It's your time, Al
Rob Price

Memo to Al Gore: Nice work

Forget Hillary, forget Barack. Your testimony on global warning Wednesday has positioned you perfectly for the Democratic nomination for president. Now it's just a matter of waiting for the right moment to announce your candidacy.

Clinton and Obama will very likely destroy each other's candidacy in the next six months. By the time they get finished beating each other up over Iraq, the only thing the voters are going to notice are their bruises.

You meanwhile are unassailable on the issue. You opposed the war from the get-go, and an Al Gore - two-term vice president and top presidential vote-getter in 2000 - opposing the invasion of Iraq is a lot more serious than the opposition of a state senator in Illinois.

Meanwhile, you've reinvented yourself over the last seven years. Voters now identify you not as the man who predicted Bill Clinton would be remembered as one of the country's greatest presidents (What WERE you thinking?); now you're the man who is the embodiment of a worldwide environmental issue. You've helped make global warming a real political issue, and you're on the right side of the issue.

It doesn't matter you're not a scientist; it doesn't matter some scientists even disagree with your contention carbon dioxide emissions are raising global temperatures. In the public eye, the argument is settled: Human industrial activity is causing - or at least is a major factor behind - global warming. People who try to argue the other side are going to look like ostriches with their heads in the sand.

The Kyoto Treaty? No one is going to remember your former boss didn't even submit it to Congress for ratification. Make Kyoto a rallying cry. Silence the critics who yell about China and India not signing the treaty. The United States is still the world's largest producer of carbonbased emissions. "It's true," you can say, "the industrial economies of China and India are growing, and these two countries will account for an increasing share of carbon gases. But let's first take care of our own problems, the fact we contribute more than any other country to global warming. After we get our own house in order, then maybe we can worry about others."

Your weight? It's possible you're the most overweight presidential candidate since those big boys in the late 19th century - Cleveland, Roosevelt, Taft. Don't worry about it. Here's what your weight says about you: I'm comfortable with myself. I'm comfortable in my own body. Most of the electorate remembers how you looked like a block of wood in 2000. Let that extra 30 pounds work for you. They can contribute to your overall gravitas.

Your running mate? This is a nobrainer. Obama is the up and coming guy; he's just a little on the green side. Get him out of the Senate, which is where presidential futures die, and find him an office down the hall from the Oval Office. Give him eight years in the White House and let him grow up. Personally, I see a minimum of 16 uninterrupted years of Democratic presidencies.

Your campaign style? Frankly, your voice still sounds like a fifth-grade teacher lecturing a roomful of naughty children: singsongy, patronizing. People are going to remember they decided to vote for Bush because they couldn't stand the idea of listening to you for four years. The good news is, most of those people can't stand the sound of George Bush's voice anymore. Also, Hillary's own voice, her unremitting platitudes, her general demeanor will remind voters of a different fifthgrade teacher - the one who made them stand in the hall when they mouthed off.

All the same, I recommend hiring some accomplished stand-up comedians to go over your routines. Let them listen to you and then tell you where you need to lighten up. I suggest Jerry Seinfeld. Or Woody Allen. Keep this one confidential. Very confidential.

Let me wrap this up with the idea that 2008 is really your year. We will have had eight years of the guy a lot of people turned to just because they were tired of the big guy and his wife who had bossed you around and then hung around your neck like a couple of albatrosses.

And, it's not like a whole lot of people turned against you. After all, you did get the most votes. People will think it's time to give you the job they really wanted you to have seven years ago.