Al Gore declined to back Hillary Clinton for president when asked who he thinks would be next in the White House.
When questioned by WPP founder Sir Martin Sorrell at the Cannes Lions festival of creativity about whom he would back for 2016, Gore — Bill Clinton’s vice president from 1993 to 2001 —notably didn’t take the chance to praise Hillary.
In a packed Cannes Lions session Friday, Sorrell asked Gore, “Would you refuse to answer the question [who will be the next president of the United States]?”
Gore responded, “I wouldn’t refuse to answer that question, I would try to cleverly dodge the question … I would say it’s actually too early.”
Gore merely smiled, but didn’t comment further, after Sorrell added, “I think Hillary will win and it would be great to have a female president of the most powerful nation on the planet.”
Gore has reportedly had a complicated relationship with the Clintons since 2000. Political insiders speculate Gore may be remaining neutral for now but would eventually back the Democratic nominee.
Gore last October described Hillary in an interview with Bloomberg as an “extremely capable person,” adding she did an excellent job as secretary of state and a New York senator. But he also said it was too early and “I am not going to engage in horse race analysis before the horses even go to the gate.”
The former vice president used his speech at Cannes to call on the ad and creative world to help him in his fight against climate change. When asked about climate deniers, Gore said it was a campaign run by polluters and compared their actions to the tobacco industry, which employed actors posing as doctors to reassure consumers that smoking was safe: “It was deeply unethical, immoral, destructive, really evil, and that is exactly what the climate denial industry is doing.”
Gore believes global warming would be a big issue at the next election: “The age of fossil fuels is beginning to end … years ago a Saudi minister once said, ‘The stone age didn’t end because of a shortage of stones.’”
American democracy has been hacked.
- Al Gore
But he blasted lobbyists and special interests for blocking reform: “American democracy has been hacked … the US became the world’s leader by making better decisions than any other nation … the role of money really degraded the decision-making quality in the US.
“Big sources of special interest money are able to prevent the passage of almost any meaningful reform in the public interest, it really pains me to say … That has had a cascading impact on the ability of the US to continue providing the thought leadership to the world as a whole.
“It is urgent not only for the interests of the US but for the future of humankind … that the US find ways to quickly restore its ability to make decisions based on its best values and to limit the corrupting impact and degrading impact of lobbying and campaign contributions.”
When asked if he thought the Obama administration had “lost traction,” Gore continued that presidents have been constrained by Congress, and “The most serious dysfunction in American democracy is now in the legislative branch, in Congress, because they spend most of their time begging rich people and special interests for money.”
Urging the world’s most powerful ad executives and creatives to join him in the fight against climate change, he added, “Please help … this is for real.”
During the session, Gore also poked fun at Sorrell’s headline-grabbing salary. After Sorrell, who heads the world’s biggest ad agency and earned $66 million last year, stated, “I am an expert in renumeration,” Gore joked, “I think I read about that every year.” And when Sorrell kept interrupting him with questions, he quipped, “Your mind is so active, Martin.”
There were also laughs when Gore talked about his $14 billion venture capital firm Generation Investment Management, founded in London with David Blood, and Sorrell asked, “You weren’t going to call it Blood and Gore, were you?”
Sorrell ended the interview by asking which was the more honest TV portrayal of life in the White House, “The West Wing” or “Veep.” Gore shot back, “You are leaving out ‘House of Cards’?”
The former vice president added, “I think Julia Louis-Dreyfus is an absolute comedic genius, I was honored that she came and asked for some advice before their first season, then again second season. But one of my former speechwriters was a writer on ‘West Wing,’ and I think both shows have been fantastic.” But he added, “‘House of Cards’ — for the most part — should not be taken literally.”