just have no idea. It's just speculative at this point.
KING: Can an independent win?
GORE: Never have.
KING: Be hard.
GORE: Yeah. And it's never happened in U.S. history.
KING: We'll take a break and when we come back, Al Gore will be joined by Kevin Wall, the man who put it all together, the Live Earth founder and executive producer. Don't go away.
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Comments
Abbreviated count, Frank??? Do you consider more than a month of counting to be abbreviated??
Again, we get Frank James, pretend objective journalist. Come on Frank, fess up, how much is Howard Dean paying you?
Posted by: John D | July 6, 2007 10:39 AM
Ralph Nader did not cost Gore the election. Gore's own ineptness; losing TN; ballot mismanagement; failure to properly use a popular president all helped to defeat Gore.
Nader's Raiders were radicals that wouldn't have voted if Nader had not been on the ballot in Florida.
Posted by: Bud McFarlin | July 6, 2007 1:04 PM
Michael Bloomberg would siphon votes away from Rudy Gigoloiani.
Posted by: John E | July 6, 2007 1:19 PM
What about Perot siphoning away the Bush sr. votes and Gore becoming VP?
Posted by: JP | July 6, 2007 1:50 PM
More on "Live Earth", from Pajamasmedia.com:
"It has been estimated that between the actual concerts, web streaming and television broadcasting, the Live Earth concert series could produce as much as 200,000 metric tons of carbon, after the conversions from electricity have been calculated. In other words, the Gore concerts could produce more carbon dioxide than was produced by all of Afghanistan in 2006."
Posted by: Bruce | July 6, 2007 3:14 PM
I tend to disagree, Bud.
When all the dust settled, GWB's plurality in Florida was, IIRC, 536 votes. Nader garnered some 90,000.
Do you mean that, if Nader had not run, ALL of those 90,000 people would have stayed home and not voted? Or that any of them would have voted for Bush? Remember, if Nader hadn't run, everything would have been different; he wouldn't have even been in the minds of Florida voters, who would have had to choose between Gore and Bush.
You're right, though on Tennessee; if Gore had been able to carry his home state, where presumably people know him best, he would have been President-elect on election night, and no one would have cared how Florida turned out. But, he couldn't do that, even as a favorite son. Tells you something, doesn't it?
Posted by: Dave Brann | July 6, 2007 4:05 PM
John D.,
If it isn't finished it's abbreviated.
Posted by: Doug Zook | July 6, 2007 7:40 PM
JOhn E.
I don't think the socially liberal, tax hiking Mayor Bloomberg will take away more votes from the dems than the GOP. The dems/libs will love his nanny-state attitudes.
Posted by: Terry | July 6, 2007 8:24 PM
I am amused at the right ranting about the concerts. It's not as easy to make people aware of the problem as it is for the right. On the right, one need only go to "jesus camp" and all is better. Why they can even turn a gay back into a straight man. They believe in something that has never been proven, yet yell about climate change saying but nothing has been proven. They can amuse themselves all they want about the amount of energy used and this and that...but...would you like to talk about the amount of wars and killing that have happened in the name of religion?
Posted by: bill r. | July 7, 2007 8:58 AM
Meanwhile, actual scientists (not rock bands) weigh in on Al Gore's alarmism. An article in Science Daily (see www.sciencedaily.com) reports on a study by a Danish scientist of the Greenland glaciers that refutes a key Gore-baloney scare story. The money quote:
"the whole ice sheet will not melt and bring about the tremendous sea-level rises which have been the subject of so much discussion."
Naturally, you won't read about such studies in the Tribune.
Posted by: Bruce | July 7, 2007 9:18 AM
Doug, there were three different counts done. The Supreme Court stopped the counting because different principles to count votes were used in one place from another and because Gore only wanted three counties counted again. Also the interpretation of what to count was decided by the court to be invalid. You cannot have people trying to decipher what someone was thinking when voting and trying to decide how this chad and that chad should be counted. That is why after several counts the re-counting of the re-counting was stopped.
Posted by: John D | July 7, 2007 9:29 AM
Ahhh..but did you hear about the scientist from Tahiti that knows a witchdoctor that once lived in the village but is now gone, had a daughter that once looked outside and found it cold so he dismissed the whole climate change thing?
Posted by: bill r. | July 7, 2007 10:47 AM
gore received more votes than bush in florida, as the final Miami Herald count showed. He actually won florida in 2000, in addition to the popular vote.
Posted by: liberalminded | July 7, 2007 1:35 PM
John D.,
Bu,bu,bu,but what about abbreviated?
Posted by: Doug Zook | July 7, 2007 1:35 PM
Liberalminded, nice untrue spin, there. The fact is Bush won under all recounts scenarios but one. The one recount in which Gore won was the loosest interpretation of the chads.
Here is one link, in which Bush won after every recount (also networks in originally calling Florida for Gore did so while the polls were open in western panhandle, which is on central time).
http://www.multied.com/election
s/2000recount.html
And this one shows the media recounts showed Bush won under all scenarios but the one, the most generous chad interpretation:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/media_watch/jan-june01/recount_4-3.html
Awwww, once again the big, bad conservatives slams down the delusional lefty with FACTS!
Posted by: John D | July 8, 2007 1:48 AM