Fake Steve on Al Gore’s Nobel Prize
October 16, 2007
Now it is time. You must run. Not because you want to run, but precisely because you don’t want to run. That, Al, is your strongest point. You don’t want it. You don’t need it. You dare now to be yourself. No artificiality, no stiffness, no falseness. You are who you are. And we need you.
I started writing this the day our friend’s Nobel Prize was announced, and just hadn’t finished it.
When Al Gore ran for president in 2000, I was a 17 year old senior in high school. I knew enough about politics to know that I didn’t trust them. I knew enough about theology to know that Christianity wasn’t synonymous with the Republican Party, and that secular moral destruction wasn’t synonymous with the Democratic Party either.
That being said, at the time I wasn’t impressed with Al Gore. I thought he lacked passion, or anything to make him remotely interesting. Honestly I didn’t pay enough attention to his actual views on anything to see what they might be. At the time, I lacked the interest to look beyond the abortion issue to see what else was there and worthy of consideration. And, to an extent this was irrelevant since I was 17 and couldn’t vote anyway.
Now, though, he has passion. He has a message and a conviction that he is doing the best he can to get to everyone, and he’s doing it without running for president. Without wanting to run for president. I’ve heard recent interviews with him discussing the issue, and he has such a relaxation. But such a passion when he talks about the issues that he’s concerned about. I respect that. If he ran for president, I’d put him on my short list. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a president who isn’t interested in all the junk that comes along with the political process? Who actually doesn’t want to run for president, but honestly wants to change the world?
As an aside, when I look at politics and sources of news there are a variety of different viewpoints that I like to listen to and consider, and many of them disagree with each other and with me on various issues like global warming, or immigration, or other things. And that’s ok. I’m not looking for people I agree with on everything. I’m looking for people I can trust and respect, and who have passions for things that are important to me. Who agree on the things that are core issues for me.