Former Vice President Al Gore's new status as a Nobel Peace Prize winner is encouraging some of his political supporters in the United States to urge him to run for president next year. But as VOA National correspondent Jim Malone reports from Washington, most political experts doubt Gore will make a run for the White House in 2008.
Gore told a California news conference he is honored to share the Nobel award with the United Nations panel on climate change.
"I will accept this award on behalf of all of those who have been working so long and so hard to try to get the message out about this planetary emergency," he said.
Gore took no questions at the news conference, leaving open how his newfound status as a Nobel Peace Prize winner might affect his future political plans.
Gore supporters wasted little time in seizing on his Nobel recognition in their continuing bid to urge him to run for president next year.
Monica Friedlander is founder of the group DraftGore.com, which has run ads and gathered signatures in a bid to press the former vice president to make a second run for the White House in 2008.
"There is just such a tidal wave of support and excitement about him as the potential candidate," she said. "It is very, very difficult for him to resist, or at least so I hope."
Gore narrowly lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush.
University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato says there is little doubt that Gore's Nobel prize will now inspire his supporters to push even harder for him to enter the presidential race.
"This will juice up the Gore drafters," he said. "They have been dying to get Gore into the race. They are very dissatisfied with the prospect of Hillary Clinton being the nominee. This may be their last stand."
Gore has said repeatedly he is not planning a run for president next year, though when pressed he refuses to rule out the possibility.
"Well, you know, I am not pondering it, I am not focused on that," he said. "I am focused on how to solve the climate crisis," he added.
Among those who doubt Gore will join the presidential race is longtime political observer Tom DeFrank of the New York Daily News, a guest on this week's Issues in the News program on VOA......
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