Carville: Obama Should Pick Gore as VP

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Last updated on July 1st, 2012 at 06:54 am

While appearing on CNN’s The Situation Room, James Carville, not only suggested, but made the case for Al Gore as Barack Obama’s running mate. “If I were him, I would ask Al Gore to serve as his vice president, his energy czar, in his administration to reduce our consumption and reliance on foreign energy sources,” Carville said.

After a clip of Gore was played where he said that he would probably only get back into politics as a presidential candidate, Carville continued, “Well, I’m not suggesting he’s just any vice president. I’m suggesting that Senator Obama as president would give him a lot of authority to deal with our consumption of oil. I think it would send a signal to the world and send a signal to Congress and American people that he’s going to be really serious and we’re going to cut it and coordinate all of that as the vice president.”

Carville also said that climate change is the most important issue that the next president will face. Carville also added that he was just trying to be provocative, and that he would love it if Obama picked Clinton. Just for the sake of letting our imaginations run wild for a second, I tend to think that climate change is definitely in the top five, but I doubt that would return to American politics as a vice president for anyone.

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People forget that besides working on an issue that is his true passion, Gore has also made a fortune since leaving public life. Anytime he speaks about returning to politics, he looks and sounds like a man who is 90% retired from the public sector.

An idea that I think Gore would go for is if Obama appointed him to head up a special committee to formulate climate change solutions for the country. I believe that Gore would dive at the chance to play this sort of policy role. I get the sense that Al Gore wants to be in politics, but he doesn’t want to run for office anymore. If Obama is smart, he will give Al a critical role on the issue of climate change, but I doubt that anything could drag him back to being a candidate again.

You can read the full transcript right here.