Al Gore (Two Americas)

Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. (born March 31, 1948) served as CS Representative, Senator, Vice President and finally President of the Confederate States. He was the son of former Tennessee Congressman and Senator Albert A. Gore, Sr., first winning election to is father's former House seat when it became vacant in 1976 with the unexpected retirement of Rep. Joe Evins. He would remain in that position for three terms until winning a Senate seat in 1984. He would leave the Senate in 1989 to serve as Vice President under Bill Clinton. As Vice President, he had a written agreement to be an active part of the administration and became as visible as the president in national and international affairs. His most impressive contribution was in the field of interactive media, being an advocate for new technology going all the way back to his first days in the House. As a result of this interest, he attracted a large following in the younger generation. This lead to a close race against fellow Tennessean, sitting Constitutionist Senator Lamar Alexander, Gore became the 25th President of the Confederate States.

In his first nine months as president, Gore's history with the computer age (some had begun to call him "Geek-in-Chief") provided him with an unusual challenge. It had come to his attention as Vice President that early computer programmers, both American and Confederate, had made an error in a crucial component of many programs -- the date. Many experts as far back as 1984, in the dawn of the 'world-wide web,' had begun warning that computers that used the two last digits of the year as a date would malfunction as dates began to register '00.' Fixes had been devised, and the Clinton administration had worked with American, Canadian, and European experts to assure that everything would make the transition without problems. However, as one of the most visible spokesmen for the technology, Gore was the one who was most 'tested' as the calendar year (and digital counters) moved into 2000. With only a few glitches, the world survived.

Gore's number one issue as president, though, was to curb what he saw as the most dangerous problem the world faced in the twenty-first century -- the production of "green house gases" in the continued use of carbon-based fuels. The Confederate States was the second largest producer of oil in the world, making it also quite stable as an economic superpower. But the use of that product was seen by Gore and his compatriots as the number one producer of carbon dioxide, a major contributor to the heat-trapping effect of carbon by-products in the atmosphere. Having first learned of the theory of "global warming" in college, Gore had been an amateur scientist, learning everything he could to support the theory. The theory had support around the world, and Gore lobbied Congress throughout his term as president to support the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. However, even members of his own party had warned that riding this issue too far would result in a backlash. Gore would lose both the House and Senate by the end of 2004, and the Democrats would then lose the White House in 2006 with the election of Mike Huckabee - the second Arkansas governor in as many decades to sit at the President's desk.