Gore v Trump: a case of contrasts

This is a tale of two presidential elections, one close, one not close; a tale of two candidates, one a patriot who put the good of the country first, the other an apparent congenital liar who always put himself first, ahead of anything including country.

It’s a tale of Al Gore and Donald Trump.

In 2000, Vice President Gore won the popular vote and certainly got more votes in Florida, though court decisions and ballot deficiencies gave the state and the presidency to George W. Bush. Five weeks after the election, exhausting legitimate recourses, Gore, with admirable grace, conceded. Five weeks after the 2020 election Trump, despite losing by a decisive 7 million votes, egged on by hangers-on — most either loony or drunk, was spinning his Big Lie that the election was stolen; he hasn’t stopped.

This striking contrast came to mind anew several weeks ago when my wife, our son Jeffrey and I had a three-hour lunch with Gore. It was delightful; he was full of insights and humor. He has led a stunningly successful and contributory life over the past two decades — so engaged, principally in tackling climate change, that he didn’t have time to sulk.

Gore has won a Nobel Prize, authored a best-selling book turned into a movie, won a television Emmy, been a guest lecturer at several universities and is on the boards of Apple and the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The former vice president used all the handsome profits from his book and movie — “An Inconvenient Truth” — to start a non-profit, the Climate Reality Project, that raises awareness of the climate crisis with global media events and digital communications campaigns. Gore and Climate Reality have trained nearly 50,000 activists.

He also spearheaded another organization, Climate TRACE, which tracks and reports climate data around the world. It is releasing a report on the largest 500 greenhouse emissions in every sector and country.

In 2004, Gore and a former Goldman executive, David Blood, started an investment firm that finances businesses devoted to sustainability and climate. It’s now a $37 billion fund, “Generation Investment Management.” (He says he wanted to call it “Blood and Gore,” but wiser heads prevailed.)

The one-time Tennessee lawmaker spends a lot of time on his family farm in Carthage. He’s converted it to regenerative agriculture and every year hosts a conference with 300 farmers and outside experts on regenerative farming.

The divorced Gore beams when he talks about time with his four children, nine grandchildren and his “significant other,” Elizabeth Keadle, an accomplished scientist.

At 74, he’s a happy man.

How the lunch came about tells about the personal side. More than two decades ago, our severely injured son was in Johns Hopkins Hospital. Vice President Gore, whose son had been there years earlier after being hit by a car, came to visit Jeffrey, who was pretty much in a coma.

Recently, he called my wife to say he’d be in Washington and would love to see Jeffrey after all these years. The lunch was fascinating and fun, with insights from one of the world’s climate experts to delicious stories about sitting in the Senate between Ted Kennedy and Dale Bumpers, two of great story tellers in American politics. He made sure Jeffrey was involved.

We didn’t talk about Trump or the stolen election.

Republican election lawyer Ben Ginsburg noted that when the margin of victory is more than 10,000 votes — those were two states with the closest Trump defeats — it’s never reversed. 

By contrast, in the initial tally Gore lost Florida by 537 votes out of 5.9 million cast. The Republican majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, in a dubious decision, stopped a recount — handing the victory to Bush. Moreover, Florida’s extremely confusing and flawed ballot clearly cost the Democrat. A Stanford Business School study calculated more than 2,000 Democratic voters mistakenly voted for Pat Buchanan, including dozens from a precinct with numerous Holocaust survivors. 

In contrast to the deceit and division peddled by Trump, whose own advisers testified he had no claim, Gore called Bush immediately after the 2000 High Court’s decision and, with eloquence and grace, conceded. “The U.S. Supreme Court has spoken. While I strongly disagree with the Court’s decision, I accept it.” He pledged his total support to the president-elect and urged all his supporters to do likewise. Everyone should read that Dec. 13, 2000, statement.

The following month, as vice president, Gore presided over Bush’s electoral college victory.

This is a familiar story to those who participated or followed or wrote about politics two decades ago. But given the fear, loathing and criminality following the 2020 election — that still rages today — it’s inspiring to recall a man of integrity who put his country first.

Al Hunt is the former executive editor of Bloomberg News. He previously served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for The Wall Street Journal. For almost a quarter century he wrote a column on politics for The Wall Street Journal, then The International New York Times and Bloomberg View. He hosts Politics War Room with James Carville. Follow him on Twitter @AlHuntDC.