No Go for Gore in 08?

Al Gore has ruled out running for President in 2008, saying "I'm in another kind of campaign."

In an interview with Norwegian broadcaster NRK, he said he would not make a fresh bid for the White House.

Mr Gore told NRK he wanted to focus on his climate change campaigning, which won him a Nobel Peace Prize last week.

Mr Gore, the beaten Democratic candidate in the 2000 election, had repeatedly stated he had no interest in standing again for president.

But a national organisation which has campaigned for him to stand once more for the White House said traffic on its website had surged in the wake of his Nobel triumph.

[...]

Mr Gore told NRK it was a "great honour" to be awarded the prize for his climate campaigning.

Asked how it would affect his political future, he replied: "I don't have plans to be a candidate again so I don't really see it in that context at all.

"I'm involved in another kind of campaign. It's a global campaign to change the way people think about the climate crisis."

UPDATE: NeuvoLiberal argues that this is the same language Gore has used before:

Why does neither the January statement nor the recent statement mean that Gore has ruled out a run? Because, Roy Neel, a close political aide of Al Gore, said the following recently:

"He's not ruled it out in the future." Asked what "the future" meant, Neel said, "Sometime later than today."

Link

Neel's statement clearly implies that the January statement was not tantamount to ruling out a run in 2008 by Al Gore. Since the same phrase has been repeated by Gore in the statement just reported, it follows that it too does not amount to ruling out a run in 2008 by Al Gore. Quite straightforward.

NL contrasts the statement above with the flat statement that Gore made in 2004 about not running, and I have to admit that it's pretty compelling.