Al Gore says he's out of love with politics

Reuters
Al Gore says he's out of love with politics

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former U.S. vice president Al Gore says he has "fallen out of love with politics" and does not want to run for president although he has not ruled it out completely.

"If I do my job right, all the candidates will be talking about the climate crisis," Gore said in an interview with Time Magazine released on Thursday.

"And I'm not convinced the presidency is the highest and best role I could play."

He added, "It would take a lot to disabuse me of the notion that my highest and best use is to keep building that consensus."

Asked what it would take for him to run, Gore said, "I can't say because I'm not looking for it. But I guess I would know it if I saw it. I haven't ruled it out. But I don't think it's likely to happen."

The Time article also includes an excerpt from Gore's new book, "The Assault on Reason," in which he writes: "It is too easy and too partisan to simply place the blame on the policies of President George W. Bush.

"We are all responsible for the decisions our country makes. We have a Congress. We have an independent judiciary. We have checks and balances. We are a nation of laws. We have free speech. We have a free press. Why have they all failed us? ... American democracy is now in danger not from any one set of ideas, but from unprecedented changes in the environment within which ideas either live and spread, or wither and die."

Gore, a Democrat, served as Bill Clinton's vice president for eight years and lost the 2000 presidential election to Bush.