Gore v. the world

The American Prospect has a great piece about Al Gore's re-emergence as a public figure following the 2000 debacle, titled "The New New Gore."

But after reading it, it's a re-introduction to the Al Gore I grew up with when he was the junior senator from Tennessee. Gore single-handedly made me interested in environmentalism when he gave a phenomenal speech at my high school auditorium when I was a sophomore in high school.

Reading the article really makes me wonder what his campaign handlers were thinking when they tried to tone down his populism during the 2000 campaign (not to mention asking Joementum to be his running mate). I'll admit that I bought into the narrative about Gore's drift to the right during 2000 (a big mistake, in retrospect), but I never bought into the "wooden" or "uncharismatic" meme.

That said, I like where Big Al is headed these days, and the implications for communications and politics. Given the extent of media consolidation, it's downright inspiring to see what Gore is doing to begin to bypass the corporate filters and democratize information. Hopefully, Gore will inspire a new generation of media activists as he once inspired me.