(CNN) -Gov. Rick Perry was once a close ally of Democrat Al Gore, but the Texas Republican made clear Wednesday he and the former vice president no longer see eye-to-eye.
"I certainly got religion," Perry told the Dallas Morning News. "I think he's gone to hell."
Perry, once a Democrat, ran the Texas chapter of Gore's unsuccessful presidential bid in 1988. Then a member of the Texas Legislature, Perry announced a year later he was switching to the Republican Party.
Perry, a two-term governor who's up for re-election next year, is currently engaged a heated Republican primary battle with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.
With the Copenhagen climate change conference underway, it's the season of Gore bashing for some Republicans. The former vice president also took heat last week from Sarah Palin, who declared Gore was pushing "doomsday scenarios."
TOPICS: Obama, 2010 midterm elections, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, John Edwards, Joe Lieberman, Al Gore, Tiger Woods, most important issue, mood of country, economy, health care, Afghanistan, environment, Nobel Peace Prize, Christmas spending
WASHINGTON (CNN) – President Obama still hasn't committed to campaign with Creigh Deeds before Election Day, but the Democratic gubernatorial hopeful is getting an assist from a former President: Bill Clinton.
Clinton will appear at a rally with Deeds somewhere in northern Virginia next Tuesday, a Deeds aide said. The exact location has not yet been finalized.
Longtime Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe, who sought the Democratic nomination before losing to Deeds in June, will also be in attendance. McAuliffe has sent out a fundraising e-mail on Deeds' behalf, but he has also urged Deeds to run a more positive campaign if he hopes to catch up to Republican Bob McDonnell before Election Day, Nov. 3.
Former Vice President Al Gore is raising money for Deeds on Friday evening.
WASHINGTON (CNN) - Former Vice President Al Gore is coming to Virginia on Friday to raise money for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds, a campaign aide confirmed.
Gore will headline a fundraiser at a private home in McLean. At this point, however, Gore is not scheduled to make a public appearance with the Democratic hopeful.
The event comes one week after Deeds got fundraising help from the current vice president, Joe Biden.
President Obama has also campaigned and raised money for Deeds, but the White House is being cagey on whether the president will return to the commonwealth in the final three weeks before Election Day on November 3. But the Democratic National Committee launched a flurry of robocalls into Virginia on Tuesday asking Obama campaign supporters to help elect Deeds.
Deeds trails Republican Bob McDonnell in recent polls. Former GOP presidential nominee John McCain will hold a rally for McDonnell in Hampton Roads on Saturday.
WASHINGTON (CNN) – House Democratic leaders are turning up the heat in their efforts to pass a bill aimed at curbing global warming, even enlisting former Vice President Al Gore in the lobbying efforts and getting a public show of support from President Barack Obama at the White House.
Democrats admit that they are shy of the 218 votes needed to pass the climate-change bill scheduled for a vote on Friday, and have furiously been lobbying fence-sitting members.
Gore was scheduled to visit the Capitol on Thursday to personally lobby in favor of the bill, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office called his office Wednesday night to cancel.
"It's a question of what was energy-efficient for the vice president," Pelosi said of the decision to keep Gore in Tennessee. "We were narrowing the list of the undecided and thought that perhaps on another occasion we could call upon his time to come here."
While Gore is not in Washington, his spokeswoman says he is still working the phones and contacting uncertain lawmakers to make the case for passing the Clean Energy and Security Act, which would require a 17 percent emissions reduction from 2005 levels by 2020 and create a "cap-and-trade" system where manufacturers would buy and sell pollution credits.
(CNN) – Former Vice President Al Gore Friday took his successor Dick Cheney to task for aggressively criticizing President Obama so soon into the new commander-in-chief's presidency.
In an interview with CNN, Gore said he himself had refrained from criticizing President Bush until well into the run up to the Iraq war - more than two years after the Clinton administration came to an end.
"I waited two years after I left office to make statements that were critical, and then of the policy," he said. "You know, you talk about somebody that shouldn't be talking about making the country less safe, invading a country that did not attack us and posed no serious threat to us at all."
During a series of television interviews in recent weeks, Cheney has repeatedly criticized the Obama administration for its national security policies.
"He can speak for himself," Gore also said of the former vice president. "And I have a feeling that members of his own party wish that he would not do that. But I'll let that be an argument between him and them."
"He has become, in many ways, the leading spokesman for his party during this period of time. And the message is one that he's deciding to deliver," said Gore.
(CNN) - Former Vice President Al Gore used Earth Day to criticize congressional Republicans for opposing President Obama's agenda, and he called on donors to give to House Democrats as a way to help expand their majority in the 2010 elections.
Gore, the most high profile spokesperson on the danger of global warming, specifically mentions this issue in the letter sent Wednesday to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) e-mail list.
"I can tell you that President Obama has signaled in the strongest possible terms that he intends to take bold steps and harness innovative resources to solve the climate crisis," Gore wrote in the letter. "Not only that, but Speaker Pelosi has said she will personally shepherd climate legislation through.
"But neither of them can do it alone – and the clock is ticking. We need a strong Democratic majority in Congress and the widespread support of concerned Americans like you."
Gore accused the GOP of putting up "partisan roadblocks in the way of forward-thinking legislation."
A Republican campaign spokesman dismissed Gore's plea and in doing so took a shot at the failed 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis.
"You would think the DCCC understands that trotting out Democratic has-beens is bad for the political environment," said Ken Spain, communications director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. "What's next? Michael Dukakis soliciting funds on Armed Forces Day?"
Gore is scheduled to testify Friday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on "The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009."
(CNN) - Al Gore said Tuesday he's writing another book on global warming policies and solutions.
The former vice president is set to release "Our Choice" in November. Gore's latest read will be a followup to his 2006 bestseller "An Inconvenient Truth," serving as a "blueprint" providing solutions to the climate crisis.
"'An Inconvenient Truth' reached millions of people with the message that the climate crisis is threatening the future of human civilization and that it must and can be solved," Gore said in a statement. "Now that the need for urgent action is even clearer with the alarming new findings of the last three years, it is time for a comprehensive global plan that actually solves the climate crisis. 'Our Choice' will answer that call."
As he did with the earnings from "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore said he will will donate all the proceeds from the eco-friendly book to his foundation, the Alliance for Climate Protection.
WASHINGTON (CNN) - Suggesting the planet will soon reach an irreversible "tipping point" of damage to the climate, former Vice President Al Gore plans to tell members of Congress on Wednesday that the U.S. needs to join international talks on a treaty.
"This treaty must be negotiated this year," he plans to say, according to a copy of remarks prepared for testimony.
Gore is scheduled to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He plans to link the nation's energy situation with the need to develop fuels that are not based on petroleum.
"We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet," Gore plans to say. "Every bit of that's got to change."
Read Gore's full prepared remarks after the jump
From CNN Politics
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