Al Gore
Albert Gore, Jr. U.S. representative, senator, and 45th vice president of the United States, Albert Gore, Jr. (born 1948), was the son of a long-time Democratic congressman from Tennessee. Albert Gore, Jr., was born in Washington, D.C., on March 31, 1948. His father, Albert Gore, Sr., was serving as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee. The senior Gore was to serve in the House and the Senate for nearly three decades. His mother was Pauline (LaFon) Gore. She had the distinction of being one of the first women to graduate from the law school at Vanderbilt University. Since his father's occupation kept the family mainly in the nation's capital, young Gore grew up in Washington, D.C. He attended St. Alban's Episcopal School for Boys, where he was an honor student and captain of the football team. Gore went to Harvard University. In 1969 he received a B.A. degree, with honors, in government. He was interested in becoming a writer, rather than entering his father's "business" as a politician. After graduation he enlisted in the army, although he opposed the United States' intervention in the Vietnam War. While stationed in Vietnam, Gore served as an army reporter. He sent some of his stories to a newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee, which published them. After Gore left the military service in 1971, the Nashville Tennessean hired him as an investigative reporter and, later, as an editorial writer. In addition to his journalism career, Gore was a home builder, a land developer, and a livestock and tobacco farmer. Interested in religion and philosophy, Gore enrolled in the Graduate School of Religion at Vanderbilt University during the 1971-1972 academic year. In 1974 he entered Vanderbilt's law school but left to enter elective office two years later. In 1976 Gore decided to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Having a famous name, running in the district that sent his father to the Congress for many terms, he won the primary election against eight other candidates and went on to win in the general election. He ran successfully in the three following elections. Gore claimed some early attention in 1980 when he was assigned to the House Intelligence Committee studying nuclear arms. Gore researched and eventually published a comprehensive manifesto on arms restructuring for future security, which was published in the February 1982 issue of Congressional Quarterly. In 1984 Gore campaigned for a seat in the U.S. Senate that had just become vacant. He won that office with a large margin of votes. While in Congress Gore was interested in several issues. He focused attention on health-related matters and on cleaning up the environment. He worked for nuclear arms control and disarmament, as well as other strategic defense issues. He stressed the potential of new technologies, such as biotechnology and computer development. The race for the 1988 presidential election attracted Gore. He was only 39 years old at the time. He ran on traditional domestic Democratic views and was tough on foreign policy issues. He failed, however, to develop a national theme for his campaign and was criticized for changing positions and issues. He was successful in gaining public support in the primaries during the early spring and won more votes than any other candidate in southern states. However, he obtained only small percentages of votes in other states and withdrew from the presidential nomination campaigns in mid-April. Two years later he won election to a second term in the U.S. Senate. He chose not to seek the presidency in 1992, citing family concerns (young Albert had been hit by an automobile and was seriously injured). It was during this time that Gore wrote the book Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, which expressed his concern, ideas, and recommendations on conservation and the global environment. In the book he wrote about his own personal and political experiences and legislative actions on the environmental issue. One of Gore's statements in the book that sums up his philosophy regarding the environment and human interaction is, "We must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization." Events took a surprising turn in the summer of 1992. Bill Clinton selected Gore as his vice-presidential nominee. The choice startled many people because it ended a longstanding pattern of a candidate choosing a vice presidential nominee to "balance the ticket." Both men were of the same age, region, and reputation and moderate in political outlook. Clinton's idea was to project a new generation of leadership as a campaign theme. Gore did balance Clinton's strength by bringing to the ticket his experience in foreign and defense policy, expertise in environmental and new technology matters, and an image as an unwavering family man. The highlight for many who followed the campaigns of 1992 was a series of debates, one of which involved Gore and his opponents, Republican Dan Quayle and Independent James Stockdale. The proceedings were marked by moments of high comedy - Quayle and Gore arguing over the wording of Earth in the Balance; Stockdale admitting his hearing aid was off - and clear party positioning. Qualye attacked Gore's record of environmental concern, claiming Gore was placing endangered species over people's jobs. Gore countered that a well-run environmental program would create jobs while preserving nature. Stockdale pointed out that such bickering was exactly why Congress was engulfed in gridlock. Clinton and Gore won the election in 1992. Gore was inaugurated as the 45th vice president on January 20, 1993. At the age of 44 years, he became one of the youngest people to hold the position. Clinton and Gore were reelected in 1996, running against Republicans Bob Dole and Jack Kemp. During his time as vice-president, Gore continued to stress environmental concerns. In 1997 the White House launched an effort to start producing a report card on the health of the nation's ecosystems. This project was carried out by an environmental think tank and initiated by Gore. Also in 1997, Gore's crystal clear reputation was somewhat tarnished when he was accused of - and admitted to - making fund-raising telephone calls from the White House during the 1996 presidential campaign. Gore held a press conference on March 3, 1997, to defend his actions, saying there was nothing illegal about what he had done, although he admitted it may not have been a wise choice. Gore was also criticized for toasting Li Peng, initiator of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, during a trip to China. In September 1997, Buddhist nuns testified before the Senate panel investigating the abuses of campaign fund-raising. The nuns admitted that donors were illegally reimbursed by their temple after a fund-raiser attended by Gore, and that they had destroyed and/or altered records to avoid embarrassing their temple. Some believe these incidents have further damaged Gore's reputation. Gore is a devoted family man. He married his college sweetheart, Mary Elizabeth "Tipper" Aitcheson, on May 19, 1970. Tipper was born on August 19, 1948, in Washington, D.C. She held a B.A. degree from Boston University and a master of arts in psychology from George Peabody College. She was an active mother and politician's spouse, as well as working to forward her own issues. She gained attention through her efforts to influence the record industry to rate and label obscene and violent lyrics. She was co-founder of the Parents Music Resource Center, which monitors musical and video presentations that glorify casual sex and violence. The Gores had four children: Karenna (born August 6, 1973), Kristin (born June 5, 1977), Sarah (born January 7, 1979), and Albert III (born October 19, 1982). When not in Washington, D.C., the Gores returned to the family livestock farm in Carthage, Tennessee. Further Reading Albert Gore, Jr., wrote Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit (1992). Gore also wrote a book with Bill Clinton outlining their 1992 campaign issues and policies, Putting People First (1992). The book includes a brief biography of Gore's public service. His political career can be followed in issues of The Almanac of American Politics by Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa, which appeared during the years Gore was in Congress. His activity as Congressman and vice president can be followed in the Congressional Quarterly's Weekly Reports. Gore is listed in Who's Who in America (1996) and Who's Who in the World (1996). Peter Goldman and Tom Mathews, Quest for the Presidency: The 1988 Campaign, is one of many books recording the politics of that year. For information on his bid for the presidential nomination in 2000, see National Journal (March 29, 1997; May 31, 1997), Time (April 28, 1997), and Chicago Defender (April 5, 1997). For a report on Gore's encounter in China, see New Republic (April 14, 1997). Science (May 9, 1997) discusses some of Gore's environmental efforts. Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Gore served in the United States House of Representatives (1977-85) and the United States Senate (1985-93) representing Tennessee. From 1993 to 2001, he was the forty-fifth Vice President of the United States, under Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic nominee for President in the 2000 election, which was one of the most controversial elections in American history.[1] After a series of voting discrepancies and court challenges in the state of Florida the United States Supreme Court, with its final ruling on Bush v. Gore, stopped ongoing ballot recounts, giving George W. Bush the electoral college victory, and consequently the presidency.[2] Today, Gore is president of the American television channel Current TV (which won the Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Television award at the 2007 Primetime Emmys [3]) chairman of Generation Investment Management, a director on the board of Apple Inc., an unofficial advisor to Google's senior management, and chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection. Gore lectures widely on the topic of global warming, which he calls "the climate crisis",[4] and in 2006 starred in the Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, discussing global warming and the environment. Under his leadership, one of Gore's organizations, Save Our Selves, organized the benefit concert Live Earth in an effort to raise awareness about climate change. The concert was held all over the world on July 07, 2007 (07.07.07). In July 2007, he announced teaming with actress Cameron Diaz for a TV climate contest 60 Seconds to Save the Earth to gain people's support in solving the climate crisis.[5] Gore's 2007 book, The Assault on Reason, is an analysis of what he calls the "emptying out of the marketplace of ideas" in civic discourse, which, according to Gore, is due to the influence of electronic media, especially television, and which endangers American democracy; but he also expresses the belief that the Internet can revitalize and ultimately "redeem the integrity of representative democracy."[6] While Gore has frequently stated that "I'm not planning to be a candidate again," there is frequent speculation that he may run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.[7] Gore was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change" on October 12, 2007. [8] Early life Albert A. Gore, Jr. was born in Washington, D.C., to Albert Arnold Gore, Sr., a U.S. Representative (1939-1944, 1945-1953) and Senator (1953-1971) from Tennessee and Pauline LaFon Gore, one of the first women to graduate from Vanderbilt University Law School. He divided his childhood between Washington, and Carthage, Tennessee:[9] as a boy, during the school year, the family lived in a hotel in Washington and during summer vacations, Gore worked on the family farm in Carthage, where hay and tobacco were grown and cattle raised.[10] Gore attended the elite St. Albans School where he ranked 25th (of 51) in his senior class.[11] In preparation for his college applications, Gore scored a 1355 on his SAT (625 in verbal and 730 in math). [11] Al Gore's IQ scores, from tests administered at St. Alban's School in 1961 and 1964 (his freshman and senior years) respectively, have been recorded as 133 and 134. [11] In 1965, Gore enrolled at Harvard College, the only university to which he applied. His roommate (in Dunster House) was actor Tommy Lee Jones. He scored in the lower fifth of the class for two years in a row[12] and, after finding himself bored with his classes in his declared English major, Gore switched majors and found a passion for government and graduated with honors from Harvard in June 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government. [11] After returning from the military he took religious studies courses at Vanderbilt and then entered the university's law school. He left Vanderbilt without a degree when he left to run for an open seat in Tennessee's 3rd Congressional District in 1976. Gore opposed the Vietnam War and could have avoided serving overseas by accepting a spot in the National Guard that a friend of his family had reserved for him or by other means of avoiding the draft. Gore has stated that his sense of civic duty compelled him to serve in some capacity.[13] He enlisted in the United States Army on August 7, 1969. After basic training at Fort Dix, Gore was assigned as a military journalist writing for The Army Flier, the base newspaper at Fort Rucker. With seven months remaining in his enlistment, Gore was shipped to Vietnam, arriving on January 2, 1971. He served for four months with the 20th Engineer Brigade in Bien Hoa and for another month at the Army Engineer Command in Long Binh. Gore said in 1988 that his experience in Vietnam: didn't change my conclusions about the war being a terrible mistake, but it struck me that opponents to the war, including myself, really did not take into account the fact that there were an awful lot of South Vietnamese who desperately wanted to hang on to what they called freedom. Coming face to face with those sentiments expressed by people who did the laundry and ran the restaurants and worked in the fields was something I was naively unprepared for.[14] As his unit was standing down, he applied for and received a non-essential personnel honorable discharge two months early in order to attend divinity school at Vanderbilt University.[15] Gore left Vanderbilt after completing the required one-year Rockefeller Foundation scholarship for students returning to secular work.[16] In 1970, Gore married Mary Elizabeth Aitcheson (known as Tipper), whom he had first met at his high school senior prom in Washington, D.C. Gore then spent five years as a reporter for The Tennessean, a newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee. His investigations of possible corruption among members of Nashville's Metro Council resulted in the arrest and prosecution of two councilmen for separate offenses.[17] It frustrated him, however, that a journalist could only expose wrongdoing without being able to correct it. That realization led to a leave of absence from the paper to try law school. Before he could finish, he learned that his local congressman planned to retire in 1976.[citation needed] Political career (1976-2000) Congressional service When Congressman Joe L. Evins announced his retirement after 30 years, Gore quit law school in March 1976 to run for the United States House of Representatives, in Tennessee's fourth district. Gore defeated Stanley Rogers in the Democratic primary, then ran unopposed in the general election and was elected to his first Congressional post. He was re-elected three times, in 1978, 1980, and 1982. In 1984, Gore successfully ran for a seat in the United States Senate, which had been vacated by Republican Majority Leader Howard Baker. Gore served as a Senator from Tennessee until 1993, when he became Vice President. While in Congress, Gore was a member of the following committees: Armed Services (Defense Industry and Technology Projection Forces and Regional Defense; Strategic Forces and Nuclear Deterrence); Commerce, Science and Transportation (Communications; Consumer; Science, Technology and Space -- chairman 1992; Surface Transportation; National Ocean Policy Study); Joint Committee on Printing; Joint Economic Committee; and Rules and Administration. On March 19, 1979, Gore became the first person to appear on C-SPAN, making a speech in the House chambers.[18] In the late 1980s, Gore introduced the Gore Bill, which was later passed as the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991. The bill was one of the most important pieces of legislation directly affecting the expansion of the internet. Opposition to U.S. government support of Saddam Hussein While Senator, Gore twice attempted to get the U.S. government to pull the plug on support to Saddam Hussein, citing Hussein's use of poison gas, support of terrorism, and his burgeoning nuclear program, but was opposed both times by the Reagan and Bush administrations. In the wake of the Al-Anfal Campaign, during which Hussein staged deadly mustard and nerve gas attacks on Kurdish Iraqis, Gore cosponsored the Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988, which would have cut all assistance to Iraq. The bill was defeated in part due to intense lobbying of Congress by the Reagan-Bush White House and a veto threat from President Reagan.[19] Gore's positions as a Senator with regard to Iraq would later become an issue in his 1992 campaign for Vice President.[20] 1988 Presidential election Main article: Al Gore presidential campaign, 1988 Gore ran for President in the 1988 United States presidential election, but failed to obtain the Democratic nomination, which went to Michael Dukakis. During the campaign, Gore's strategy involved skipping the Iowa caucus and putting little emphasis on the New Hampshire Primary in order to concentrate his efforts on the South. He won Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee in the Super Tuesday primaries but dropped out of the presidential race in April after a poor showing in the New York primary.[18] On April 3, 1989, Gore's six-year-old son Albert was nearly killed in an automobile accident while leaving the Baltimore Orioles' opening day game. Because of the resulting lengthy healing process, his father chose to stay near him during the recovery instead of laying the foundation for a 1992 presidential primary campaign. Gore started writing Earth in the Balance, his book on environmental conservation, during his son's recovery. It became the first book written by a sitting Senator to make The New York Times bestseller list since John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage. Vice Presidency Bill Clinton chose Gore to be his running mate for the 1992 United States presidential election on July 9, 1992. Gore was inaugurated as the 45th Vice President of the United States on January 20, 1993. Clinton and Gore were re-elected to a second term in the 1996 election. According to the U.S. government, the U.S. economy expanded for all eight years of the Clinton/Gore administration.[21] One factor was the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, for which Gore cast the tie-breaking vote. The Administration worked closely with the Republican-led House to slow federal spending and eventually balance the federal budget. One of Gore's major works as Vice President was the National Performance Review,[22] which pointed out waste, fraud, and other abuse in the federal government and stressed the need for cutting the size of the bureaucracy and the number of regulations. Gore stated that the National Performance Review later helped guide President Clinton when he down-sized the federal government.[23] In 1993, Gore debated Ross Perot on CNN's Larry King Live on the issue of free trade, with Gore arguing for free trade and the passage of NAFTA, and Perot arguing against it. Public opinion polls taken after the debate showed that a majority of Americans thought Gore won the debate and now supported NAFTA[24]. The bill subsequently passed 234-200 in the House of Representatives.[25] In 1997, Gore became the highest elected official to have run a marathon while in office. He ran the 1997 Marine Corps Marathon in 4:58:25 or a pace of 11:25/mile.[26] In 1998, Gore began promoting a NASA satellite that would provide a constant view of Earth, marking the first time such an image would have been made since The Blue Marble photo from the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. The "Triana" satellite would have been permanently mounted in the L1 Lagrangian Point, 1.5 million km away.[27] Also in 1998, Gore became associated with Digital Earth.[28] 2000 Presidential election After two terms as Vice President, Gore ran for President again in the 2000 United States Presidential election, selecting Senator Joe Lieberman to be his vice-presidential running mate. The election was one of the closest and most controversial presidential elections in the history of the United States. During the entire campaign, Gore was neck-and-neck in the polls with Republican Governor of Texas George W. Bush. On Election Day, the results were so close that the outcome of the race took over a month to resolve, highlighted by the premature declaration of a winner on election night, and an extremely close result in the state of Florida. On election night, news networks first called Florida for Gore, later retracted the projection, and then called Florida for Bush, before finally retracting that projection as well. The race was ultimately decided by a margin of only 537 votes in Florida. Florida's 25 electoral votes were awarded to Bush only after numerous court challenges. Gore publicly conceded the election after the Supreme Court of the United States in Bush v. Gore ruled 5-4 that the Florida recount was unconstitutional and that no constitutionally valid recount could be completed by the December 12 deadline, effectively ending the recounts. Gore strongly disagreed with the Court's decision, but decided "for the sake of our unity as a people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession." Gore became only the third nominee in American history to win the popular vote (by half a million more votes than his opponent) but lose the electoral vote. Gore ultimately received 267 electoral votes to Bush's 271.[29] Gore also became one of the few nominees not to carry his home state, the previous most recent being George H.W. Bush. Running mate Joe Lieberman later criticized Gore for adopting a populist theme during their 2000 campaign, and stated he had objected to Gore's "people vs. the powerful" message, believing it was not the best strategy for Democrats to use to win the election.[30] In the introduction to his global warming presentation, Gore has jokingly introduced himself as "the former next President of the United States". During his 2000 campaign for the presidency, Gore himself attributed positive economic results to his and Clinton's policies[31] -- more than 22 million new jobs, the highest homeownership in American history (up to that time), the lowest unemployment in 30 years, the paying off of $360 billion of the national debt, the lowest poverty rate in 20 years, higher incomes at all levels, the conversion of the hitherto largest budget deficit in American history into the largest surplus, the lowest government spending in three decades, the lowest federal income tax burden in 35 years, and more families owning stocks than had up to that point. However Gore later placed a large share of the blame for his election loss on the economic downturn and NASDAQ crash of March 2000 in an interview with National Public Radio's Bob Edwards.[32] Post Vice-presidency 2004 election activities As the first major speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Gore presented himself as a living reminder that every vote counts. "Let's make sure not only that the Supreme Court does not pick the next president, but also that this president is not the one who picks the next Supreme Court," said Gore. Gore directed remarks to supporters of third-party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who abandoned the Democratic Party four years ago, asking them, "Do you still believe that there was no difference between the candidates?"[33] Initially, Al Gore was touted as a logical opponent of George W. Bush in the 2004 Presidential Election. "Re-elect Gore!" was a common slogan among many Democrats who felt he had been cheated out of the presidency, on the grounds of his winning the popular vote and the Florida voting controversies. On December 16, 2002, however, Gore announced that he would not run in 2004, saying that it was time for "fresh faces" and "new ideas" to emerge from the Democrats. When he appeared on a 60 Minutes interview, Gore said that he felt if he had run, the focus of the election would be the rematch rather than the issues. Gore's former running mate, Joe Lieberman quickly announced his own candidacy for the presidency, which he had vowed he would not do if Gore ran. Despite Gore taking himself out of the race, a handful of his supporters formed a national campaign to "draft" him into running. However, that effort largely came to an end when Gore publicly endorsed Governor of Vermont Howard Dean (over his former running mate Lieberman) weeks before the first primary of the election cycle. There was still some effort to encourage write-in votes for Gore in the primaries by Patriots for Al Gore who were separate from the draft movement. Although Gore did receive a small number of votes in New Hampshire and New Mexico, that effort was halted when John Kerry pulled into the lead for the nomination. On February 9, 2004, on the eve of the Tennessee primary, Gore gave what some consider his harshest criticism of the president yet when he accused George W. Bush of betraying the country by using the 9/11 attacks as a justification for the invasion of Iraq. Gore also urged all Democrats to unite behind their eventual nominee proclaiming, "Any one of these candidates is far better than George W. Bush." In March 2004 Gore, along with former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, united behind Kerry as the presumptive Democratic nominee. On April 28, 2004, Gore announced that he would be donating $6 million to various Democratic Party groups. Drawing from his funds left over from his 2000 campaign, Gore pledged to donate $4 million to the Democratic National Committee. The party's Senate and House committees would each get $1 million, and the party from Gore's home state of Tennessee would receive $250,000. In addition, Gore announced that all of the surplus funds in his "Recount Fund" from the 2000 election controversy that resulted in the Supreme Court halting the counting of the ballots, a total of $240,000, will be donated to the Florida Democratic Party. Gore stressed the importance of voting and having every vote counted, foreshadowing the 2004 United States election voting controversies. 2008 Presidential election plans Gore has not stated that he will participate as a candidate in the 2008 presidential election. However, as he has not rejected the possibility outright, the prospect of a Gore candidacy remains a topic of public speculation. Some of Gore's supporters have publicly encouraged him to join the race. An April 2007 Quinnipiac University poll of 504 registered Democrats in New Jersey showed Gore receiving 12% of the votes in a hypothetical Democratic primary, in third place behind Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.[34] Gore and his family have commented on whether Gore will run in the 2008 presidential election. In December 2006, Gore stated on NBC's Today: "I am not planning to run for president again [...] I haven't completely ruled it out."[35] His son, Albert Gore III, followed with a comment in a December 14, 2006 article: "I know that [my father] has no plans to run in 2008 [...] Well, I guess I have to add his addendum. I think the way he always says it is, "I don't see any circumstances under which I would run for president.""[36] The release of An Inconvenient Truth in 2006 increased Gore's popularity among progressives.[37][38] Gore received 68% of support among "fantasy" potential 2008 Democratic presidential candidates in a May 2006 straw poll of visitors to Daily Kos[39] and 35% in a July 13, 2006 survey of AlterNet readers.[40] A Gallup poll of August 2006 shows that nearly half of Americans viewed Gore favorably (48 percent to 45 percent).[41] A CNN telephone poll conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation of registered or independent leaning Democrats in November 2006 had Gore with 14% support in a theoretical multi-candidate Democratic primary election.[citation needed] Donna Brazile, Gore's campaign chairwoman from the 2000 campaign made cryptic comments during a speech on January 31, 2007, at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania stating, "Wait till Oscar night, I tell people: 'I'm dating. I haven't fallen in love yet. On Oscar night, if Al Gore has slimmed down 25 or 30 pounds, Lord knows.'"[42] The meaning of these remarks became clearer when on award night, while in attendance and acting as a presenter for an award, Gore began a speech that seemed to be leading up to an announcement that he would run for president. However, background music drowned him out and he was escorted offstage, implying it was a rehearsed gag.[43] Others have expressed an interest in seeing Gore run in 2008. According to the February 6, 2007 issue of The Santa Barbara Independent, when Gore received The Sir David Attenborough Award for Excellence in Nature Filmmaking at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on February 2, director James Cameron (who presented him with the award) stated: "[I] beseech Mr. Gore to step up to the plate one more time!"[44] Furthermore, the February 8, 2007 edition of The Washington Post notes in the article Supporters Push Gore to Run in 2008, "Veterans of Al Gore's past are quietly assembling a campaign to draft the former vice president into the 2008 presidential race -- despite his repeated statements that he's not running [...] In 2002, Gore asked [Dylan] Malone, to stop a draft effort he had begun; Malone did. Malone started up again and, so far, Gore hasn't waved him off."[45] The question of whether or not Gore will run is the cover story of the May 28, 2007 issue of TIME magazine, The Last Temptation of Al Gore.[46] A 29 June 2007 article in the The Guardian cited a poll conducted "in New Hampshire by 7News and Suffolk University" that found that if Gore "were to seek the Democratic nomination, 29% of Mrs. Clinton's backers would switch their support to him [...] when defections from other candidates are factored in, the man who controversially lost to Mr. Bush in the 2000 election takes command of the field, with 32% support."[47] Education Gore has been involved in education on a number of levels. He taught at four universities in 2001 as a visiting professor (Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism,[48] Fisk University[49] Middle Tennessee State University,[50] and UCLA.[51]) He was also elected an honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in April 2007. He will be inducted in a ceremony in October 2007 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. [52] Finally, Concordia University awarded Gore an honorary doctorate on March 22 during the Youth Action Montreal's Youth Summit on Climate Change in Quebec, Canada.[53] Private citizen On September 23, 2002, in a speech before the Commonwealth Club, Gore gave what many consider to be one of the strongest speeches by any public figure criticizing President George W. Bush and Congress for their rush to war prior to the outbreak of hostilities in Iraq.[54] In it, Gore warned of the great expense the war was sure to incur, the risk to America's reputation in the world, and the questionable legality of the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war.[55] In September 2005, Gore chartered two aircraft to evacuate 270 evacuees from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.[56] He was highly critical of the government and federal response in the days after the hurricane. Promoting environmental awareness Gore has had many epithets directed at him, such as the 'Noah of Modern Times', and 'The Environment Evangelist', for his role in bringing the problem of global warming to the attention of Americans and other citizens. According to a February 27, 2007 article in The Concord Monitor, "Gore was one of the first politicians to grasp the seriousness of climate change and to call for a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases. He held the first congressional hearings on the subject in the late 1970s."[57] During his tenure in Congress, Gore co-sponsored hearings on toxic waste in 1978-79, and hearings on global warming in the 1980s.[58] On Earth Day 1994, Gore launched the GLOBE program, an education and science activity that, according to Forbes magazine, "made extensive use of the Internet to increase student awareness of their environment".[59] In the late 1990s, Gore strongly pushed for the passage of the Kyoto Treaty, which called for reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.[60][61] He was opposed by the Senate, which passed unanimously (95-0) the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98),[62] which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States".[63] On November 12 1998, Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Both Gore and Senator Joseph Lieberman indicated that the protocol would not be acted upon in the Senate until there was participation by the developing nations.[64] The Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for ratification. In recent years, Gore has remained busy traveling the world speaking and participating in events mainly aimed towards global warming awareness and prevention. His keynote presentation on global warming has received standing ovations, and he has presented it at least 1,000 times according to his monologue in An Inconvenient Truth. His speaking fee is $100,000.[65] In 2004, he launched Generation Investment Management. This firm, which he chairs, seeks out companies which take a responsible view on global issues such as climate change. It was created to assist the growing demand for an investment style that can bring returns by blending traditional equity research with a focus on more intangible non-financial factors such as social and environmental responsibility and corporate governance. Gore is a vocal proponent of carbon neutrality, buying a carbon offset each time he travels by aircraft.[66] Gore and his family drive hybrid vehicles.[67] Interest in Al Gore's speeches reached such a point that a public lecture at University of Toronto on February 21, 2007, on the topic of global warming, led to a crash of the ticket sales website within minutes of opening.[68] A few weeks later, he spoke at another event in the same city and, for the first time, made the argument that employers have a significant role to play in mobilizing their employees to take action on climate change.[69] During Global Warming Awareness Month, on February 9, 2007, Al Gore and Richard Branson announced the Virgin Earth Challenge, a competition offering a $25 million prize for the first person or organization to produce a viable design that results in the removal of atmospheric greenhouse gases.[70] On July 7, 2007, Live Earth benefit concerts were held around the world in an effort to raise awareness about climate change. The event was the brainchild of both Gore and Kevin Wall of Save Our Selves. Gore starred in the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.[71] The Oscar was awarded to director Davis Guggenheim, who asked Gore to join him and other members of the crew on stage. During this time, Gore gave a brief speech: "My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis. It's not a political issue; it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act. That's a renewable resource. Let's renew it."[72] The film, released on May 24, 2006, documents the evidence for anthropogenic global warming and warns of the consequences of people not making immediate changes to their behavior. In late July, it surpassed Bowling for Columbine as the third-highest-grossing documentary in U.S. history.[73] Gore also published a book of the same title, which became a bestseller. Gore received the 2007 Prince of Asturias Prize in for international cooperation in Spain for his work with the environment. [74] Nobel Peace Prize Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change" on October 12, 2007. [75] The Norwegian Nobel Committee: Al Gore has for a long time been one of the world's leading environmentalist politicians. He became aware at an early stage of the climatic challenges the world is facing. His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change. He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.[76] Internet and technology Main article: Al Gore's contributions to the Internet and technology Al Gore was involved in the development and mainstreaming of the Internet as both Senator and Vice-President. Campbell-Kelly and Aspray note in Chapter 12 of their 1996 text, Computer: A History of the Information Machine, that up until the early 1990s, public usage of the Internet was limited. They continue to state that the "problem of giving ordinary Americans network access had exercised Senator Al Gore since the late 1970s" leading him to develop legislation that would alleviate this problem.[77] Gore thus began to craft the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 which was passed on Dec. 9, 1991 and led to the National Information Infrastructure (NII)[78] which Gore referred to as the "information superhighway". In 1999, various media outlets suggested that Gore claimed that he "invented the internet"[79][80] in reference to a CNN interview in which he said, "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."[81] In response to this controversy, Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn wrote a 2000-09-29 article (originally sent via email) which described Gore's contributions to the Internet since the 1970s, including his work on the Gore Bill:[82] " [A]s the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time. Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective. As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship. Though easily forgotten, now, at the time this was an unproven and controversial concept. " Gore has been a member of the board of directors of Apple Inc. since 2003 and serves as a Senior Advisor to Google Inc.[83] On 06 June 2005, Gore was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award "for three decades of contributions to the Internet" at The Webby Awards. In giving him the award, Tiffany Shlain (the awards' founder and chairwoman) stated that she "wanted to set the record straight [...] it's just one of those instances someone did amazing work for three decades as Congressman, Senator and Vice President and it got spun around into this political mess."[84] Gore, during his acceptance speech (limited to five words according to Webby Awards rules), joked: "Please don't recount this vote".[85] On May 4, 2004, INdTV Holdings, a company co-founded by Gore and Joel Hyatt, purchased cable news channel NewsWorld International from Vivendi Universal. The network was relaunched under the name Current TV on August 1, 2005. On September 16, 2007, Current TV won the Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Television award at the 2007 Primetime Emmys[86] for its use of online technologies with television. In his acceptance speech, Gore stated, "we are trying to open up the television medium so that viewers can help to make television and join the conversation of democracy and reclaim American democracy by talking about the choices we have to make. More to come. Current.com. Next month."[87] Family Gore had an elder sister, Nancy Gore Hunger. She died of lung cancer in 1984.[88] Gore has four children: Karenna (born August 6, 1973), married to Andrew "Drew" Schiff[89]; Kristin Cusack (born June 5, 1977), married to Paul Cusack; Sarah Lee (born January 7, 1979), married to Taiwanese-American businessman Bill Lee[90] (???)[91]; and Albert III (born October 19, 1982). The Gores also have two grandchildren: Wyatt (born July 4, 1999) and Anna Schiff (born August 23, 2001).[92] Sarah is currently a medical student at University of California, San Francisco.[93] Albert works as associate publisher of the philanthropic Good magazine. The Gores reside in Nashville, Tennessee, and own a small farm near Carthage; they attend New Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Carthage. In late 2005 the Gores bought a condominium at San Francisco's St. Regis.[94] Al Gore in popular culture Gore has made numerous appearances in popular culture related to environmentalism. Gore has also made numerous appearances in Matt Groening's hit cartoon sitcom Futurama as himself, and will reprise the role in the upcoming December 2007 film, Futurama: Bender's Big Score.[95] In 2000 Gore had offered to appear in the 2000 season finale of Futurama, Anthology of Interest I. In this episode, Gore led his team of "Vice Presidential Action Rangers" in their goal to protect the space-time continuum.[96] In 2002, Gore appeared in the episode Crimes of the Hot.[97] Gore's willingness to poke fun at himself on the show was later cited by pundits as an example of the way he re-invented the purportedly stiff and emotionless persona that he had displayed in public before his electoral loss in 2000.[98] In a review of the episode, Washington Post writer Howard Kurtz called it a "groundbreaking role" and suggested that it was "post-election reemergence ... as carefully choreographed as a political campaign".[99] In 2006 Gore used a short clip from Futurama to explain how global warming works in his presentations and in An Inconvenient Truth.[100] * In 2006 Gore appeared on Saturday Night Live (episode #603), In an opening sketch, Gore is in a parallel Earth in which he won the 2000 Presidential race. Gore describes the state of the nation: global warming has been stopped; gasoline costs 19ยข a gallon; George W. Bush is Baseball Commissioner; welfare and Social Security have been reformed and America now enjoys universal health care; Gore helped develop an anti-hurricane/tornado machine; and the federal surplus is down to eleven trillion dollars. * Gore also appeared on the Weekend Update sketch and engaged in a debate on global warming with Amy Poehler. * In 2002 Gore hosted Saturday Night Live, (episode #533). Electoral history 2000 United States Presidential Election George W. Bush (R) -- 271 Electoral Votes (47.9% of popular vote) Al Gore (D) -- 266 Electoral Votes (48.4% of popular vote) Ralph Nader (Green) 2.7% of popular vote Pat Buchanan (Reform) 0.4% of popular vote Harry Browne (Libertarian) 0.4% of popular vote Howard Phillips (Constitution) 0.1% of popular vote John Hagelin (Natural Law) 0.1% of popular vote 1996 United States Presidential Election (Vice President's seat) Al Gore (D) (inc.) -- 379 Electoral Votes (49.2% of popular vote) Jack Kemp (R) 40.7% -- 159 Electoral Votes (40.7% of popular vote) Pat Choate 8.4% of popular vote Jo Jorgensen (Libertarian) 0.5% of popular vote Herbert Titus (Taxpayers) 0.2% of popular vote Michael Tompkins (Natural Law) 0.1% of popular vote 1992 United States Presidential Election (Vice President's seat) Al Gore (D) -- 370 Electoral Votes (43.0% of popular vote) Dan Quayle (R) (inc.) -- 168 Electoral Votes (37.4% of popular vote) James Stockdale (I) 18.9% of popular vote Nancy Lord (Libertarian) 0.3% of popular vote Cy Minett (Populist) 0.1% of popular vote 1990 Tennessee United States Senatorial Election Al Gore (D) (inc.) 69.6% Dwight Henry (R) 30.4% 1984 Tennessee United States Senatorial Election Al Gore (D) 60.7% of popular vote Victor Ashe (R) 33.8% of popular vote Ed McAteer (I) 5.3% of popular vote Al Gore Controversies: Al Gore, former Vice-President of the United States (1993-2001) and 2000 Democratic Party presidential nominee, has been the subject of some controversies. Fund raising Campaign finance Main article: 1996 United States campaign finance controversy Gore was criticized for attending an event at the Buddhist Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, California in 1996. He said he was unaware it was a fundrasing event, however in an interview in 1997 he said it was wrong for him to attend. " I did not know that it was a fund-raiser. I knew it was a political event, and I knew there were finance people that were going to be present, and so that alone should have told me, 'This is inappropriate and this is a mistake; don't do this.' And I take responsibility for that. It was a mistake -- Gore on NBC's Today show, Jan. 24, 1997.[1] " The temple was later implicated in a campaign donation laundering scheme. In that scheme, donations nominally from Buddhist nuns in lawful amounts had actually been donated by wealthy monastics and devotees. Robert Conrad, Jr., then head of a Justice Department task force appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate the fund-raising controversies, called on Reno in Spring 2000 to appoint an independent counsel to look into the fund-raising practices of Vice President Gore. Reno eventually rejected the request.[2] Fundraising phone calls After the 1996 election campaign, Charles Bierbauer [1] and John Judis of the American Prospect magazine [2] alleged that Gore had improperly used his White House office telephone to make fund-raising calls even though Gore paid for the calls using a private credit card. Under the Hatch Act, any use of government property for campaign purposes is forbidden. While Section 607 of Title 18 of the U.S. Criminal Code states there is to be no solicitation of campaign funds in federal government offices, in a press conference on 3 March 2003, Gore said: "If there had been a shred of doubt in my mind that anything I did was a violation of law, I assure you I would not have done that. And my counsel advises me, let me repeat, that there is no controlling legal authority that says that any of these activities violated any law."[3] Misconceptions in the media Influence on the Internet Both as a Senator and Vice-President, Al Gore had been involved in the mainstreaming of the Internet since the 1970s (see Campbell-Kelly and Aspray, Computer: A History of the Information Machine, 1996:298). This involvement led to legislation during the late 1980s known informally as the Gore Bill. Gore began to craft the Gore Bill otherwise known as the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 after hearing the 1988 report Toward a National Research Network[4] submitted to Congress by a group chaired by UCLA professor of computer science, Leonard Kleinrock, one of the central creators of the ARPANET (the ARPANET, first deployed by Kleinrock and others in 1969, is the predecessor of the Internet). [5] Indeed, Kleinrock would later credit both Gore and this bill as a critical moment in Internet history: A second development occurred around this time, namely, then-Senator Al Gore, a strong and knowledgeable proponent of the Internet, promoted legislation that resulted in President George Bush signing the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991. This Act allocated $600 million for high performance computing and for the creation of the National Research and Education Network [13-14]. The NREN brought together industry, academia and government in a joint effort to accelerate the development and deployment of gigabit/sec networking.[6] Eight years later in 1999, as a result of the publication of three articles in Wired News[7], Gore's 1999-03-09 interview on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer became the subject of heavy satire in the media. [8] During this interview, Gore stated: During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system. [9] Media reports surrounding this statement sometimes re-wrote it, stating that Gore claimed he "invented the internet".[10] Journalist Eric Boehlert would later comment on the role of Wired News in perpetuating this controversy in his 28 April 2006 article for The Huffington Post, Wired Owes Al Gore an Apology. [11] In contrast to the media, the computer industry was supportive of Gore. In particular, Vint Cerf and Robert E. Kahn (both founding fathers of the Internet; Cerf was also a student of Leonard Kleinrock at UCLA) spoke in Gore's defense in the following following statement made on 2000-09-28: [A]s the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time. Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective.[12] Gore himself has poked fun at the controversy: in September 2000, as a guest on the The Late Show with David Letterman, he read a list of the "Top Ten Rejected Gore - Lieberman Campaign Slogans." Number nine on the list was: "Remember, America, I gave you the Internet, and I can take it away!" [13] Love Canal On 30 November 1999, in response to a question about what students could do to involve themselves in the political process, Gore described to a New Hampshire high school his reaction in the late 1970s to a letter from a student in Toone, Tennessee, complaining about her family's poisoned well: "I called for a congressional investigation and a hearing. I looked around the country for other sites like that. I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal. Had the first hearing on that issue, and Toone, Tennessee -- that was the one that you didn't hear of. But that was the one that started it all."[14] While the Associated Press story that covered the speech printed the final quotation correctly, both the Washington Post and The Washington Times claimed that Gore had actually said: "I was the one that started it all". [15] The Post ran a correction a few days later, but the Times never did, and continued to run editorials denouncing Gore's "boasting" of having been "the whistle blower for discovering Love Canal." [16] The Republican National Committee and several conservative commentators at the time furthered the claim that Gore was attempting to take credit for discovering the toxic waste problem at Love Canal. However, Gore's supporters have argued that the context of the speech should make it clear that what had initially sparked his interest in toxic waste issues was the Toone, Tennessee situation. [16] [14] The quotation has been repeated with ", and Toone, Tennessee -- that was the one that you didn't hear of. But" replaced by an ellipsis (...), which subtly alters its meaning. In October 1978, Gore did hold congressional hearings on Love Canal -- however it was two months after President Jimmy Carter declared it a disaster area and the federal government offered to buy the homes. After the hearings, Gore said, "We passed a major national law to clean up hazardous dump sites. And we had new efforts to stop the practices that ended up poisoning water around the country. We've still got work to do. But we made a huge difference. And it all happened because one high school student got involved." Love Story Gore was quoted in the New York Times December 14 1997 edition as saying "[Erich] Segal had told some reporters in Tennessee that Love Story was based on him and Tipper." The Tennessean newspaper article indeed quoted Segal as saying that Love Story was based on both the Gores. Gore's quotation is therefore accurate since Gore was referring to what the Tennessean had reported. Although Segal said that the newspaper had misquoted him, and that his novel was not based on Gore's relationship with Tipper, Segal himself noted that the male lead in Love Story, Oliver Barrett IV, was in fact based on Gore, as well as Gore's college roommate, actor Tommy Lee Jones. [17] Use of energy in home In 2007, Gore came under criticism from the conservative think tank Tennessee Center for Policy Research, which the Tennessee Department of Revenue does not consider to be "a legitimate group". [18][19] The organization issued a report which said that during August 2006 Gore's household consumed 22,619 kilowatt-hours -- more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year.[20] Drew Johnson, the president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, said in releasing the figures: " For someone in his position not to take steps to reduce his own energy consumption is disingenuous. As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk (the) walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use."#wp-_note-Critics_question_how_green_Gore_really_is">[21] " Response There have been a number of responses to this claim. TIME stated that the Tennessee Center for Policy Research claimed to have gotten "its figures from Nashville Electric Service. But company spokeswoman Laurie Parker said the utility never got a request from the policy center and never gave it any information." [22] TIME further quoted Kalee Kreider, a spokesperson for Gore, as saying that the source of the energy is green energy.[22] WKRN-TV reported that the Gore family obtains their power from the Nashville Electric Service's "renewable energy initiative", The Green Power Switch program [23] which depends upon "wind, solar, and methane gas." [24] The Detroit Free Press further noted that "Gore purchased 108 blocks of 'green power' for each of the past three months, according to a summary of the bills. That's a total of $432 a month Gore paid extra for solar or other renewable energy sources.The green power Gore purchased is equivalent to recycling 2.48 million aluminum cans or 286,092 pounds of newspaper, according to comparison figures on NES's Web site." [21] The figure of 108 blocks of green power per month corresponds[23] to 16,200 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month, Al Gore's average monthly use for 2005. Keith Olbermann at MSNBC reported that the Gore home includes offices for both Gore and his wife and 'special security measures' making it unrepresentative of what the average US home consumes. Additionally, the green power purchased by the Gores increased the cost of their electricity by "$5,893, more than 50 percent, in order to minimize carbon pollution."[25] Kreider suggested in TIME that the attacks on Gore's energy use were political in nature and stated: " Sometimes when people don't like the message, in this case that global warming is real, it's convenient to attack the messenger. "
