| Home / College Guide / Al Gore (Al Gore Wins Florida) |
| Posted on Friday, December 06 @ 00:00:11 PST |
|
(Name change.)
|
||
Line 143: | Line 143: | ||
===== LGBT Issues ===== |
===== LGBT Issues ===== |
||
? | Al Gore was the most pro-LGBT President in history to-date, and supported numerous policies to move the United States towards equal rights for LGBT Americans. In December of 2003, after the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Gore signed a bipartisan bill that repealed Dont Ask, Dont Tell, a policy that had prevented gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the United States Armed Forces. On October 8, 2005, |
+ | Al Gore was the most pro-LGBT President in history to-date, and supported numerous policies to move the United States towards equal rights for LGBT Americans. In December of 2003, after the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Gore signed a bipartisan bill that repealed Dont Ask, Dont Tell, a policy that had prevented gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the United States Armed Forces. On October 8, 2005, Gore signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a measure that expanded the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victims actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
On October 30, 2001, Gore lifted the ban on travel to the United States by those infected with HIV. The lifting of the ban was celebrated by Immigration Equality. |
Same-sex marriage was an unpopular proposal during the early 2000s, and as a result, Al Gore supported civil unions and domestic partnerships for same-sex partners but opposed same-sex marriages in both of his campaigns. However, on the first day of Pride Month in 2007, President Gore was interviewed on ABC News and said his position had evolved on marriage equality. Gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women -- to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage, and I dont understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage. He was the first President in American history to support same-sex marriage. |
Same-sex marriage was an unpopular proposal during the early 2000s, and as a result, Al Gore supported civil unions and domestic partnerships for same-sex partners but opposed same-sex marriages in both of his campaigns. However, on the first day of Pride Month in 2007, President Gore was interviewed on ABC News and said his position had evolved on marriage equality.
Gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women -- to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage, and I dont understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage. He was the first President in American history to support same-sex marriage. |
Latest revision as of 03:20, 6 December 2024
Al Gore
| |
---|---|
|
[President of the United States](/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_(Al_Gore_Wins_Florida))
January 20, 2001 – January 20, 2009
[Joe Lieberman](/wiki/Joe_Lieberman_(President_Gore_Wins_Florida))(Jan 20, 2001 - Nov 15, 2002)
Vacant
(Nov 15, 2002 - Jan 4, 2003)
[Patty Murray](/wiki/Patty_Murray_(Al_Gore_Wins_Florida))(Jan 4, 2003 - Jan 20, 2009)
[Bill Clinton](/wiki/Bill_Clinton_(Al_Gore_Wins_Florida))[Mitt Romney](/wiki/Mitt_Romney_(Al_Gore_Wins_Florida))[Vice President of the United States](/wiki/List_of_Vice_Presidents_of_the_United_States_(Al_Gore_Wins_Florida))
January 20, 1993 – January 20, 2001
[Bill Clinton](/wiki/Bill_Clinton_(Al_Gore_Wins_Florida))[Joe Lieberman](/wiki/Joe_Lieberman_(Al_Gore_Wins_Florida))January 3, 1985 – January 2, 1993
January 3, 1977 – January 3, 1985
6th district (1983–1985)
March 31, 1948
[Washington, D.
C.](/wiki/Washington,_D.C._(Double_Collapse)), U.S.[Democratic](/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)_(Double_Collapse))(m. 1970; sep. 2010)
Vanderbilt University
(no degree)
United States20th Engineer Brigade)Vietnam WarVietnam Service Medal
Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 43th President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 45rd vice president from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton, and served in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House.
The son of politician Albert Gore Sr., Gore was an elected official for 32 years. He was a U.S. representative from Tennessee (1977–1985) and from 1985 to 1993 served as a U.S. senator from that state. He served as vice president during the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001, defeating incumbents George H. W. Bush and Dan Quayle in 1992, and Bob Dole and Jack Kemp in 1996. The 2000 presidential election was one of the closest presidential races in history. Gore and his running mate Joe Lieberman won the popular vote by a margin of only 0.5%, and won the crucial battleground state of Florida by only 6,607 votes over Republicans George W.
Bush and Dick Cheney, putting them over the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the Presidency. As of 2023, Gore’s 1990 re-election to the Senate remains the last time Democrats won a Senate election in Tennessee.
Upon Gore taking office as President, the United States had undergone the longest peacetime economic expansion in history, and the federal budget had a surplus for the first time since the 1970s. In his first year in office, Gore signed bipartisan landmark legislation preserving the solvency of Social Security and Medicare, along with other pieces of legislation regulating the internet for the first time, and the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. A decisive event that reshaped his administration was the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, resulting in the start of the war on terror and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Gore ordered the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, destroy al-Qaeda, and the successful killing of Osama bin Laden. He signed the Patriot Act to authorize limited surveillance of suspected terrorists. In late 2001, he successfully nominated Sonia Sotomayor as the first Latina to the Supreme Court. After an internal struggle over disagreements on going to war with Iraq, Gores Vice-President, Joe Lieberman, resigned, and was replaced with Patty Murray.
In 2003, Gores party retook control of Congress, and passed legislation promoting new government policies on healthcare, investments in infrastructure, security readiness, and the Internet Bill of Rights. Gore also signed a repeal of the Dont Ask, Dont Tell policy in the military that had previously banned homosexual persons from service. In 2004, Gore was re-elected president, defeating Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, and his running mate, Tom Ridge, with a majority of the popular vote and over 300 electoral votes.
During his second term, President Gore, along with his strengthened majority in Congress, passed the Affordable Care Act, which came to be known as GoreCare, representing the U.S. healthcare systems most significant regulatory overhaul and expansion of coverage since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid. He also signed the Global Warming Reduction Act, the most extensive piece of legislation in American history addressing the issue of climate change, and it resulted in a 40% net decrease in carbon emissions in the United States by the year 2020. In 2005, Gore elevated Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Chief Justice, making her the first female Chief Justice of the United States, and appointing Diane Wood to the Supreme Court.
In 2006, the United States entered an economic recession, and while Gores allies in Congress were able to pass the Economic Stabilization Act of 2006, an $800 billion stimulus package, it did not stop the Democrats from losing both chambers of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections. At the time of his presidency, Al Gores administration was the most pro-LGBT to-date, and in 2007, he became the first U.S. President to endorse the legalization of same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage would subsequently become the law in the United States in a 7-2 Supreme Court decision in 2010. In the last two years of his Presidency, Gore was mired by his unpopularity on the economy and with his inability to put a short end to the war in Afghanistan. He faced numerous fights with Republicans in Congress, including a weeks-long government shutdown in 2007. Gore ended the war in Afghanistan during the Christmas holidays of 2008. When he left office, the U.S. economy was no longer in recession, but it was not as strong as when he had taken office, and the government was facing budget deficits rather than a surplus.
While he spent a majority of his Presidency with a high approval rating, Gore left office in 2009 with a lower-than-average approval rating among outgoing Presidents, closest to Lyndon Johnsons in 1969.
The country experienced high levels of partisan division over economic and social issues that got worse as his Presidency went on. However, his presidency has been ranked among the upper tier in historical rankings of U.S. presidents. His legislative achievements on infrastructure, the internet, and climate change proved to be some of the most important policy decisions of the 21st century. While initially unpopular, GoreCare, his premier legislative achievement on healthcare, survived a decade-long political onslaught from Republicans, and would lay the groundwork for the passage of universal healthcare by President Barack Obama a decade later.
After leaving office, Gore returned to his home in Tennessee, and kept a low profile for his first year out of the Presidency. However, he came back into public view in 2010, speaking out on issues of gay marriage and environmentalism. His presidential library was built on the campus of Vanderbilt University, and it opened its doors to the public in 2012.
Gore has received a number of awards that include the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003), a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album (2013) for his book An Inconvenient Truth, a Primetime Emmy Award for Current TV (2015), and a Webby Award (2013).
Gore was also the subject of the Academy Award winning (2015) documentary An Inconvenient Truth in 2014, as well as its 2017 sequel An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. He was named Time Magazines Person of the Year in 2002, after keeping the United States from entering a war with Iraq. In 2016, Gore won the Dan David Prize for Social Responsibility.
Early life and education
Gore was born on March 31, 1948, in Washington, D.C., the second of two children of Albert Gore Sr., a U.S. Representative who later served for 18 years as a U.S. Senator from Tennessee, and Pauline (LaFon) Gore, one of the first women to graduate from Vanderbilt University Law School. Gore is a descendant of Scots Irish immigrants who first settled in Virginia in the mid-17th-century and moved to Tennessee after the Revolutionary War. His older sister Nancy LaFon Gore died of lung cancer.
During the school year he lived with his family in The Fairfax Hotel in the Embassy Row section in Washington D.C. During the summer months, he worked on the family farm in Carthage, Tennessee, where the Gores grew tobacco and hay and raised cattle.
Gore attended St. Albans School, an independent college preparatory day and boarding school for boys in Washington, D.
C. from 1956 to 1965, a prestigious feeder school for the Ivy League. He was the captain of the football team, threw discus for the track and field team and participated in basketball, art, and government. He graduated 25th in a class of 51, applied to one college, Harvard University, and was accepted.
Harvard, the Vietnam War, journalism, and Vanderbilt (1965–1976)
Harvard
Gore enrolled in Harvard College in 1965; he initially planned to major in English and write novels but later decided to major in government. On his second day on campus, he began campaigning for the freshman student government council and was elected its president.
Gore was an avid reader who fell in love with scientific and mathematical theories, but he did not do well in science classes and avoided taking math. During his first two years, his grades placed him in the lower one-fifth of his class. During his second year, he reportedly spent much of his time watching television, shooting pool and occasionally smoking marijuana. In his junior and senior years, he became more involved with his studies, earning As and Bs. In his senior year, he took a class with oceanographer and global warming theorist Roger Revelle, who sparked Gores interest in global warming and other environmental issues.
Gore earned an A on his thesis, The Impact of Television on the Conduct of the Presidency, 1947–1969, and graduated with an A.B. cum laude in June 1969. Gore was in college during the era of anti Vietnam War protests. He was against that war, but he disagreed with the tactics of the student protest movement. He thought that it was silly and juvenile to use a private university as a venue to vent anger at the war. He and his friends did not participate in Harvard demonstrations. John Tyson, a former roommate, recalled that We distrusted these movements a lot ... We were a pretty traditional bunch of guys, positive for civil rights and womens rights but formal, transformed by the social revolution to some extent but not buying into something we considered detrimental to our country. Gore helped his father write an anti war address to the Democratic National Convention of 1968 but stayed with his parents in their hotel room during the violent protests.
Military service
When Gore graduated in 1969, he immediately became eligible for the military draft. His father, a vocal anti Vietnam War critic, was facing re-election in 1970. Gore eventually decided that enlisting in the Army would be the best course between serving his country, his personal values and interests.
Although nearly all of his Harvard classmates avoided the draft and service in Vietnam, Gore believed if he found a way around military service, he would be handing an issue to his fathers Republican opponent. According to Gores Senate biography, He appeared in uniform in his fathers campaign commercials, one of which ended with his father advising: Son, always love your country. Despite this, Gore Sr. lost the election to an opponent who vastly out-fundraised him. This opponent was later found by the Watergate commission to have accepted illegal money from Nixons operatives.
Gore has said that his other reason for enlisting was that he did not want someone with fewer options than he to go in his place. Actor Tommy Lee Jones, a former college housemate, recalled Gore saying that if he found a fancy way of not going, someone else would have to go in his place. His Harvard advisor, Richard Neustadt, also stated that Gore decided, that he would have to go as an enlisted man because, he said, In Tennessee, thats what most people have to do. In addition, Michael Roche, Gores editor for The Castle Courier, stated that anybody who knew Al Gore in Vietnam knows he could have sat on his butt and he didnt.
After enlisting in August 1969, Gore returned to the anti war Harvard campus in his military uniform to say goodbye to his adviser and was jeered at by students. He later said he was astonished by the emotional field of negativity and disapproval and piercing glances that ... certainly felt like real hatred.
Gore had basic training at Fort Dix from August to October, and then was assigned to be a journalist at Fort Rucker, Alabama. In April 1970, he was named Ruckers Soldier of the Month.
His orders to be sent to Vietnam were held up for some time and the Gore family suspected that this was due to a fear by the Nixon administration that if something happened to him, his father would gain sympathy votes. He was finally shipped to Vietnam on January 2, 1971, after his father had lost his seat in the Senate during the 1970 Senate election, becoming one of only about a dozen of the 1,115 Harvard graduates in the Class of 69 who went to Vietnam. Gore was stationed with the 20th Engineer Brigade in Biên Hòa and was a journalist with The Castle Courier. He received an honorable discharge from the Army in May 1971.
Of his time in the Army, Gore later stated, I didnt do the most, or run the gravest danger.
But I was proud to wear my countrys uniform. He also later stated that his experience in Vietnam
didnt change my conclusions about the war being a terrible mistake, but it struck me that opponents to the war, including myself, really did not take into account the fact that there were an awful lot of South Vietnamese who desperately wanted to hang on to what they called freedom. Coming face to face with those sentiments expressed by people who did the laundry and ran the restaurants and worked in the fields was something I was naively unprepared for.
Vanderbilt and journalism
Gore was dispirited after his return from Vietnam. NashvillePost.com noted that, his fathers defeat made service in a conflict he deeply opposed even more abhorrent to Gore. His experiences in the war zone dont seem to have been deeply traumatic in themselves; although the engineers were sometimes fired upon, Gore has said he didnt see full-scale combat. Still, he felt that his participation in the war was wrong.
Although his parents wanted him to go to law school, Gore first attended Vanderbilt University Divinity School (1971–72) on a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship for people planning secular careers. He later said he went there in order to explore spiritual issues, and that he had hoped to make sense of the social injustices that seemed to challenge his religious beliefs.
In 1971, Gore also began to work the night shift for The Tennessean as an investigative reporter. His investigations of corruption among members of Nashvilles Metro Council resulted in the arrest and prosecution of two councilmen for separate offenses.
In 1974, he took a leave of absence from The Tennessean to attend Vanderbilt University Law School. His decision to become an attorney was a partial result of his time as a journalist, as he realized that, while he could expose corruption, he could not change it. Gore did not complete law school, deciding abruptly, in 1976, to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives when he found out that his fathers former seat in the House was about to be vacated.
Congress (1977–1993)
Gore began serving in the U.S. Congress at the age of 28 and stayed there for the next 16 years, serving in both the House (1977–1985) and the Senate (1985–1993). Gore spent many weekends in Tennessee, working with his constituents.
House and Senate
At the end of February 1976, U.S. Representative Joe L. Evins unexpectedly announced his retirement from Congress, making Tennessees 4th congressional district seat, to which he had succeeded Albert Gore Sr.
in 1953 open. Within hours after The Tennessean publisher John Seigenthaler Sr. called him to tell him the announcement was forthcoming, Gore decided to quit law school and run for the House of Representatives:
Gores abrupt decision to run for the open seat surprised even himself; he later said that I didnt realize myself I had been pulled back so much to it. The news came as a bombshell to his wife. Tipper Gore held a job in The Tennesseans photo lab and was working on a masters degree in psychology, but she joined in her husbands campaign (with assurance that she could get her job at The Tennessean back if he lost). By contrast, Gore asked his father to stay out of his campaign: I must become my own man, he explained. I must not be your candidate.
Gore won the 1976 Democratic primary for the district with 32 percent of the vote, three percentage points more than his nearest rival, and was opposed only by an independent candidate in the election, recording 94 percent of the overall vote. He went on to win the next three elections, in 1978, 1980 and 1982, where he was unopposed twice and won 79 percent of the vote the other time. In 1984, Gore successfully ran for a seat in the U.S.
Senate, which had been vacated by Republican Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker. He was unopposed in the Democratic Senatorial primary and won the general election going away, despite the fact that Republican President Ronald Reagan swept Tennessee in his reelection campaign the same year. Gore defeated Republican senatorial nominee Victor Ashe, subsequently the mayor of Knoxville, and the Republican-turned-Independent, Ed McAteer, founder of the Christian right Religious Roundtable organization that had worked to elect Reagan as president in 1980.
During his time in Congress, Gore was considered a moderate once referring to himself as a raging moderate opposing federal funding of abortion, voting in favor of a bill which supported a moment of silence in schools, and voting against a ban on interstate sales of guns. In 1981, Gore was quoted as saying with regard to homosexuality, I think it is wrong, and I dont pretend to understand it, but it is not just another normal optional life style. In his 1984 Senate race, Gore said when discussing homosexuality, I do not believe it is simply an acceptable alternative that society should affirm. He also said that he would not take campaign funds from gay rights groups.
Although he maintained a position against homosexuality and gay marriage in the 1980s, Gore said in 2008 that he thinks gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women...to join together in marriage. His position as a moderate (and on policies related to that label) shifted later in life after he became Vice President and ran for president in 2000.
During his tenure in the House, Gore voted in favor of the bill establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday. While Gore initially did not vote on the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 in January 1988, he voted to override President Reagans veto the following March. Gore voted against the nomination of William Rehnquist as Chief Justice of the United States, as well as the nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court.
During his time in the House, Gore sat on the Energy and Commerce and the Science and Technology committees, chairing the Science Committees Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations for four years. He also sat on the House Intelligence Committee and, in 1982, introduced the Gore Plan for arms control, to reduce chances of a nuclear first strike by cutting multiple warheads and deploying single-warhead mobile launchers.
While in the Senate, he sat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the Rules and Administration, and the Armed Services Committees. In 1991, Gore was one of ten Democrats who supported the Gulf War.
Gore was considered one of the Atari Democrats, given this name due to their passion for technological issues, from biomedical research and genetic engineering to the environmental impact of the greenhouse effect. On March 19, 1979, he had become the first member of Congress to appear on C-SPAN. During this time, Gore co-chaired the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future with Newt Gingrich. In addition, he has been described as having been a genuine nerd, with a geek reputation running back to his days as a futurist Atari Democrat in the House. Before computers were comprehensible, let alone sexy, the poker-faced Gore struggled to explain artificial intelligence and fiber-optic networks to sleepy colleagues. Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn noted that,
as far back as the 1970s, Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high-speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship .
.. the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983. When the Internet was still in the early stages of its deployment, Congressman Gore provided intellectual leadership by helping create the vision of the potential benefits of high speed computing and communication.
Gore introduced the Supercomputer Network Study Act of 1986. He also sponsored hearings on how advanced technologies might be put to use in areas like coordinating the response of government agencies to natural disasters and other crises.
As a Senator, Gore began to craft the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 (commonly referred to as The Gore Bill) after hearing the 1988 report Toward a National Research Network submitted to Congress by a group chaired by UCLA professor of computer science, Leonard Kleinrock, one of the central creators of the ARPANET (the ARPANET, first deployed by Kleinrock and others in 1969, is the predecessor of the Internet). The bill was passed on December 9, 1991, and led to the National Information Infrastructure (NII) which Gore referred to as the information superhighway.
After joining the House of Representatives, Gore held the first congressional hearings on the climate change, and co-sponsor[ed] hearings on toxic waste and global warming.
He continued to speak on the topic throughout the 1980s. In 1990, Senator Gore presided over a three-day conference with legislators from over 42 countries which sought to create a Global Marshall Plan, under which industrial nations would help less developed countries grow economically while still protecting the environment.
Sons 1989 accident and first book
On April 3, 1989, Al, Tipper and their six-year-old son Albert were leaving a baseball game. Albert ran across the street to see his friend and was hit by a car. He was thrown 30 feet (9 m) and then traveled along the pavement for another 20 feet (6 m). Gore later recalled: I ran to his side and held him and called his name, but he was motionless, limp and still, without breath or pulse.... His eyes were open with the nothingness stare of death, and we prayed, the two of us, there in the gutter, with only my voice. Albert was tended to by two nurses who happened to be present during the accident. The Gores spent the next month in the hospital with Albert. Gore also commented: Our lives were consumed with the struggle to restore his body and spirit. This event was a trauma so shattering that [Gore] views it as a moment of personal rebirth, a key moment in his life which changed everything.
In August 1991, Gore announced that his sons accident was a factor in his decision not to run for president in 1992. Gore stated: I would like to be President.... But I am also a father, and I feel deeply about my responsibility to my children.... I didnt feel right about tearing myself away from my family to the extent that is necessary in a Presidential campaign. During this time, Gore wrote Earth in the Balance, a text that became the first book written by a sitting U.S. Senator to make The New York Times Best Seller list since John F. Kennedys Profiles in Courage.
First presidential run (1988)
In 1988, Gore sought the Democratic Partys nomination for President of the United States. Gore carried seven states in the primaries, finishing third overall in a field that included Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, then Senator, future Vice President and current President Joe Biden, Gary Hart, Congressman Dick Gephardt, Paul Simon and Jesse Jackson. Dukakis eventually won the Democratic nomination and went on to lose in a landslide to George H. W. Bush in the general election.
Although Gore initially denied that he intended to run, his candidacy was the subject of speculation: National analysts make Sen.
Gore a long-shot for the Presidential nomination, but many believe he could provide a natural complement for any of the other candidates: a young, attractive, moderate Vice Presidential nominee from the South. He currently denies any interest, but he carefully does not reject the idea out of hand. At the time, he was 39 years old, making him the youngest serious Presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy.
CNN noted that, in 1988, for the first time, 12 southern states would hold their primaries on the same day, dubbed Super Tuesday. Gore thought he would be the only serious Southern contender; he had not counted on Jesse Jackson. Jackson defeated Gore in the South Carolina primary, winning, more than half the total vote, three times that of his closest rival here, Senator Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee. Gore next placed great hope on Super Tuesday where they split the Southern vote: Jackson winning Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia; Gore winning Arkansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Nevada, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. Gore was later endorsed by New York City Mayor Ed Koch who made statements in favor of Israel and against Jackson. These statements cast Gore in a negative light, leading voters away from Gore who received only 10% of the vote in the New York primary.
Gore then dropped out of the race. The New York Times said that Gore also lost support due to his attacks against Jackson, Dukakis, and others.
Gore was eventually able to mend fences with Jackson, who supported the Clinton-Gore ticket in 1992 and 1996, and campaigned for Gore in 2000 and 2004.
1992 presidential election
Gore was initially hesitant to be Bill Clintons running mate for the 1992 United States presidential election, but after clashing with the George H. W. Bush administration over global warming issues, he decided to accept the offer. Clinton stated that he chose Gore due to his foreign policy experience, work with the environment, and commitment to his family.
Clintons choice was criticized as unconventional because rather than picking a running mate who would diversify the ticket, Clinton chose a fellow Southerner who shared his political ideologies and who was nearly the same age as Clinton. The Washington Bureau Chief for The Baltimore Sun, Paul West, later suggested that, Al Gore revolutionized the way Vice Presidents are made. When he joined Bill Clintons ticket, it violated the old rules. Regional diversity? Not with two Southerners from neighboring states. Ideological balance? A couple of left-of-center moderates.
... And yet, Gore has come to be regarded by strategists in both parties as the best vice presidential pick in at least 20 years.
Clinton and Gore accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention on July 17, 1992. Known as the Baby Boomer Ticket and the Fortysomething Team, The New York Times noted that if elected, Clinton and Gore, at ages 45 and 44 respectively, would be the youngest team to make it to the White House in the countrys history.. Gore called the ticket a new generation of leadership. The ticket increased in popularity after the candidates traveled with their wives, Hillary and Tipper, on a six-day, 1,000-mile bus ride, from New York to St. Louis. Al Gore would participate in one vice-presidential debate against Vice President Dan Quayle, and Admiral James Stockdale. That debate, as of 2023, was the only televised Vice-Presidential debate with more than two participating candidates. The Clinton-Gore ticket beat the Bush-Quayle and Perot-Stockdale tickets with 43% of the popular vote, versus their 38% and 19%, respectively. Clinton and Gore received 370 electoral votes, versus the incumbent tickets 168, and Perots 0.
Vice presidency (1993–2001)
Al Gore served as vice president during the Clinton administration.
Clinton and Gore were inaugurated on January 20, 1993. At the beginning of the first term, they developed a two-page agreement outlining their relationship. Clinton committed himself to regular lunch meetings; he recognized Gore as a principal adviser on nominations and appointed some of Gores chief advisers to key White House staff positions. Clinton involved Gore in decision-making to an unprecedented degree for a vice president. Through their weekly lunches and daily conversations, Gore became the presidents indisputable chief adviser.
However, Gore had to compete with First Lady Hillary for President Clintons influence, starting when she was appointed to the health-care task force without Gores consultation. Vanity Fair wrote that President Clintons failure to confide in his vice president was a telling sign of the real pecking order, and reported it was an open secret that some of Hillarys advisers...nurtured dreams that Hillary, not Gore, would follow Bill in the presidency.
Gore had a particular interest in reducing waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government and advocated trimming the size of the bureaucracy and the number of regulations. During the Clinton Administration, the U.
S. economy expanded, according to David Greenberg (professor of history and media studies at Rutgers University) who said that by the end of the Clinton presidency, the numbers were uniformly impressive. Besides the record-high surpluses and the record-low poverty rates, the economy could boast the longest economic expansion in history; the lowest unemployment since the early 1970s; and the lowest poverty rates for single mothers, black Americans, and the aged.
According to Leslie Budd, author of E-economy: Rhetoric or Business Reality, this economic success was due, in part, to Gores continued role as an Atari Democrat, promoting the development of information technology, which led to the dot-com boom (c. 1995–2001). Clinton and Gore entered office planning to finance research that would flood the economy with innovative goods and services, lifting the general level of prosperity and strengthening American industry. Their overall aim was to fund the development of, robotics, smart roads, biotechnology, machine tools, magnetic-levitation trains, fiber-optic communications and national computer networks. Also earmarked [were] a raft of basic technologies like digital imaging and data storage.
Critics claimed that the initiatives would backfire, bloating Congressional pork and creating whole new categories of Federal waste.
During the election and his term as vice president, Gore popularized the term Information Superhighway, which became synonymous with the Internet, and he was involved in the creation of the National Information Infrastructure. Gore first discussed his plans to emphasize information technology at UCLA on January 11, 1994, in a speech at The Superhighway Summit. On March 29, 1994, Gore made the inaugural keynote to a Georgetown University symposium on governmental reform with a lecture entitled, The new job of the federal executive. Gore spoke on how technology was changing the nature of government, public administration, and management in general, noting that while in the past deep hierarchical structures were necessary to manage large organizations, technology was offering more accurate and streamlined access to information, thus facilitating flatter management structures. He was involved in a number of projects including NetDay 96 and 24 Hours in Cyberspace. The Clinton–Gore administration also launched the first official White House website in 1994 and subsequent versions through 2000.
During 1993 and early 1994, Gore was tapped by the administration to advocate for the adoption of the Clipper Chip, a technology developed by the National Security Agency designed to provide for law enforcement access to encrypted communications. After political and technical objections, the initiative was essentially dropped.
Gore was also involved in environmental initiatives. He launched the GLOBE program on Earth Day 94, an education and science activity that, according to Forbes magazine, made extensive use of the Internet to increase student awareness of their environment. In 1998, Gore began promoting a NASA satellite (Deep Space Climate Observatory) that would provide a constant view of the Earth, marking the first time such an image would have been made since The Blue Marble photo from the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. During this time, he also became associated with Digital Earth.
Gore negotiated and strongly supported the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gasses, but said upon his return that the administration would not submit the treaty to the Senate for ratification until it was amended to include meaningful participation by key developing nations, The Senate had previously passed unanimously (95–0) the Byrd–Hagel Resolution (S.
Res. 98), which declared opposition to any greenhouse gas treaty which would limit US emissions without similar limits on third-world countries such as China. The Clinton administration left office three years later without having submitted the treaty for ratification. In 1996, Gore became involved in a Chinagate campaign finance controversy over his attendance at an event at the Buddhist Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, California. In an interview on NBCs Today the following year, Gore said, I did not know that it was a fund-raiser. I knew it was a political event, and I knew there were finance people that were going to be present, and so that alone should have told me, This is inappropriate and this is a mistake; dont do this. And I take responsibility for that. It was a mistake. A U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the fund-raising activities had uncovered evidence that Chinese agents sought to direct contributions from foreign sources to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) before the 1996 presidential campaign. The Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. was used for coordinating contributions to the DNC. FBI agents were denied the opportunity to ask President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore questions during Justice Department interviews in 1997 and 1998 and were only allowed to take notes.
In March 1997, Gore had to explain phone calls which he made to solicit funds for Democratic Party for the 1996 election. In a news conference, Gore stated that, all calls that I made were charged to the Democratic National Committee. I was advised there was nothing wrong with that. My counsel tells me there is no controlling legal authority that says that is any violation of any law. The phrase no controlling legal authority was criticized by columnist Charles Krauthammer, who stated: Whatever other legacies Al Gore leaves behind between now and retirement, he forever bequeaths this newest weasel word to the lexicon of American political corruption. Robert Conrad Jr. was the head of a Justice Department task force appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate Gores fund-raising controversies. In Spring 2000, Conrad asked Reno to appoint an independent counsel to continue the investigation. After looking into the matter, Reno judged that the appointment of an independent counsel was unwarranted.
During the 1990s, Gore spoke out on a number of issues. In a 1992 speech on the Gulf War, Gore stated that he twice attempted to get the U.S. government to pull the plug on support to Saddam Hussein, citing Husseins use of poison gas, support of terrorism, and his burgeoning nuclear program, but was opposed both times by the Reagan and Bush administrations.
In 1998, at a conference of APEC hosted by Malaysia, Gore objected to the indictment, arrest and jailing of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamads longtime second-in-command Anwar Ibrahim, a move which received a negative response from leaders there. Ten years later, Gore again protested when Ibrahim was arrested a second time, a decision condemned by Malaysian foreign minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim.In the 1996 presidential election, Clinton and Gore both ran for re-election for President and Vice-President. They faced Republican Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, with his running mate, Jack Kemp, a former member of House republican leadership and George H. W. Bushs secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Gore and Kemp debated once, in one of the lowest rated debates in history. Gore held his own against Kemp, and kept President Clintons large lead against Dole stable. On November 5, 1996, Clinton and Gore were re-elected as President and Vice-President with 379 electoral votes and an 8% margin of victory in the popular vote.
Soon afterward, Gore also had to contend with the Lewinsky scandal, which involved an affair between President Clinton and a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.
Gore initially defended Clinton, whom he believed to be innocent, stating, He is the president of the country! He is my friend ... I want to ask you now, every single one of you, to join me in supporting him. After Clinton was impeached, Gore continued to defend him stating, Ive defined my job in exactly the same way for six years now ... to do everything I can to help him be the best president possible.
Second presidential run (2000)
There was talk of a potential run in the 2000 presidential race by Gore as early as January 1998. Gore discussed the possibility of running during a March 9, 1999, interview with CNNs Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. In response to Wolf Blitzers question: Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley, Gore responded:
Ill be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be. But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. Ive traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.
I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our countrys economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
Former UCLA professor of information studies Philip E. Agre and journalist Eric Boehlert argued that three articles in Wired News led to the creation of the widely spread urban legend that Gore claimed to have invented the Internet, which followed this interview. In addition, computer professionals and congressional colleagues argued in his defense. Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn stated that we dont think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he invented the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gores initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. Cerf would later state: Al Gore had seen what happened with the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956, which his father introduced as a military bill. It was very powerful. Housing went up, suburban boom happened, everybody became mobile. Al was attuned to the power of networking much more than any of his elective colleagues.
His initiatives led directly to the commercialization of the Internet. So he really does deserve credit. In a speech to the American Political Science Association, former Republican Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Newt Gingrich also stated: In all fairness, its something Gore had worked on a long time. Gore is not the Father of the Internet, but in all fairness, Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet, and the truth is—and I worked with him starting in 1978 when I got [to Congress], we were both part of a futures group—the fact is, in the Clinton administration, the world we had talked about in the 80s began to actually happen. Finally, Wolf Blitzer (who conducted the original 1999 interview) stated in 2008 that: I didnt ask him about the Internet. I asked him about the differences he had with Bill Bradley ... Honestly, at the time, when he said it, it didnt dawn on me that this was going to have the impact that it wound up having, because it was distorted to a certain degree and people said they took what he said, which was a carefully phrased comment about taking the initiative and creating the Internet to—I invented the Internet.
And that was the sort of shorthand, the way his enemies projected it and it wound up being a devastating setback to him and it nearly destroyed him, as Im sure he acknowledges to this very day.
Gore himself would later poke fun at the controversy. In 2000, while on the Late Show with David Letterman he read Lettermans Top 10 List (which for this show was called, Top Ten Rejected Gore – Lieberman Campaign Slogans) to the audience. Number nine on the list was: Remember, America, I gave you the Internet, and I can take it away! In 2009, when Gore was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for three decades of contributions to the Internet at the Webby Awards, he joked in his acceptance speech (limited to five words according to Webby Awards rules): Please dont recount this vote. He was introduced by Vint Cerf who used the same format to joke: We all invented the Internet. Gore, who was then asked to add a few more words to his speech, stated: It is time to reinvent the Internet for all of us to make it more robust and much more accessible and use it to reinvigorate our democracy.
During a speech that he gave on June 16, 1999, in Carthage, Tennessee, Gore formally announced his candidacy for president.
His major theme was the need to strengthen the American family. He was introduced by his eldest daughter, Karenna Gore Schiff. In making the speech, Gore also distanced himself from Bill Clinton, who he stated had lied to him. Gore was briefly interrupted by AIDS protesters claiming Gore was working with the pharmaceutical industry to prevent access to generic medicines for poor nations and chanting Gores greed kills. Additional speeches were also interrupted by the protesters. Gore responded, I love this country. I love the First Amendment ... Let me say in response to those who may have chosen an inappropriate way to make their point, that actually the crisis of AIDS in Africa is one that should command the attention of people in the United States and around the world. Gore also issued a statement saying that he supported efforts to lower the cost of the AIDS drugs, provided that they are done in a way consistent with international agreements.
While Bill Clintons job-approval ratings were around 60%, an April 1999 study by the Pew Research Center for the People found that respondents suffered from Clinton fatigue where they were tired of all the problems associated with the Clinton administration including the Lewinsky scandal and impeachment.
Texas Governor and likely Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush was leading Gore 54% to 41% in polls during that time. Gores advisers believed that the Lewinsky scandal and Bills past womanizing...alienated independent voters—especially the soccer moms, who stood for traditional values. Consequently, Gores presidential campaign veered too far in differentiating himself from Bill and his record and had difficulty taking advantage of the Clinton administrations legitimate successes. In addition, Hillarys candidacy for the open Senate seat in New York exacerbated the three-way tensions evident in the White House since 1993, as not only was Hillary unavailable as a campaigner, she was poaching top Democratic fund-raisers and donors who would normally concentrate on the vice president. In one instance Hillary insisted on being invited [to a Los Angeles fundraiser for the vice president]—over the objections of the events organizers, where the First Lady shocked the vice presidents supporters by soliciting donations for herself in front of Tipper.
Gore faced an early challenge by former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley. Bradley was the only candidate to oppose Gore and was considered a fresh face for the White House.
Gore challenged Bradley to a series of debates which took the form of town hall meetings. Gore went on the offensive during these debates leading to a drop in the polls for Bradley. In the Iowa caucus the unions pledged their support to Gore, despite Bradley spending heavily in that state, and Bradley was much embarrassed by his two to one defeat there. Gore went on to capture the New Hampshire primary 53-47%, which had been a must-win state for Bradley. Gore then swept all of the primaries on Super Tuesday while Bradley finished a distant second in each state. On March 9, 2000, after failing to win any of the first 20 primaries and caucuses in the election process, Bradley withdrew his campaign and endorsed Gore. Gore eventually went on to win every primary and caucus and, in March 2000 even won the first primary election ever held over the Internet, the Arizona Presidential Primary. By then, he secured the Democratic nomination. Al Gore remains the only presidential candidate in American history who was not the incumbent President to win every single contest in his or her party primary.
On August 13, 2000, Gore announced that he had selected Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut as his vice presidential running mate.
Lieberman became the first person of the Jewish faith to run for the nations second-highest office. Many pundits saw Gores choice of Lieberman as further distancing him from the scandals of the Clinton White House. Gores daughter, Karenna, together with her fathers former Harvard roommate Tommy Lee Jones, officially nominated Gore as the Democratic presidential candidate during the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, California. Gore accepted his partys nomination and spoke about the major themes of his campaign, stating in particular his plan to extend Medicare to pay for prescription drugs and to work for a sensible universal health-care system. Soon after the convention, Gore hit the campaign trail with running mate Joe Lieberman. Gore and Bush were deadlocked in the polls. They participated in three televised debates. While both sides claimed victory after each, Gore was critiqued as either too stiff, too reticent, or too aggressive in contrast to Bush.
Recount
On election night, news networks first called Florida for Gore, later retracted the projection, and then called Florida for Bush, before finally retracting that projection as well. Gore then retook the lead by just over 5,000 votes, leading to the Florida election recount, a move to further examine the Florida results.
After the recount in Florida, Gores lead increased to 6,607 votes, which would become the certified result, giving Gore 292 electoral votes and the presidency. George Bush conceded the election on December 12, 2000, and later that day, Gore declared victory in a televised address on the steps of the Tennessee State Capitol.
Presidency (2001–2009)
First 100 days
The inauguration of Al Gore as the 43rd president took place on January 20, 2001. Having replaced a President of the same party, Gore did not make many monumental executive orders in his first days in office.
His first major appointment was that of former Maine Senator George Mitchell as Secretary of State. Leadership of the Department of Defense went to Norman Dicks, a representative from Washington state. Clintons Secretary of the Treasury, Larry Summers, continued in the position. In May of 2001, Democrats took control of the Senate when Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords switched from the Republican Party to becoming Independent and caucusing with the Democratic Party. This allowed some of Gores more controversial nominations to pass confirmation, including the elevation of Bill Clintons deputy Attorney General, Eric Holder, to the office of Attorney General.
Domestic Policy
Social Security and Medicare
In Fiscal Year 1998, the federal government had its first budget surplus since the Nixon administration. This was a result of a series of budget bills - the first coming in 1990, and the other in 1993 - that raised taxes, established a pay-as-you-go system of spending, and cut excess government expenditures. By 1998, the Clinton administration was in a constant feud with the Republican Congress over impeachment, so the two sides kicked the can down the road and only used the surplus to pay down the national debt. However, the budget was a constant focal point in the 2000 campaign, and with Al Gore coming out of that fight as the victor, he had gained a modest amount of political capital to attack the issue. Although republicans controlled both chambers of Congress by narrow margins, some saw the issue of the budget as an opportunity to advance some items on their own agenda in good faith with the Gore White House. With Gores inauguration speech and his subsequent address to a joint session of Congress making the budget a clear priority, a deal was clearly in the works.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, along with a bipartisan group of Senators, participated in a two-month negotiation with the Gore White House.
President Gore and congressional republicans agreed to a landmark deal to migrate the revenues of the budget surplus into a separate account, or lockbox, and thereby preserving the solvency of Social Security and Medicare. This plan charted a path towards a long-term balanced budget with strengthened benefits for seniors. In return, Democrats agreed to the creation of Medicare Part D, which created an optional privatization of Medicare prescription drug benefits - a proposal previously passed by Republicans in the 1990s and vetoed by Bill Clinton. Senate Democrats also agreed to lift their filibuster of Republican bills on taxes, late-term abortions, and other conservative bills, forcing Gore to veto them, thereby giving Republicans a political weapon to use against him later.
LGBT Issues
Al Gore was the most pro-LGBT President in history to-date, and supported numerous policies to move the United States towards equal rights for LGBT Americans. In December of 2003, after the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Gore signed a bipartisan bill that repealed Dont Ask, Dont Tell, a policy that had prevented gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the United States Armed Forces.
On October 8, 2005, Gore signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a measure that expanded the 1969 United States federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victims actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. On October 30, 2001, Gore lifted the ban on travel to the United States by those infected with HIV. The lifting of the ban was celebrated by Immigration Equality.
Same-sex marriage was an unpopular proposal during the early 2000s, and as a result, Al Gore supported civil unions and domestic partnerships for same-sex partners but opposed same-sex marriages in both of his campaigns. However, on the first day of Pride Month in 2007, President Gore was interviewed on ABC News and said his position had evolved on marriage equality. Gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women -- to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage, and I dont understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage. He was the first President in American history to support same-sex marriage.
With Democrats out of control of Congress, Gore had no policy agenda to advance in Congress, so he began traveling the country igniting support for gay rights and environmentalism.
The campaign became later known as the Gay Crusade. Gore was never able to sign a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, but his support of same-sex marriage accelerated a titanic shift in public opinion of the issue. By the 2008 election, the American public was nearly split on the issue, and same-sex marriage bans were defeated for the first time in history by voters in two states. In 2010, both of Gores Supreme Court nominees, Sonia Sotomayor and Diane Wood, were part of a 7-2 decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
Environmentalism
Gore has been involved with environmental issues since 1976 when as a freshman congressman, he held the first congressional hearings on the climate change, and co-sponsor[ed] hearings on toxic waste and global warming. He continued to speak on the topic throughout the 1980s, and is still prevalent in the environmental community. He was known as one of the Atari Democrats, later called the Democrats Greens, politicians who see issues like clean air, clean water and global warming as the key to future victories for their party.
In 1990, Senator Gore presided over a three-day conference with legislators from over 42 countries which sought to create a Global Marshall Plan, under which industrial nations would help less developed countries grow economically while still protecting the environment.
In the late 1990s, Gore strongly pushed for the passage of the Kyoto Protocol, which called for the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. He was opposed by the Senate, which passed unanimously (95–0) the Byrd–Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98), which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States.
In mid-2001, after Gore had scored his first legislative victory on Social Security and Medicare, he attempted to pivot towards the environment. However, the September 11th attacks delayed the effort. In early 2002, Gore revived the issue, but his bill died in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Senate Republicans, working with moderate Democrats, authored a bill that placed major restrictions on toxins in the water supply. The compromise bill passed the Republican House after a controversial vote in which Dennis Hastert violated a rule known as the Hastert Rule that required bills to have the support of a majority of the majority.
After Democrats took control of both houses of Congress in the 2002 midterm elections, Gore attempted to once again pass his climate bill, but it was met with stiff opposition by conservative Democrats in key districts with ties to fossil fuels.
With only 220 seats in the House, it was not enough to get the bill over the finish line. However, Nancy Pelosi, the House Majority Leader, authored an amendment to the Democrats reconciliation package that established the One Green Dollar for every Gas Dollar rule that stipulated that for every dollar spent by the government on fossil fuels, another dollar must be invested in finding renewable alternatives to energy. The bill passed the House on party lines in early 2003.
In 2004, Gore was re-elected, and Democrats majority in both the House of Representatives grew large enough to open an opportunity for his climate bill to pass. The House of Representatives passed a landmark bill in late 2005 that instituted a cap and trade policy, but the bill did not have the votes to pass the Senate. The bill was thought to be dead, but Senator Bryd, one of the senators opposed to the Cap and Trade bill, drafted a new bill with Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle that would decrease carbon emissions 40% by the year 2020, and make unprecedented investments into electric vehicles, solar and wind energy, and groundbreaking tax credits for ordinary Americans to go green. The bill bypassed the filibuster through reconciliation, and passed the Senate 52-48, with one republican voting yes.
The bill passed the House a few days later.
Gore and the Democrats would lose control of Congress in 2007, and he was unable to accomplish any more on the issue of climate change in Congress, but later that year, the United States, with the leadership of Secretary of State and future Vice President Joe Biden, joined the Paris Climate Accords.
In 2012, Gore co-launched Generation Investment Management, a company for which he serves as chair. A few years later, Gore would also found the Alliance for Climate Protection, an organization which eventually founded the We Campaign. Gore would also become a partner in the venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, heading that firms climate change solutions group. He also helped to organize the Live Earth benefit concerts. In 2014, he attended WE Day (Vancouver, Canada), a WE Charity event. In 2013, Gore became a vegan. He had earlier admitted that its absolutely correct that the growing meat intensity of diets across the world is one of the issues connected to this global crisis – not only because of the [carbon dioxide] involved, but also because of the water consumed in the process and some speculate that his adoption of the new diet is related to his environmentalist stance.
In a 2014 interview, Gore said Over a year ago I changed my diet to a vegan diet, really just to experiment to see what it was like. ... I felt better, so Ive continued with it and Im likely to continue it for the rest of my life.
Gores An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, a sequel to his 2014 film, An Inconvenient Truth, premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The film documents his continuing efforts to battle climate change.
A Climate and Health Summit which was originally going to be held by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was cancelled without warning in late January 2017. A few days later, Gore revived the summit, which was held by the Climate Reality Project without the support of the CDC. In 2020 he helped to launch Climate TRACE to independently monitor global greenhouse gas emissions.
Criticism[edit]
This articles Criticism or Controversy section may compromise the articles neutrality by separating out potentially negative information. Please integrate the sections contents into the article as a whole, or rewrite the material. (August 2021) |
In the late 1980s and 1990s, Gore was criticized for his involvement in asking the EPA for less strict pollution controls for the Pigeon River, which had long been polluted by a paper mill in Canton, North Carolina.
A number of people and organizations, including Marsha Blackburn, a current U.S. Senator and former Congresswoman from Tennessee, and a conservative Washington, D.C. think tank, have claimed that Gore has a conflict of interest for advocating for taxpayer subsidies of green-energy technologies in which he has a personal investment. Additionally, he has been criticized for his above-average energy consumption in using private jets, and in owning multiple, very large homes, one of which was reported in 2007 as using high amounts of electricity. Gores spokesperson responded by stating that the Gores use renewable energy which is more expensive than regular energy and that the Tennessee house in question has been retrofitted to make it more energy efficient.
Data in An Inconvenient Truth have been questioned. In a 2007 court case, a British judge said that while he had no doubt ...the film was broadly accurate and its four main scientific hypotheses ...are supported by a vast quantity of research, he upheld nine of a long schedule of alleged errors presented to the court. He ruled that the film could be shown to schoolchildren in the UK if guidance notes given to teachers were amended to balance out the films one-sided political views.
Gores spokesperson responded in 2007 that the court had upheld the films fundamental thesis and its use as an educational tool. In 2009, Gore described the British court ruling as being in my favor.
Gore was also criticized when in 2012 he sold his television channel Current TV for around $100 million to Al Jazeera, a media company funded by the government of Qatar, a nation largely dependent on income from the fossil fuel industry.
Allegations of aggrandizement[edit]
Inventing the internet[edit]
Critics of Gore have jumped on a statement he made in a 1999 interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer by misquoting him as claiming he was instrumental in inventing the internet. In reality, Gore stated: During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our countrys economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system. During a quarter century of public service, including most of it long before I came into my current job, I have worked to try to improve the quality of life in our country and in our world. And what Ive seen during that experience is an emerging future thats very exciting, about which Im very optimistic, and toward which I want to lead.
It is easy to misinterpret the claim of creating with inventing the internet. Gore has been characterized as having either misspoke, or failed to clarify his important part in the transition of the internet from a defense network to a public network. Gore spent years promoting the internet and high-speed telecommunications as being important to the world as far back as the 1970s. A spirited defense of Gore’s statement penned by Internet pioneers Bob Kahn and Vinton Cerf (the latter often referred to as the “father of the Internet”) in 2000 noted that “Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development” and that “No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution [to the Internet] over a longer period of time”.
Protagonists of Love Story[edit]
In 1997, Gore was having a late-night conversation with two reporters aboard Air Force Two when he casually mentioned that he had either read or was told that he and Tippers early pre-marital relationship in Boston while Gore was at Harvard was the basis for Oliver and Jenny Barrett, the protagonists of Erich Segals novel Love Story and its film adaptation.
One of the reporters present, New York Times reporter Rick Berke, stated that Gore didnt offer it as a fact and that it was just second-hand info from a Nashville Tennessean article or reporter who had interviewed Segal. Berke decided not to mention it in his article since it was not offered as a fact by Gore. However, the other reporter present, Karen Tumulty (who was with Time and is with The Washington Post as of 2022) included the quote in her own article and presented it as though Gore claimed it as fact, which claim was picked up by numerous publications afterward as being another example of Gore bragging about an incident that was either a lie or misleading. Segal then went public to clarify that Gore was half of the basis for Oliver Barrett, which was the familial emotional baggage part, while the other half (athletic and poetic) was based on actor Tommy Lee Jones, and that he knew Tipper then, but that she was not a basis for the book and movie at all, nor was the Gores relationship, and offered that the Tennessee reporter either misquoted him or exaggerated the story. Segal had also attended Harvard, but had done so mostly a decade or so earlier between 1954 to 1959, then later obtained his doctorate at Harvard in 1965.
Segal met both the Gores and Jones while on sabbatical at Harvard in 1968 just after his college years.
Personal life[edit]
Gore met Mary Elizabeth Tipper Aitcheson at his St. Albans senior prom in 1965. She was from the nearby St. Agnes School. Tipper followed Gore to Boston to attend college, and they married at the Washington National Cathedral on May 19, 1970.
They have four children; Karenna Gore (b. 1973), Kristin Carlson Gore (b. 1977), Sarah LaFon Gore (b. 1979) and Albert Arnold Gore III (b. 1982).
In June 2010 the Gores announced in an e-mail to friends that after long and careful consideration they had made a mutual decision to separate. In May 2012, it was reported that Gore started dating Elizabeth Keadle of Rancho Santa Fe, California.
He is Baptist, and was a member of Georgetown Baptist Church and Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.. In 2004, he announced he had left the Southern Baptist Convention, but remained a Baptist, and was a keynote speaker at the 2008 New Baptist Covenant convention, recipient of the Baptist of the Year” awarded by Ethics Daily that same year.
He is possibly related to the Albert Al N. Gore who ran in the 2012 Mississippi Senate election.
In some interviews, the candidate described how he might be distantly related to the vice-president by saying the Gore family split into two factions in the 1800s, with one going to Tennessee (and later giving rise to the vice-president and his Tennessee Senator father), and the other going to Mississippi (giving rise to that states Democratic Senate candidate). Despite the speculation, it has never officially been confirmed if the two are in fact distant relatives.
Awards and honors[edit]
Main article: List of awards received by Al Gore
Gore is the recipient of a number of awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize (together with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in 2007, a Primetime Emmy Award for Current TV in 2007, a Webby Award in 2005, the Dan David Prize in 2008 and the Prince of Asturias Award in 2007 for International Cooperation. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2008. He also starred in the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2007 and wrote the book An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, which won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2009.
|
|
| |
|
