Al Gore
Al Gore was a Democratic politician, congressman, senator, and vice president of the United States.
History
Gore served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.
Following Evins' decision to not seek re-election in 1976, Gore ran for the Democratic nomination in TN-4. He narrowly secured the party nomination with a plurality of the vote; the election itself was a landslide.
Following Baker's decision to not seek re-election in 1984, Gore chose to run for the Senate. He won the Democratic nomination, and then the general election (against Ashe), by a wide margin.
He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in the 1988 presidential election. While Dukakis eventually won the nomination, Gore's larger issue was Jackson's ability to split the Southern voting block; they effectively were spoilers for each other.
He ran in 1992 on the Clinton-Gore ticket. Notably, he participated in the three-way Vice Presidential debate with Quayle and Stockdale. They won the popular vote with a 43% plurality but a landslide in the electoral college.
The 1996 presidential election saw the Clinton-Gore ticket capturing an even larger margin (against the Dole-Kemp ticket).
In 1999, Gore began campaigning for the 2000 presidential election. He won every state primary and selected Lieberman to complete the ticket. However, despite winning the popular vote by about 500,000, and despite ongoing recount, the Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore that the Bush-Cheney ticket won Florida and secured a slim majority in the electoral college.
Gore continues to be involved in private and philanthropic environmental activism.
Policies
Gore's foci were technological and environmental policies. As a member of the House and later the Senate, he was involved in the Energy and Commerce, Science and Technology, Intelligence, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and the Armed Services Committees. He introduced the Supercomputer Network Study Act in 1986 and is credited with creating the High Performance Computing Act in 1991. He participated in the negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol.
Legacy
An Inconvenient Truth, which Gore wrote, is a lasting image of Gore's environmental activism.