Gore Still Refuses to Crush My Hopes Outright

Although he never issued a definitive Sherman Statement, Steve Benen notices he's sounding a bit less Shermanesque than he has previously:

Al Gore is waging a fierce campaign for recognition and an Oscar statuette for his global warming documentary, while reviving talk that he’s pursuing a bigger prize: the presidency.

..."I am not planning to run for president again," Gore said last week, arguing that his focus is raising public awareness about global warming and its dire effects. Then, he added: "I haven’t completely ruled it out."

Those words make Gore the 800-pound non-candidate of the Democratic field.

Also worth noting, as noticed by Draft Gore 2008, is that AlGore.com has gone live again, the site Gore used for his 2000 presidential bid. MB at Draft Gore says:

The Gore website has two major action items at the moment: Sending 1,000,000 postcards to Congress, and holding thousands of house parties. MoveOn.Org is partnering with AlGore.Com, and a number of other organizations, such as the Sierra Club, are sponsoring the house party event as well.

While both of these actions are important in and of themselves, they also are very smart pre-campaign organizing tools; the postcards provide a million email addresses and the house parties, thousands of committed, willing activists ready to work hard, raise money, and promote the campaign. Very smart indeed.

The house parties may also address a concern raised by Benen—that Gore's favorable ratings among politically engaged Americans is much higher than among Americans who are not politically engaged, of whom there are significantly more. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world (nor the least bit surprising) if supporters holding house parties did a little evangelizing on Gore's behalf alongside their environmental consciousness-raising.

(PEEK-ed.)