In Detroit, in the home arena of the Stanley Cup championship Detroit Red Wings, in a state that, because of party rules, Barack Obama skipped during the presidential primary campaign, former Vice-President Al Gore endorsed Obama to the delight of an enthusiastic crowd.
Gore, who many believe was rightly elected president in a win that was stripped away by the U.S. Supreme Court, is clearly a Democratic Party favorite. And since he's been out of the business of running for office, involved instead in a slick campaign to promote a cleaner environment in the fight against global warming, he has been a popular figure.
But can this translate into votes for Barack Obama?
Gore compared Obama to John F. Kennedy. Obama promised, if elected, that he and Gore would work together toward cleaning the environment.
Gore is riding on a degree of popularity. Last year he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on informing the public about climate change. An Inconvenient Truth, his documentary on global warming, won an Academy Award.
There were Democrats, and not an insignificant number, who hoped that Gore would, early in the primary campaign, throw his hat into the ring and "save" their party. They saw the "new" Gore as a relaxed, likable guy, not the robot-looking candidate who ran for president. It's an image that can't hurt Obama this November.
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Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joscrei/2586728676/
3 comments:
Elections matter!
Many US citizens, cities and States are taking action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and it would be great if the President was putting this high on the agenda as well.
An obstacle to action is the fear it will put the country at a competitive disadvantage and harm the economy. In the European Emissions Trading Scheme business interests played one country off against another to reduce government commitments to emissions cuts, threatening to move investment and jobs overseas.
A way past this is for we, the people, to take the lead in supporting the Simultaneous Policy campaign, agreeing the action that we want taken (Contraction and Convergence is a proposal gaining support) and call on our leaders to pledge to implement these policies alongside other governments. Simultaneous action allows us to go further and to link many global issues in a coherent way.
You can find out more about these ideas at:
http://globaljusticeideas.blogspot.com/
To send a message to the Presidential candidates see:
http://www.simpol.org/voteusa.html
Vice President Gore was enthusiastically received by a large crowd when he endorced the next president of the United States. You want to know why? There were TWO presidents on that stage!
Sylvia_Lovejoy
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