Al Gore Is Still Tennessee's Favorite Son [View All]

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http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=143-09082003

Al Gore Is Still Tennessee's Favorite Son; Draft Gore Petition Drive a Highlight of Democratic Labor Event

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Sept. 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- His name was not on the official Democratic straw poll last Saturday. His supporters were not even offered the option to write his name on the ballot -- something they will be able to do in Tennessee's regular primary next year. And the declared contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination had staff and family out in force promoting their candidacy at the Annual Middle Tennessee Labor Day Celebration last Saturday.

Yet participants at the event wanted to cast their ballot for someone who was not officially represented in any way. They could not express that preference in the official count, but by the hundreds they came to a table organized by Draft Gore. And 250 of them -- about one in four people at the event -- signed a petition urging former Vice President Al Gore to run for president in 2004 and pledged their support to him. In fact, there were more names on the Draft Gore petition than there were votes cast for all but one of the candidates on the official ballot.

Howard Dean received 364 votes in the official poll, while the second ranked candidate, Dick Gephardt -- touted as the labor candidate at a Labor Day event -- received fewer votes on the ballot than Al Gore garnered on a petition that people had to go to some trouble to find.

The event, one of the biggest of its kind in the South, drew about 1,000 people at the Charles Hand Farm north of Nashville. Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen and Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. were among the officials addressing the festivities.

Event participants mobbed the Draft Gore table, and volunteers could barely keep up with the demand. Becky Knight, treasurer of Draft Gore, was interviewed by the CBS affiliate for the evening news.

"People were thrilled to realize the option still open, and are desperate to see Al Gore in the race," she said. "I've never seen so much enthusiasm. We had supporters of other candidate jump on the Draft Gore bandwagon. Had Gore been on that ballot, I can't imagine anyone could have touched him."

Added Draft Gore's Lucy Bickett, "One elderly gentleman told me, 'I was supporting Wesley Clark -- until today.' I placed a sticker on Mr. Durnette's shirt, and he insisted I put on the top of all the rest. He walked away with a spring in his step. People's hope is restored when a Gore presidency is discussed."

Meanwhile, the Draft Gore movement is picking up momentum nationwide in the weeks since Al Gore's policy address at New York University. The number of Gore supporters in the Meetup.com organization has tripled since mid-August (from 500 to more than 1,500 members today), and thousands have joined Draft Gore. Nationally Gore is leading all Democrats in every poll in which his name has been included (by as much as 40 percent to 7 percent in a Time/CNN poll).

Draft Gore 2004 is a national political action committee founded last December. It is not affiliated with the former vice president or his staff. The petition from the Sept. 6 Labor Day Celebration will be delivered to Gore's office this week.

For more information see http://www.draftgore.com.

(Posted and Authorized by Draft Gore 2004 Media Outreach Herb Riede)