Draft Al Gore, The True Heir to FDR and JFK

Last week a poll in New Hampshire showed Al Gore winning the primary in that state, and this coming fall I predict Al Gore will win the Nobel Prize for peace.

Every so often, in America, voters have an opportunity to fire the shot that will be heard around the world, to lift the spirits of America and lift the stature and reputation of America around the world.

Every American should read Al Gore’s book The Assault On Reason, a manifesto for freedom and democracy in the modern world, a sweeping indictment of the sins and shames of the George Bush era and a call to arms for everything that America can be. 

Al Gore is the true and legitimate heir to Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy as a political leader who stands for fundamental change, a new political order in America, a new political realignment based on a lifetime of enormous achievement and a program that lays out a noble vision and concrete plan.

There is no candidate, in either party, who even comes close to being commander in chief-ready on his first day as president. As congressman, senator, vice president, leader, entrepreneur, capitalist, visionary, and a man with a moral compass, Gore has the qualifications and experience necessary in a president, with the courage and principle our leaders should have.

There is no candidate, in either party, who has demonstrated any leadership, on any issue, even close the the leadership Al Gore has demonstrated on global warming and the environment, not for a season, but for a lifetime.

There is no candidate, in either party, who has been so cogently correct on the great war of our times as Al Gore has been in opposing the war in Iraq from the beginning, and in standing for an Americanism that honors free speech, the Bill of Rights and our national values — from opposing torture to supporting civil and human rights.

There is no candidate, in either party, who has been so far ahead of his times, on so many occasions, measured in decades and not months, on great issue after great issue from nuclear non-proliferation to alternative energy, from the potential of technology to the civil and human rights of men and women.

Judgment, temperament, experience and knowledge are qualities that developed over a lifetime and qualities urgently needed in our next president.

Al Gore was born in the spirit of the New South and has stood for civil rights and equality, for civil liberties and constitutional freedom, in good times and bad, and is the ideal voice when even our Supreme Court is revisiting the dark days of segregrated justice in America.

America is ready for another revolution, a return to the first principles of freedom, for a profound reformation of the corruption that plagues our system, for a profound uplifting of the American Spirit based on high ideals, great aspirations, noble traditions and civic decency.

America is ending what will be seen as a dark interlude in our national affairs, which will be known as the Bush years, which will end with great rejoicing throughout America and around the world.

Gore-Obama, Gore-Webb, Gore-Bloomberg, Gore-Clark, Gore-Richardson — there is magic in them all, which is the magic of America.

Ladies and gentlemen, do not be deceived by the darkness on the evening news or the nasty poison that envelops our politics. The dead hand of the past is ending, the future is now beginning, and the ideal man to lead it and shape it is Al Gore.

Our mission, as Democrats, is not to elect a candidate or a Congress, but to change our country, to return to what we have always been at our best, to bring out the nobility and spirit and character of our nation.

Our mission is not to win an election, but to inaugurate a new era in American history that will be reminiscent of those great eras of reform and renewal brought by Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.

The heir to that tradition, the bearer of that legacy, and the person of substance and stature who towers over the mediocrity of our political times is Al Gore.

The draft movement will soon have his name on the ballot for the shot that could be heard around the world as the man, the mission and moment come together.