Few people can invigorate Democrats and former vice president Al Gore is one of them.
He was the rainmaker Thursday afternoon for Democratic Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar at a University of Minnesota rally, a day after new MPR and Pioneer Press poll showed her down to 10 points lead over her Republican opponent.
Along with Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Gore, who’s become a worldwide champion in the fight against global warming, touted Klobuchar for running a positive campaign at this stage of the race. He said he’s quite surprised with that.
“She’s one of the most outstanding candidates in the country,” Gore told about 300 people, prompting a sea of blue “Amy Klobuchar” signs to go aloft. “In every election, people would say ‘this is the most important election,’ but usually it’s not.”
“This election, however, is one of the most important ones in recent history.”
Sen. Dorgan introduced Gore as “the man who got half a million votes more than George W. Bush got,” referring to the popular vote that Gore received in 2000 when he ran for president.
“My father told me that voting is like driving,” said Sen. Dorgan. “If you put R—as an reverse– on your gear, your car will go backward, if you put D—as an drive—your car will drive forward.” Apparently, the Senator was using this metaphor to imply that Democrats are going forward and Republicans are going backward.
Gore, whose hair is becoming grayish, blamed the Congress for not putting breaks on what he called the Bush administration’s excessive power grip. Mark Kennedy, the Republican opponent of Klobuchar was part of the culprit that let the administration run amok, Gore said.
Klobuchar also blamed the current administration for inheriting a surplus budget and turning it into a deficit.
One issues, she said she opposed the Iraqi war from the beginning.
“You don’t go to war without a plan,” she told the mostly student crowd. “We don’t need to stay in the course. We need to change the course.”
“No permanent military basis in Iraq.”
The college tuition that skyrocketed over the last six years, she said, will not be happening when she and other Democrats are in control of the Congress.
She also said that energy independence is going to be her “next frontier.”
“We’ll bring a change to Washington D.C.,” she said.
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