It’s been good a run for Vice President Gore. There are the Oscar and the Nobel. Don’t be surprised if China’s special committee on the calendar declares that 4704 the year of the Al.

So with all of these honors, it’s possible that the former vice president is just unfazed by the prospect of winning his party’s nomination, yet again, for the presidency. Been there, done that. That’s certainly the message his advisers are sending to reporters asking when we should expect the announcement of an exploratory committee.

But on the off chance Ozone Man throws his hat into the ring, I got a briefing on how carbon’s worst enemy could woo the voters. My source, who asked to remain anonymous and stressed that there was no way his old boss was actually going to run, was a senior campaign official in 2000 for the Gore-Lieberman ticket and to this day is mystified as to why the Connecticut senator insisted on counting all those Florida military ballots in 2000.

To start, Mr. Gore has the netroots appeal of Howard Dean and the big money connections of Reed Hunt, not to mention at least $100 million in the bank and all that Google stock. Name another Democrat who is chums with Steve Jobs, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Laurie David, and still manages on occasion to win Daily Kos straw polls. My friend says Mr. Gore could raise more cash on hand than any of his rivals within a week. Within a month, Mr. Gore would have, as a lowball estimate, some $40 million.

He would need it. Unlike Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or John Edwards, Mr. Gore doesn’t have any of the mundane things a candidate needs to run for president — a well developed Web site, an organization in New Hampshire and Iowa, not to mention a private plane, a potentially touchy matter for the candidate who wants to outlaw carbon.

Even the credible rumor that Mr. Gore is making a run would likely be enough to knock John Edwards out of the race. Mr. Edwards is a junior varsity Al Gore anyway, appealing to the same netroots voters that coined the term “Goregasm” to describe the sensation upon hearing one of the former vice president’s MoveOn.org speeches.

Mr. Obama has lost much of the luster he had at the beginning of 2007. The Illinois lawmaker made the error of announcing he would refrain from negative campaigning, putting him in the awkward position of directing his barbs at “some people in Washington,” when he really meant Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mr. Obama’s party does not want to hear about the majesty of American democracy and the need to debate the real issues. For that they can watch re-runs of “The West Wing.” Democrats want a fighter who can fight as dirty as they perceive the Republicans to be.

With Mr. Gore, the Democrats will not have the Obama problem. We are talking about a man who brought up the furloughs for Willie Horton in the primary debates with Mike Dukakis, before Lee Atwater got the idea for the campaign ad that liberals to this day whinge about. What campaign do you think leaked the story right before the 2000 election about President Bush’s prior reckless driving charges?

So when it comes to Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Gore would not be averse to educating the voters on her prior Iraq war votes, to put it politely. The former Gore campaign official envisions creating a surrogate organization to run fake endorsement spots, similar to the Log Cabin Republicans ad endorsing Mitt Romney for his “Massachusetts values.” Imagine a spot from a group calling themselves “victory Democrats” that would thank Mrs. Clinton for her votes to authorize the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act. “He could call it ‘neocons for Hillary,'” my source said with a chuckle. The former first lady could cry foul, but who is going to take her word on Mr. Gore’s character over the Nobel committee?

Now Mr. Gore himself also is vulnerable in a primary on his record on Iraq. While he opposed the current war, Mr. Gore has advocated for the rendition of terrorists to torture states when he was in the executive branch and unlike any other national Democrat, has refrained from calling for a troop withdrawal from Iraq. One of the reasons he said he opposed the Iraq invasion in 2002 was because he feared President Bush would cut and run prematurely.

This kind of thing could hurt him in a Democratic primary. But it will accrue him credit in a general election, where his party’s nominee will have to run to the right of neutralists in the base. If he packages his carbon tax scheme as a way to bankrupt the international jihad movement, who knows, he may even be able to persuade Americans its worth legislating their SUVs out of existence.

All of this is an extreme hypothetical. Everybody loves Al Gore already. Why would he trudge through the snows of New Hampshire and force himself to remember the name of every deputy county sheriff he’s going to meet at a pancake breakfast? He’s moved on. Besides I understand the NBA is looking closely at Mr. Gore for the 2008 sixth man of the year.

elake@nysun.com