I've been following Gore since he was first in congress, and have always thought he was sincere, intelligent and honest. Unfortunately, the system and media have ways of focusing attention on other things....little flaws that are not terribly important, but are easy to parody.

Gore was never the speaker that Clinton was, and his public 'presence' was awkward. He has since improved that, but the image lingers. Add to that his tag as 'loser' now- even though some think he was not the loser- and you get a situation where the public 'probably' would not support him enough.......so, I guess he made the safest choice.

As to who now...wow...they will be lining up in droves!...Kerrey, Lieberman, Daschle, Biden...even Al Sharpton *shudder*...I could tentatively support several of them...but we shall see.