Al Gore as President

Al Gore isn't running for president. But many Democrats wish he would.

Mr. Gore himself officially brushed off interest in him as a presidential candidate when asked by the BBC. "I have no intention to run for president," he told the BBC. "I can't imagine any circumstance to run for office again."

That story was only one of the 827 headlines in the past week about Mr. Gore that turned up in a Lexis-Nexis search of his name. That puts him below hot candidates, such as Senator Obama with 1,723 headline hits and Senator Clinton with 1,071 hits. Although Mr. Gore is in the news more than John Edwards (743), Senator Biden of Delaware (426), Governor Richardson of New Mexico (297), and Senator Dodd of Connecticut (223).

Every story about Mr. Gore is substantive and a quality hit, as people in public relations would say. Much of the attention revolved around Mr. Gore's plans for "Live Earth," a day of anti-global warming concerts held in venues across the world modeled on the Live Aid concerts in the 1980s. The event comes on the heels of Mr. Gore's success with "An Inconvenient Truth" at the box office where the film grossed more than $44 million worldwide. And next Sunday Mr. Gore will be in Hollywood at the Oscars, where his film could win two Academy Awards. Mr. Gore has also been nominated for a Nobel Prize.

Keeping his name in the limelight is only one piece of the puzzle. Throughout New Hampshire and Massachusetts, some Democratic activists say that Mr. Gore's name is the only one that excites them. Unlike Ms. Clinton and Mr. Edwards, Mr. Gore came out early with his angry stance against the Iraq war. Unlike Mr. Obama, who has been in the Senate a mere two years, Mr. Gore has a long record of experience.

Right now, for example, state senator of Massachusetts, Jarrett Barrios, who campaigned for Mr. Gore in 2000, acknowledges that the chance for Mr. Gore getting into the race looks slim. Nevertheless, he calls a presidential run by Mr. Gore "my dream candidacy." Mr. Barrios explains, "He doesn't have to decide right now. He may well have an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize in the run-up to his decision." For Mr. Barrios, Mr. Gore's travails over the years and policy work have bestowed on the former vice president "substance of character."

A former Democratic candidate for governor in New Hampshire, Arnie Arnesen, who is the host of a weekly political talk show in the Granite State, WZMY's "Political Chatter," says New Hampshire's interest in Mr. Gore is strong. "If Al Gore came to New Hampshire, 2,000 people would be here to hear him in a heartbeat," she says, noting that Mr. Gore's "environmental message is resonating."

The first quarter of the year prior to the New Hampshire primary and the Iowa caucus is the money primary. Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton are attempting to divvy up the leading Democratic fund-raisers. Last Friday, two of President Clinton's longstanding fund-raising supporters — Elaine Schuster and Steve Grossman, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee — organized a meet-and-greet with Ms. Clinton at Mrs. Schuster's home outside of Boston. The event was not a fund-raiser per se. Rather, it was an opportunity for members of the local Democratic donor community to talk to New York's junior senator in anticipation of a much larger, formal fund-raiser next month.

Mr. Grossman, who was also the national chairman of Governor Dean's presidential campaign in 2004, puts his support of Ms. Clinton at 150%. Still, he sees a niche that could be filled by Mr. Gore. "I think Al Gore could get into the race late and be very effective," Mr. Grossman says. "Howard Dean made the kind of viral campaign Gore would have to run possible. He's the kind of candidate, because of the war and the environment, I think people [on the Internet] would gravitate toward."

Theories abound as to why Mr. Gore doesn't just go ahead and run for the presidency in a straightforward fashion. One is that his psyche — already damaged by two heartbreaking defeats over the years, one for the nomination in 1988, and the other, the wrenching election that ultimately ended up in the United States Supreme Court in 2000 — couldn't risk defeat again. Another is that he refuses to chance the unique humiliation of losing to his internal rival in the Clinton Era White House, Ms. Clinton. A third is that as a lifelong student of American politics, he is merely waiting for his high-profile rivals to expend their ammunition on each other while he basks in the spotlight in Hollywood and, possibly, Oslo. The third seems closest to reality.

After almost two decades in presidential politics, Al Gore has finally hit upon the best way to run for president — by saying he's not.

Mr. Gitell (gitell.com) is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.