Al Gore is living proof that you can make a bundle by scaring people. Fast Company says he's worth more than $100 million now, in part because of the cash rolling in from his hit documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and also because of his role with Generation Investment Management, an investment firm that claims to be all about "sustainability" and such, but, judging from its portfolio, is pretty much a garden-variety investment firm invested in garden-variety stocks.
So, will he run for president? Fast Company looked into that - and also his potential impact on the race even if he doesn't run...
Fast Company says:
[D]espite the interest from so many Democrats in his political aspirations, he seems genuinely distanced from the idea of running for President--at least for now. "What politics has become," Gore explains at one point during our discussion, "is something that requires a kind of tolerance for artifice and manipulative communications strategies that I just find I have in very short supply. I just don't have the patience for things that seem to be greatly rewarded in today's political system."
If this is sour grapes over 2000, it doesn't sound like it--at least not from the vantage point of 2007. "A politics of ideas, driven by passion, seems to encounter a headwind," he tells me. "I do think that the Internet is bringing revolutionary transformation. I have not ruled out the possibility of getting into politics sometime in the future," he says, "but I don't expect to. Because I don't expect things to change. If they did change, then I would feel differently."
As a political figure, Gore may be more palatable as a possible dark horse than an actual candidate--precisely because he seems incapable of turning his passions into sound bites. And in any campaign, he might find himself on the defensive for his business activities. In his slideshow tour, he has been paid by many companies, which could be used to challenge his integrity. (He routinely cuts or eliminates his fee for schools and other nonprofits.) He also headed the Apple board committee that cleared Steve Jobs of wrongdoing in the stock-options backdating scandal.
Sitting where he is, his outsider status makes him a potential kingmaker among the Democratic candidates. He has said he expects to endorse someone eventually. Whoever gets the nod can expect Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection to run its own campaign on the issues.
If Gore runs, he could wind up facing Fred Thompson - the Republican who won his Senate seat after Gore became VP - in the general election. In Tennessee, at least, that's a contest Thompson would win handily.
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