Al Gore Recordings

When the American people of the 1990s looked at Al Gore they sore a boring and stiff southern politician who was just too robotic.  He joked about his stiffness at the 1996 Democratic National Convention by doing his version of a popular song at the time known as the Macarena during his Acceptance Speech as the twice nominated Democratic candidate for Vice President.  At the Cleveland Convocation Center on November 4, 1996, the Vice President was so animated in his remarks that when President Clinton began his remarks he said, "I don't know what the Vice President had for breakfast this morning but I am glad he didn't have seconds because he would be through the roof right now."  But behind that image was a serious politician who since coming to the House of Representatives in 1977, the Senate in 1985, and the Vice Presidency in 1993 made it his mission to save the Earth from a climate disaster.  He would reference his faith tradition by declaring human beings having dominion of the Earth but to also be good stewards of the Earth.

Born in 1948 with his parents dividing the family's time between the state of Tennessee and Washington, DC as Al Gore's father; Albert Gore served as a United States senator from Tennessee, the young Gore was no stranger to politics and policy.  During the school year, Gore would live in the Fairfax Hotel on Embassy Row where he attended a prep school named St. Albans School.  In the summer months he would spend in Carthage, Tennessee working the family farm where the Gores grew tobacco and hay, and raised cattle.

In 1965, Gore was enrolled at Harvard where he was a roommate with future actor Tommy Lee Jones.  As far as his studies went, he was originally going to major in English so that he could write novels only to change his Major later on to government.  Government and politics was what one would call the family business and on the second day at college, Al Gore was campaigning for the freshman student government council.  He was elected president.

As a student, at first, Gore was not a very serious student.  The first two years he found himself watching a lot of television, shooting a lot of pool, and occasionally smoking marijuana.  These activities showed it as he was ranking in the lower one-fifth of his class.  By junior and senior year though, he was taking a class taught be oceanographer and a global warming theorist, Roger Revelle.  It was in this class that Al Gore would spark a lifelong interest in global warming.  Gore would graduate from Harvard in 1969 earning A.B. cum laude.

In October 1969 the band Creedence Clearwater Revival recorded and released a song called Fortunate Son.  At the time, you would think that given the lyrics of the song; "It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son!", would be about Al Gore and other sons of US senators.  But it wasn't.  It was a song about Dwight Eisenhower's grandson and Richard Nixon's son-in-law, David Eisenhower.  Al Gore was quite the opposite.  He enlisted in the United States Army serving from 1969 to 1971, and doing a tour in Vietnam as a war correspondent.  Yes, Al Gore had an easier job than most in Vietnam, but not only did he carry a pencil but he also had his M16 rifle.

On May 19, 1970, Al Gore would marry a girl he knew since taking her to the senior prom in 1965; Mary Elizabeth Aircheson; nicknamed Tipper.  They would be married at a very controversial time in history where President Nixon had expanded the war in Vietnam into Cambodia resulting in college campus uprisings all over the United States; most notably at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.  Then, just days before the wedding two black students would be shot and killed at Jackson State in Jackson, Mississippi.  The Gores would have four children: Karenna, born in 1973, Kristin, born in 1977, Sarah, born in 1979, and Albert, III, born in 1982.  Albert would years later be struck by a car after leaving a baseball game resulting in a long road to recovery.  It was at this time where Al Gore started thinking about health care in America and how we as a country pay for it after seeing families less fortunate than them without health insurance and no way to pay the astronomical debt.  In 2010, the Gores would separate after 40 years of marriage.

In 1976, Al Gore would enter into the family business by running for the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee first representing the 4th District from 1977 to 1983 and then the 6th District from 1983 to 1985.  He would then run in 1984 for the US Senate and staying in that seat until he resigned in 1993 to be sworn in as Vice President of the United States.

As a member of Congress, Gore would focus on the environment by trying to pass legislation to save the Earth.  To hear the warnings about climate change and global warming from the 1980s and early 1990s in the 2020s seems both alarming and quaint. 

After eight years of Ronald Reagan the Democratic Party in 1987/88, much like the Republican Party in 1987/88 did not have a shortage of candidates to choose from.  Such candidates were Joe Biden of Delaware who dropped out as quickly (due to alleged plagiarism) as he got in only to run again in 2007/08 before dropping out the night of the Iowa Caucuses and then being named as Barack Obama's running mate, then in 2028; Elected the 46th President of the United States.  Al Gore, Bob Dole of Kansas who was Gerald Ford's running mate in 1976, ran against Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush in 1980 only to drop out after New Hampshire running for re-election to the United States Senate, and then was nominated as the Republican nominee for President in 1996 losing to Bill Clinton.  George HW Bush, the incumbent vice president.  Interestingly, with the exception of Bob Dole, Bush, Gore, and Biden all served eight years as Vice President.  Gore would drop out in April 1988 and the nominees would be George Bush and Michael Dukakis.  Bush ended up winning the presidency, but Al Gore would be back four years later teaming up with Bill Clinton.

Gore would spend the next five years serving in the US Senate promoting the need for climate change, voting to send troops into Iraq in 1991, writing a book title Earth in the Balance, lobbying for a Family and Medical Leave Law, and running for vice president in 1992 with Bill Clinton.

At the time, President Clinton made his Vice President the most powerful vice president to that point in history.  Vice President Gore was tasked early in the administration to reinvent government.  He would publicly debate Ross Perot on the NAFTA Agreement.  With the assistance with his wife; Tipper, Vice President Gore convened a White House forum on mental health.  And there was of course, the Impeachment of the President.

With the second term of President Clinton expiring in 2001, the Vice President seemed the heir apparent to assume the leadership role of the Democratic Party in 2000.  Well, Former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley had other plans.  Gore and Bradley did fight it out early in the Primary season, but it was the Vice President getting the nomination for President.

Because of the Impeachment in 1998/99, Gore felt a need to distance himself from President Clinton.  He would chose for his running mate, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.  Lieberman is the first Jewish American to be nominated for vice president on a major political party ticket.  But despite the distancing and adding Lieberman to the ticket, outside events like the impeachment or the Easter Sunday raid by the FBI to remove a little Cuban boy named Elian Gonzalez from his extended family's Miami home after his mother drowned on their way from Fidel Castro's Cuba to the United States, Al Gore managed to win the popular vote against George W. Bush.  But that would not win him the presidency.  In a chaotic 36 day back and forth after the November 7, 2000 Election George W. Bush was declared the winner of the state of Florida, thus giving him 271 Electoral Votes to Al Gore's 266 Electoral Votes

Post Vice Presidency, Al Gore has been going around the country warning people about the dangers of climate change.  He managed to make two movies as well, winning the 2007 Oscar for Best Documentary.  Later in 2007, Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize.  As for presidential politics, in 2004 when his former running mate was running for the nomination, Gore endorsed Vermont governor Howard Dean for president.  In 2008 he broke rank and endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton for president.

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