MIAMI: The guest of honour strolled across the stage — hair slicked back and greyed, no tie — embracing his host, briefly, before looking out on the campaign crowd.
It had been a while. He opened with something safe.
“I understand you’ve got a pretty good women’s volleyball team here,” he said, a bit tepidly, inside a college gymnasium on Tuesday. “So, go Lady Sharks. Is that what you say?”
Al Gore was back.
In a rare return to presidential politics, Gore, who was Bill Clinton’s vice-president, joined Hillary Clinton for a 45-minute Democratic call to arms, vacillating between a familiar drawling delivery and the urgency of a seer sent from another era to warn future generations of prospective doom.
“Your vote really, really, really counts,” he said, in the state synonymous with his excruciating 2000 election loss. “You can consider me as an Exhibit A.”
It was a remarkable turn in one of the most consequential, and fraught, relationships in recent Democratic political history — a halting public embrace between two figures long defined by rivalry, ambition and a complicated union with the same man.
The event’s ostensible focus was climate change, Gore’s signature issue. But the wider message of the gathering, 16 years after the recount fight that begot the presidency of George W. Bush, was unsubtle: As Clinton seeks to encourage registration efforts and convince Americans that every ballot counts, Gore is the Democrats’ ambulatory cautionary tale.
“Now, for those of you who are younger than 25, you might not remember the election of 2000 and what happened here in Florida,” he said, addressing students from Miami-Dade College, among others in attendance. “For those of you older than 25, I heard you murmuring just now.”
Soon, a chant rang out: “You won!”
Introducing Gore, Clinton spoke of clean energy, kerbside gardens, the Paris climate agreement and Donald Trump’s suggestion that climate change is a hoax.
She commended Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize and his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” presenting him as “our former vice-president, the climate change leader and all-around great guy Al Gore.”
“There isn’t anybody who knows more, has done more, has worked harder,” she said. “I can’t wait to have Al Gore advising me when I am the president.”
He stepped to the microphone, hugging Clinton as she smiled.
There was a time when these two shared the stage often as crowds waved signs with both of their surnames.
After Bill Clinton’s 1992 election, Gore and Hillary Clinton quickly established themselves as rivals for Bill Clinton’s ear — a pair of policy wonks seeking influence in a new administration.
The rally on Tuesday dwelled little on this past, or the details of Gore’s defeat.
Hanging chads were not broached. Butterfly ballots were not invoked. Yet other Gore-era echoes have resounded through this heady campaign season.
Young voters, wary of the Democratic nominee, have weighed third-party options, delivering fresh nightmares of Ralph Nader’s 2000 campaign to bleary-eyed Democratic operatives.
The grim history of Clinton’s behaviour with women has reassumed centre stage, with Trump raising his infidelities as a campaign issue. (At least twice during Clinton’s remarks on Tuesday, protesters ridiculed Bill Clinton’s past. Gore stared straight ahead, his hands clasped.)
There is even a legal skirmish over voting regulations here, with Democratic officials successfully extending a registration deadline, against the wishes of the state’s Republican governor, because of a recent hurricane.
The speakers on Tuesday focused most intensely on this extreme weather, and its consequences.
Clinton cited the devastation in Florida and Haiti from Hurricane Matthew — “If you need additional convincing, just remember what happened this week,” she warned — and reminded voters of the protracted drought in California.
Gore, too, held forth on the cause of his post-political life, making his case as if reading from a slide show projection. He quoted Thomas Edison, warned of rising sea levels and lurched into a discussion of comparative solar energy commitments.
“Massachusetts installed more solar energy last year alone than Florida has installed in its entire history!” he said.
“Ridiculous!” someone yelled back.
“Yes, it’s ridiculous!” Gore said. “That’s exactly right.”
By then, some students had buried their heads in their phones.
But the former vice-president ended with a flourish.
“Please take it from me,” he said. “Every. Single. Vote. Counts.”
“We love you, President Gore!” a woman shouted from the bleachers.
Moments later, Gore wrapped up, turning towards Clinton for a brief negotiation as the room cheered.
“Wanna do a hands-up?” he asked, cupping her right hand in his left.
“Yeah!” Clinton said.
One more time, their arms shot skyward.
