Reply #254: Al Gore said he could only get one Senator to support Kyoto, to my knowledge

[Uncle Joe]

he didn't name the Senator. My gut feeling is that it was Wellstone but I could be wrong.

Out of a 100 seat Senate, 95 votes are not unanimous.

Re: "Realistic" reality would have changed under the scenario you put forth, Al Gore winning by a mandate with Nader voters supporting and voting for him.

The "realistic" that you keep basing your judgment on is what did happen, not what could have happened under your own proposed scenario.

Obama ran on the ambiguous word "change" and to my knowledge he was never a major environmental champion, so even when he won, his mandate re:energy/environmental issues wasn't near as potent as a Gore win would have been. Aside from that their characters and experience levels are different, as I stated before, I believe Al Gore would have been much more effective, forceful and persuasive using the Bully Pulpit as President.