Between Iraq, the continued or potential nuclearization of Iran, North Korea and other states, terrorism, changing global leadership, a massive federal deficit and growing debt, trade imbalance, economic instabilities, inefficient taxation, health care injustice, a weakening education system and a loss of technology leadership, the next president faces innumerable myriad problems.

Pundits labeled the 2000 election a watershed election early, due to the variety and complexity of issues facing the United States. Due to voter shortsightedness, the country faces the same problems and more in the coming years.

People lured by ill-advised tax-cuts, down-home rhetoric and well-crafted lies, along with a partisan Supreme Court, installed George W. Bush in the White House instead of the infinitely more adept, wiser, better informed, and visionary Al Gore. We as a country should not make a similar mistake again in 2008.

In 2000, Vice President Gore was bland, dried out by an awful campaign staff and cooked by poor strategic decisions. With his film “An Inconvenient Truth” in 2006, his nonstop work promoting environmentalism and energy conservation and the evident consequences of global warming, Gore is chic. For the good of the country, he needs to prove his worth to people he exceeds 90 minutes in a movie theatre.

Yes, Gore has yet to even insinuate an interest in pursuing the White House in 2008 and yes he is running out of time. As a lifelong fan of Mr. Gore, I hope and pray every night for the good of our country that he changes his rhetoric and takes on the Hillary Machine and the Obama Dream. While the female Clinton has resources, acumen and ambition, and Obama has a “vision,” which must be blurry since he has yet to make serious significant specific policy proposals, Gore has unparalleled experience, serving under someone often ranked among the top ten presidents.

Gore was not a passive vice president and he would not be a passive president. He believes in maintaining U.S. global leadership and understood the global and regional dynamics sufficiently to correctly oppose the Iraq war before the lesser Bush initiated it. Gore’s vast foreign policy experience began with his terms in the House and the Senate and continued through his intense involvement with the Clinton administration.

Unlike our current president, he not only speaks about family values and morals but also lives them. While W. selfishly sent other people’s children to Iraq to die because Saddam Hussein, “tried to kill my Dad” (msnbc.com), Gore actually showed up for his military service, acting as a field reporter for the 20th Engineer Brigade in Vietnam.

For the past six years, the U.S. has had a president with no successful administrative experience and little brainpower. The country cannot withstand another ineffective, corrupt, self-interested administration. Frankly, none of the candidates currently running inspires sufficient confidence to deserve my vote. Al Gore, however, features talent, brilliance, vision, and compassion, along with ideas balancing morality, social responsibility and fiscal conservatism.

From a pragmatic perspective, die-hard liberals might question his credentials outside of the environment. With all due respect, the Democratic Party ran the uninspiring John Kerry, one of the most liberal senators in recent history, and he was creamed. Outside of Hillary and Obama, the Democratic candidates lack experience and name recognition and, even if politically sound, would be at a disadvantage to the most probable Republican candidates.

The Republicans have similar problems. Their leading candidates are crazy (John McCain is apparently emulating former Arizona senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater’s militancy), morally decrepit if politically sound (Rudi Giuliani is inspiring, and an effective leader, but lacks foreign policy experience and has many skeletons waiting to drag him to the grave), or too conservative for the majority of the country.

Overall, the supposedly wide-open 2008 Presidential field is more or less empty. If Al Gore steps into the void with his leadership, vision and newfound personality, he will lead the country more effectively than anyone since Franklin Roosevelt.