Al. Gore. Is. Not. Running. For. President.

Time:

The former Vice President just doesn't seem interested. He says he has "fallen out of love with politics," which is shorthand for both his general disgust with the process and the pain he still feels over the hard blow of the 2000 election, when he became only the fourth man in U.S. history to win the popular vote but lose a presidential election. In the face of wrenching disappointment, he showed enormous discipline—waking up every day knowing he came so close, believing the Supreme Court was dead wrong to shut down the Florida recount but never talking about it publicly because he didn't want Americans to lose faith in their system. That changes a man forever.

It changed Gore for the better. He dedicated himself to a larger cause, doing everything in his power to sound the alarm about the climate crisis, and that decision helped transform the way Americans think about global warming and carried Gore to a new state of grace.

It is our Catch-22.  Al Gore is finally the man we all wanted him to be, if we had doubts in 2000.  For those who did not have doubts in 2000, he remains a favorite politician who has only improved himself.  

The problem is, he is not a politician anymore.  And if he became one, he would not be the Al Gore we now love.

Many here love Al Gore.  Many continue to hold out hope that he is running for President.   Listen to his wife:

"Everybody wants to take him for a walk in the woods [to convince to run for President]. He won't go. He's not doing it!"

And at this point, I do not want him to run.  It would be a hap hazard campaign, lacking in staff talent, always seeking to catch up in the money race and in the vote race.  I know many of you think that a massive campaign organization and infrastruture will materialize as if from nowhere the minute Al Gore announces his intention to run, but it won't.  And while we may give Gore overwhelming victories in our Daily Kos polls, the former Vice President averages around 14% in real polls, coming in third behind Clinton and Obama.   So you have to ask yourself, if you really love Al Gore, do you want to him to experience a losing campaign in 2008?

I don't.  I've seen Gore lose once.  Not again.

Here is my advice, Daily Kos:  Find your candidate among the 6 plausible Presidents we have running.  And if, by some miracle of time and space, Al Gore does run for President, and wins the nomination, and wins the Presidency, you will be pleasantly suprised.