One image of Gore: A partisan activist and leader.
CNN reports this afternoon that Al Gore will have a major speaking slot at the Democratic convention, joining Obama on stage the last night of the convention in front of a stadium crowd of 70,000.
I am a big fan of Al Gore and often think about how history and this country would be different if Gore had run a more competent presidential campaign in 2000. Yet I can't also help but observe the strong partisan message that Gore continues to indirectly send on climate change.
Various poll analyses reveal that despite Al Gore's Nobel prize winning Inconvenient Truth campaign and a record spike in mainstream news attention, a deep partisan divide remains on the topic, with a majority of Republicans continuing to dispute the validity of the science and the urgency of the matter, while also believing that the media has greatly exaggerated the problem.
Gore has been a great champion for action on climate change, yet if he is going to make the issue his life's work he needs to leave behind overtly partisan political appearances and speeches. As long as Gore continues to be both the lead spokesperson on climate change and also a major Democratic activist, it is all too easy for the miserly public to continue to reach judgments about climate change relying almost exclusively on their perceptual lens of ideology.
The other image of Gore: Climate change advocate appearing with IPCC scientists to accept joint Nobel Peace Prize, which conservatives then derided as "the Kentucky Derby of the world left."
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Maybe when looking at why this is even slightly a partisan issue you might look to the people who cynically used climate-change scepticism as a launchpad for their own political campaigns (and own personal fortunes).
The partisan divide we see today is the result of people who still cling to the (right-wing Republican) party line of global warming scepticism, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. These are people who also believe that Iraq had something to do with 9-11 and had WMDs.
Posted by: Stephen Downes | August 19, 2008 1:25 PM
As long as Gore continues to be both the lead spokesperson on climate change and also a major Democratic activist, it is all too easy for the miserly public to continue to reach judgments about climate change relying almost exclusively on their perceptual lens of ideology.
What, like they're going to stop if he stops talking about being a Democrat?
Why is it whenever the name "Matthew Nisbet" appears on my Scienceblogs feed, it's an article about how somebody should shut up and leave the conservatives in peace? There is no peace, and shutting up is how we wound up in this handbasket, with an increasingly warm feeling.
Posted by: derek | August 19, 2008 1:48 PM
Matt, I'm glad you and I agree on the wonderful world of what might have been, had Gore won in 2000. But again, I am puzzled by your insistence that the most successful advocate of climate change mitigation on the planet shrink from the best opportunities to get his message across.
Derek is right: Meek and humble didn't work. It's long since past the time we started standing up for reason and courage. I say Gore should take to that Democratic convention stage as planned and make the most compelling and inspiring speech of his life.
We don't need to worry about the hard-core wingnuts who disbelieve the entire climatological community because Gore has wrapped himself in the science -- they'll never change their minds. But Gore might be able to sway a few on-the-fencers, and we all know they're the real targets of this election.
Posted by: James Hrynyshyn | August 19, 2008 3:36 PM
While I sadly admit this is more of a partisan issue than it should be I think that Gore has a lot to do with that. (Unintentionally - I'm not blaming him) I think that in the highly polarized and worse roughly equal dispersion between parties the last decade having one side be for something almost guarantees the other side will oppose it. Rational or not.
Now I'm not McCain fan in the least, but I'll give him kudos for embracing the reality of global warming full force and trying to do something about it. People may disagree with him but if we want to do something about global warming it'll really have to be as bi-partisan as possible and that means supporting Republicans when they embrace the issue.
Posted by: Clark | August 19, 2008 11:11 PM
Telling someone to act strategically and telling someone to shut are a little different. I suspect one of the most common pieces of advice communication specialists give to clients is to focus only on the most important messages. Another piece of advice might be - don't be a jerk, both pieces of advice that critics of Matt's blog seem to reject.
The more interesting empirical question is whether it's possible for someone like Al Gore to become seen as non-partisan. Both Tim Russert and George Stephanopolous were both Democratic operatives before they became largely non-partisan interviewers (as evidenced by the willingness of people from both parties to talk appear on their shows), but neither of them ran for president against Karl Rove.
Are there other better examples of prominent political actors who have become seen as above partisanship?
JCB
Posted by: Besley | August 20, 2008 10:34 AM
Let me see if I get this right. 1. Republicans reject anything a Democrat has to say, true or not. 2. A Democrat is saying something true. 3. To get Republicans to believe him, he should stop being a democrat.
I know that the world doesn't always work the way it should, but in this case, it seems more sensible to convince people that they should believe the truth regardless of the messenger, rather than telling the messenger to dress up like a sheep.
Posted by: Mike | August 21, 2008 2:13 PM