It's barely the summer of 2007, and yet political pundits are in full swing; handicapping the races, crunching the data, and calling for Al Gore to jump into the race.

This is nothing new, of course. During the 2004 election season, rumors were rife that Gore would throw his hat in the ring and run for the office which, according to some, was rightfully his. The speculation only finally stopped after Gore endorsed grassroots candidate Howard Dean. Perhaps it was Dean's fervor that appealed to Gore - but given Gore's affinity for technology, one can safely assume that he was also intrigued by the Dean campaign's savvy use of the Internet.  Unfortunately, Dean lost to Kerry in the primaries, and anyone who lived through Election Day 2004 knows the rest of the story.

Now, four years later, progressives are clamoring for Gore to ride to the rescue. The Daily's Blythe Lawrence directly addressed Gore in a column last fall:

"I’m sure many of those people you shook hands with out on the campaign trail would tell you that when they take stock in their lives, they have one big regret: the lover forsaken, the job not taken, the path down which they decided not to wander. Please don’t let yourself and the world wonder what could have been had you been president in 2008 the way the world (and you, I assume) wonders what could have been had you been commander in chief in 2001."

The prospect of Gore as president is appealing, but here's why he shouldn't run, at least not this time around:

First, as Gore himself has said, he's rediscovered his true passion. In an article by Time, aptly titled, 'The Last Temptation of Al Gore,' he maintains that he's "fallen out of love with politics." In contrast, when it comes to to global warming: "I have enjoyed the luxury of being able to focus single-mindedly on this issue." 

Secondly, assuming Gore were able to shake his dislike for conventional politics and run a winning campaign, upon assuming office he would be forced to turn his attention from his central passion towards other pressing issues. The next president, whoever she is, will need to devote her full attention to dealing with the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion, both at home and abroad. This will leave little time to implement a full transition to a 'greener America.' At present, Americans are less inclined towards a new revolution than they are towards stability and the chance to catch their breath after the turbulence of the Bush years.

However, if Gore does seek a return to electoral politics, there is another, better alternative - one that meshes his environmental passions with political sense in the same way that Dean harnessed technological know-how for fundraising prowess.

Most of the flawed policy of the past few years - including the central issue of this period, Iraq - stem from the fact that the two-party system has fundamentally broken down. If the Republicans have been reckless in their approach to foreign policy, the Democrats have provided little opposition and, as in the case of Iraq, have often acted as willing accomplices. Two of the three current Democratic front-runners voted for the war, and who can forget John Kerry's classic gem: "I voted for the [war funding] before I voted against it." As Edmund Burke said, all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

In politics, as in business, competition is healthy and necessary; and conditions are ripe for the emergence of a third party. As Howard Fineman notes:

"If I were a GOP strategist – or a Democratic one – I would be worried by Arnold’s body language. He and other major independent actors on the political scene – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Vice President Al Gore, chief among them – comprise a Third Force that could upset two-party politics as we know it in the 2008 presidential race.

"Indeed, although there is no formal alliance, Schwarzenegger, Bloomberg and Gore have formed a mutual admiration society that has huge potential implications for 2008. They have come to share similar visions on the urgency of the global warming and health care crises, and a similar impatience with politics as usual."

Unlike Fineman, I don't think that Gore should run this election cycle; as I said previously, most progressive energy should be focused on keeping the Republicans out of the White House, and bringing the Bush chapter to a close.

However, as soon as the polls close on Election Day 2008, Gore should explore the possibility of an alliance with the Green Party. Gore, unlike Nader in 2000, would be an ideal candidate. His passion for environmental causes meshes perfectly with the Green Party's core beliefs, and he is obviously a viable presidential candidate, having already won the popular vote once. In the interim between 2008 and 2012, Gore could continue his campaign against global warming while helping to strengthen the Green Party's infrastructure. If he can help elect some Greens to Congress in 2010, who knows what might result? As he himself noted in the earlier TIME article:

"I am under no illusions that any position has as much ability to influence change as the presidency does. If the President made climate change the organizing principle, the filter through which everything else had to flow, then that could really make a huge difference."

With Gore's popular support and the Green Party's national infrastructure, the Greens might be established as a credible third political party by 2010; and then, with Iraq hopefully behind us, America may finally be ready to entertain the possibility of electing a president that will tackle climate change and put America on the path to sustainable environmentalism. What better 2012 candidate for the Greens, and for America, than Al Gore?