I thought this article was interesting. Apparently, Obama is saying he would make a commitment to use Al Gore as a cabinet member and consultant on the issue of climate change and Global Warming.
That sounds interest. I like Gore, so that would be a boon.
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer 12 minutes ago
WALLINGFORD, Pa. - Sen. Barack Obama said Wednesday he would give Al Gore, a Nobel prize winner, a major role in an Obama administration to address the problem of global warming.
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At a town-hall meeting, Obama was asked if he would tap the former vice president for his Cabinet, or an even higher level office, to handle global warming.
"I would," Obama said. "Not only will I, but I will make a commitment that Al Gore will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we solve this problem. He's somebody I talk to on a regular basis. I'm already consulting with him in terms of these issues, but climate change is real. It is something we have to deal with now, not 10 years from now, not 20 years from now."
The only position higher than a Cabinet post is vice president. While Obama seemed to dangle that possibility in his answer Wednesday, he has repeatedly said it is far too early to discuss potential vice presidents because the nomination has not been won.
It is also not clear that Gore, who had the job for eight years under Bill Clinton, would even want to be a vice president again.
Since leaving the White House, Gore has gone on to become one of the world's leading voices for combating the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. His work earned him a share of the Nobel last year.
Popular among Democrats, Gore is perhaps the single most coveted endorsement up for grabs in the long-running competition between Obama and rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The relationship between Gore and the Clintons became strained after Gore limited Bill Clinton's campaigning on his behalf in the 2000 presidential race which elected George W. Bush.
Obama said he would use Gore to help forge a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions designed to lower pollution.
The Illinois senator cautioned that such a system could mean an increase in electricity bills from power companies that rely on coal-burning, and that some of the money generated from a cap-and-trade system may be used in the beginning to help lower income or fixed income customers with those bills.
He also called on individuals to do their part to lower energy consumption.
"All of us are going to have to change our habits. We are a wasteful culture," he said.
Using compact fluorescent light bulbs, energy efficient appliances, and unplugging power chargers when they're not in use are relatively simple solutions, he said.
"Those kinds of simple steps, if everybody takes them, can drastically reduce our energy consumption."
I personally think this shows how unpolitical Obama is - does he really gain anything from saying this? Gore has a lot of negative press and now that is going to begin to attach itself to Obama.
"Yeah, funny how that works - you giving hungry people food they vote for you. You give homeless people shelter they vote for you. You give the unemployed a job they vote for you.
Maybe if the conservative ideology put a roof overhead, food on the table, and employed the downtrodden the poor folk would be all for it, too". - Broomstick
He might rake in some greenies, but that'd be well offset by the vast swaths of Middle American sheep who subscribe to global warming skepticism for no reason other than it tells them what they want to hear.
is it normal for American presidential candidates to start discussing their future ministers, at this stage of the race, when they don't even have running mates? Cause it seems like at this point they should still be concentrating on showing who they are as an individual candidate, at least till they are the definite candidate.
If you watch the video of the question, you can see my son and I behind Barack against the wall
I thought the comment fit well with other parts of his speech that centered on not surrounding himself with yes men and reforming the way advice is given and received in Washington. Of course, you can't really fit all that into sound bite politics.
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The Guid wrote:I personally think this shows how unpolitical Obama is - does he really gain anything from saying this? Gore has a lot of negative press and now that is going to begin to attach itself to Obama.
I dunno. There's something to be said for making it appear as though people who should have been supporters of your opponent are flocking to your camp in droves.
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spaceviking wrote:is it normal for American presidential candidates to start discussing their future ministers, at this stage of the race, when they don't even have running mates? Cause it seems like at this point they should still be concentrating on showing who they are as an individual candidate, at least till they are the definite candidate.
It ups the pressure on Hillary to drop out of the race in two ways: by putting forth to the public the continuing projection that Obama is going to win, and the peeling away of those who should be natural allies of the Clintons, as mentioned above.
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Funny, I was just wondering why Gore hasn't come out and endorsed anybody yet. If anything, it seems like an endorsement Hillary should have an edge on getting, considering how much the Clintons have done for Gore's political career. I remember reading that some of Gore's people in 2000 resented Clinton because they felt that the GOP was having success in hanging Clinton's indescretions around Gore's neck, but I don't remember if that translated into animosity between the two or not.
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Shouldn't he like, uuuh, WIN the elections first or something?
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CJvR wrote:Shouldn't he like, uuuh, WIN the elections first or something?
Mathmaticly he's already won, unless Hillary get 76% wins in all further states she can't beat his delegate count. The only way she can "win" is to bribe/threaten enough superdelegates to put her over the top, and she needs nearly all of them.
He's been gaining super-delegates for weeks now including a few who switched their votes to Obama. For all real purposes it's all over but the screaming from the Hillary side, because if she DOES win the primary she will lose the general considering the democratic meltdown that would result from an Obama loss via super-delegates. Unless Obama takes the VP slot and sucks up to her in a serious way, otherwise you will see something akin to a day in the South Korean parliament, IE fist-fights on the floor of debate.
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Pardon my ignorance of the American system, but isn't a twelfth-hour Gore presidency nomination still possible? Could he not just show up at the convention (like the Pennsylvania governor in the penultimate season of "The West Wing") with a bunch of "Draft Gore" signs and get himself shoehorned onto the second ballot?
73% of all statistics are made up, including this one.
irishmick79 wrote:Funny, I was just wondering why Gore hasn't come out and endorsed anybody yet. If anything, it seems like an endorsement Hillary should have an edge on getting, considering how much the Clintons have done for Gore's political career.
People thought the exact same thing about Governor Richardson too. He was seen as someone who would almost certainly end up endorsing Clinton. And we've all seen how that turned out...
SCRawl wrote:Pardon my ignorance of the American system, but isn't a twelfth-hour Gore presidency nomination still possible? Could he not just show up at the convention (like the Pennsylvania governor in the penultimate season of "The West Wing") with a bunch of "Draft Gore" signs and get himself shoehorned onto the second ballot?
Possible but unlikely. Selling Gore as an alternative candidate presents the same problems as convincing the superdelegates to essentially ignore the popular vote and install Hillary as the nominee. It's possible if the convention is so deadlocked that no other reasonable choice presents itself but it would almost certainly lead to a losing ticket for November.
When ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets.
—Abraham Lincoln
People pray so that God won't crush them like bugs.
—Dr. Gregory House
Oil an emergency?! It's about time, Brigadier, that the leaders of this planet of yours realised that to remain dependent upon a mineral slime simply doesn't make sense.
—The Doctor "Terror Of The Zygons" (1975)
Gore won't endorse, at least not until all the rest of the remaining power brokers in the cotiere of "party elders" has made up their minds. The thing is everyone in his position (and that of Reid, Dean, Pelosi, and Edwards) wants to be the last onboard before the media declares Obama the winner. If you are the weight that finally tips the scales it increase your own power base and all of those folks mentioned are consumate enough politicians to want that. I think what will happen is that we will wind our way through the rest of the primary season and sometime around about the second week of June all of these guys will collectively come out of the woodwork for Obama and effectively end Clinton's campaing after giving her one last chance to drop out before being forced out.
Now all of this presupposes that Obama keeps it close in PA, wins NC by a landslide and then squeaks out a win in IN. Once that is done the nomination is his because he will have done everything he needs to do to prove himself the stronger competitor. If he outright wins in PA then the cries for Hillary to exit will grow deafening and the aforementioned group might very well jump into the fray early.
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My uneducated layman's guess is that that wouldn't change the basic dynamic in big, usually-one-sided-in-presidential-election states.
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It'd be interesting to see this - if Obama is elected, the most likely position for Gore is Secretary of the Interior, I believe, and that might bring attention to that so often disregarded office, and probably in a good way, unlike the case of Albert Fall. (Although, I'd be willing to bet that there's plenty in the current administration who are just as bad or worse, but with the general atmosphere no one's heard about it.)
On the other hand, Gore might not want a Cabinet position that no one really hears anything about now, not if he wants to get a whole lot done. Can any of you name the current SecInt? Sure you can. But you had to look... Dirk Kempthorne up, didn't you. (I did.)
Somebody raised an interesting point, though - that Obama was actually willing to take a stance on that issue now, because of course saying that's going to have some political repercussions. Certainly people who don't like Gore won't like it, and that may have made just saying "Maybe, I'm not making any decisions yet" a safer move, but then I can't really say there's a big segment of the populace that supports Obama but opposes Gore.
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Honestly if he was going to put gore anywhere I would think the best spot would be head of the EPA because then he doesn't have to take political heat (since the EPA is theoretically independent) and Gore can do what needs to be done on a national regulatory level. It would be the best spot to stick him methinks but not sure if Gore would take it.
SDNet World Nation: Wilkonia
Armourer of the WARWOLVES
ASVS Vet's Association (Class of 2000)
Former C.S. Strowbridge Gold Ego Award Winner MEMBER of the Anti-PETA Anti-Facist LEAGUE
"I put no stock in religion. By the word religion I have seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the will of god. I have seen too much religion in the eyes of too many murderers. Holiness is in right action, and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves, and goodness. "
-Kingdom of Heaven
though I can't say I like Gore much, I really wouldnt care if he is part of Obama's cabinet. I could even deal with H. Clinton in Obama's cabinet, just as long as she isnt the POTUS.
As long as Obama doesn't fold on nuclear energy, I won't care too much what Gore does, so long as its sensible. Any sensible energy policy to combat climate change must require nuclear energy, not solely renewable power sources.
