“After the last eight years, even our dogs and cats have learned that elections matter.” - Al Gore

Urging Americans to reject the Bush legacy of incompetence, negligence and failure, former Vice President Al Gore - who has become the de facto Democratic standard-bearer in the past seven years - endorsed Barack Obama Monday.

Gore said George W. Bush and his cronies have “dishonored and disrespected” the Constitution and led our country through “eight years of the most serious foreign policy mistakes in the entire history of our nation.”

[NOTE: Did anyone else watching this get the feeling that this guy would make an excellent Vice President? Just throwing it out there]

At a campaign rally in Detroit, Michigan, Al Gore called for Americans to move past partisanship and select, in Barack Obama, a great leader who can solve the global climate crisis and create a brighter future for the U.S. and the planet.

He didn’t stop at foreign policy and climate change, either.

Al Gore cited myriad concerns about the environment, lead-painted toys and food safety - even pet foods - as other reasons to vote Democrat.

Joining Obama in the midst of the Democratic nominee’s two-week tour of the U.S. to talk about ways to revitalize the economy, Monday marked Gore’s debut in this historic, often contentious 2008 election.

Gore praised Barack Obama as someone who could mobilize people, young and old, who had never before taken part in the political process.

Follow the jump for some terrific Al Gore quotes from the rally …

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John Edwards took the stage at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich., last night, with Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising” pulsating around him.

The 2004 Vice Presidential nominee surely envisioned such a moment, only with himself representing the Democratic Party for president.

Instead, it was Barack Obama’s “rising” that brought Edwards there.

Michigan was an appropriate setting for Edwards’ endorsement. Populism and empathy for the working class and impoverished were the themes of the former North Carolina Senator’s own presidential bid.

In endorsing Obama, John Edwards hopes to transfer his appeal among the white, working-class voters that the front-runner has struggled to win over.

“The reason that I am here tonight is because the Democratic voters in America have made their choice, and so have I,” Edwards said.

“There is one man who knows and understands that this is a time for bold leadership. There is one man that knows how to create the change, the lasting change, that you have to build from the ground up.”

The question is: Does John Edwards’ endorsement matter?

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John Edwards has appeared conflicted on the subject of whether he supports Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential race.

In a recent interview, he and wife Elizabeth Edwards seemed disinclined to issue a formal endorsement, praising and criticizing both candidates.

A few days ago, though, while chatting with host David Schuster on MSNBC, Edwards said he would “very likely” endorse the Democrat he voted for the previous Tuesday in the North Carolina primary, which Obama won handily.

Things didn’t turn out as John Edwards hoped this primary season - but the former North Carolina Senator and V.P. nominee remains a powerful party force.

Pressed further, that’s when John Edwards may have slipped up.

“I just voted, I just voted for him on Tuesday,” he said.

Eh hem. Him? John Edwards is going to endorse Barack Obama?

Maybe he could he have said, in his Southern drawl, that he “just voted for ‘er on Tuesday.” ‘Er? ‘Em? Eh, probably not.

Schuster kept at him, asking “So it was a him or a her you voted for?”

Edwards, who has said more matter-of-factly that he believes Obama will win the nomination, then started backpedaling quickly and laughing.

So … we still don’t really know… do we? Does it even matter?

Former Vice President Al Gore has remained neutral in the 2008 Democratic presidential race - but he may still endorse a candidate, he says.

Many have speculated why Gore, one of the party’s most popular figures, has decided to stay on the fence, but he said this week that this reason for staying neutral is quite simple — and is still subject to change.

“My purpose in not endorsing a candidate is nothing elaborate,” Al Gore said on NPR. “I’m simply watching and listening to the campaign. As a delegate to the convention I will cast my vote at the proper time. I haven’t ruled out making an endorsement prior to that time, but I haven’t been moved to do so.”

Al Gore added that “I have respect for both candidates, they both have strengths, and I’m simply listening and watching like a lot of people.”

We’ve speculated that Gore prefers Barack Obama for a variety of reasons, and given the results of Tuesday’s primaries, the timing could finally be right for an endorsement. The impact of his doing so would be dramatic.

While John and Elizabeth Edwards appear to be divided - and content to remain uncommitted - An Average Patriot points out that Al Gore could essentially end the race today with endorsement. Why doesn’t he?

Elizabeth Edwards likes Hillary Clinton’s health care plan.

John Edwards doesn’t much care for Clinton’s “old politics.”

So goes the his-and-her debate in the Edwards household.

Their home state of North Carolina takes center stage today in the tense, ongoing Democratic presidental nomination fight between Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, and two of its most famous voters aren’t tipping their hands.

In their first joint interview since John Edwards dropped out of the race, the couple was asked what they liked and disliked about the two remaining Democrats.

Elizabeth Edwards didn’t hesitate: “I like Hillary’s health care plan.”

John and Elizabeth Edwards in North Carolina.

What doesn’t she like about the U.S. Senator from New York and former First Lady? “The lobbyist money,” she said.

On Barack Obama, she says: “The fact that he has motivated so many young people to be involved, I think is fantastic.” But, she adds: “I don’t like his health care plan or his advertising on health care, which I think is misleading.”

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Warning: Celebrity Endorsement! Tom Hanks has lent his support to Barack Obama in his quest to be the next President of the United States.

Believing Barack Obama is right person for the right job at this point in history, Hanks reflects on America’s past and its need to go in a new direction.

Hanks pokes fun at himself from the onset, stating that “As an official celebrity I know my endorsement has just made your mind up.”

Here’s Tom Hanks’ video, originally posted to his MySpace page …

Boy. How badly does the New York Times want to retract its Hillary Clinton endorsement from earlier this year? Why won’t it just say so overtly?

Maybe it doesn’t have to. Its scathing editorial from yesterday, “The Low Road to Victory,” which criticizes the New York Senator’s negative tactics in the Pennsylvania campaign, leaves no other conclusion.

While the New York Times‘ own credibility is suspect at this point, you have to wonder about the toll this protracted, increasingly bitter campaign is taking.

It’s nearing the point where the damage may be impossible to undo.

Here’s the piece from Wednesday’s paper, which also criticizes Barack Obama for falling victim to the negative tone set by Clinton, but compares the former First Lady to George W. Bush and Karl Rove (seriously) …

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The Pennsylvania primary, which produced yet another inconclusive result Tuesday night, was even meaner, vacuous, desperate, and filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction.

Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race.

It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1.

But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.

On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11.

A Clinton television ad — torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook — evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden.

“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” the narrator intoned.

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Sen. Barack Obama has had trouble establishing himself as the blue-collar candidate in his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Just the same, he’s won the support of one of America’s best known working-class heroes in Bruce Springsteen, who said that the Illinois Senator “speaks to the America I’ve envisioned in my music for the past 35 years.”

In a letter addressed to friends and fans posted his website, Bruce Springsteen said he believes Barack Obama is the best candidate to undo “the terrible damage done over the past eight years.” He says of Obama:

“He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next president. He speaks to the America I’ve envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that’s interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where ‘…nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone.’ ”

The pride of New Jersey, 58, is known for his themes and lyrics revolving around the struggles of working-class Americans, but touched with hope, with tales of the economically ravaged manufacturing / factory towns of the Northeast.

So much for the “elitist” or “out of touch” tags Barack’s rivals like to pin on him. Here’s a funny video made by Slate.com, conjuring up a faux attack ad Hillary Clinton (and Celine Dion) might run to decry Springsteen and Obama …

Sen. Hillary Clinton mocked her “3 a.m.” ad, while Sen. Barack Obama added manufactured political “distractions” to host Stephen Colbert’s “On Notice Board” on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report Thursday.

“I think the American people are tired of these political games and petty distractions,” declared Obama. Stephen Colbert’s response:

“Speaking for the news media, we are not tired of it, It allows us to ask the same questions over and over again, and we don’t have to do any work.”

So who won Wednesday’s debate, in Colbert’s eyes? John Edwards.

The candidate of the adult wing of the Democratic party who didn’t make it to Pennsylvania - but who looks better in hindsight - suddenly appeared during Colbert’s faux report on the courting by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

“Finally, America’s white men are being heard, and the candidates are attempting to address issues of concern to them,” Colbert said in front of images of Clinton downing a shot and a beer and Obama attempting to bowl.

Mocking the continued efforts of both remaining candidates to secure his support, the former North Carolina Senator declared that, “No white male vote is being courted more vigorously than this one.”

Commenting on his two warring endorsement options, John Edwards noted that, on the one hand, he did not want to cast a vote that was “anti-hope.”

But, recalling the response of a virulent Clinton backer to another former candidate, Bill Richardson, when he announced his endorsement of Barack Obama, Edwards said, “On the other hand, I don’t want James Carville to bite me.”

Restating his campaign call for a more serious focus on economic issues - which were almost entirely missing from Wednesday night’s debate - John Edwards announced that he would vote in the upcoming North Carolina primary.

His choice on May 6, he says, will be for the candidate who best advocates for ending poverty and providing universal health care.

Failing that, he said, “I will only support the candidate who promises to make me a spy. That would be so cool.”

Even Stephen Colbert was cracking up at that.

Easily the least defensive and most good-humored “contender,” John Edwards reminded everyone of what was lost when he exited the race - and of why the remaining candidates really are still campaigning for his endorsement.

The long-term goal may be saving Earth, but a short-term one for Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is winning the backing of Al Gore.

The former Vice President, who won a Nobel prize for his work to combat rising temperatures, is also one of the superdelegates and one of the most influential Democratic Party leaders likely to determine who wins the nomination.

So the dueling candidates praise Gore during campaign speeches, offer up roles for him in future administrations, and, of course, keep in touch.

“They both call. And I appreciate that fact,” Gore said on 60 Minutes.

Barack Obama says he keeps in regular contact with Al Gore and has pledged to make him a major player on global warming in an Obama administration.

“I will make a commitment that Al Gore will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we solve this problem,” Obama said.

Hillary Clinton says she does not know whether Al Gore wanted to get back into government but is certain the American people would welcome it.

“I am very dependent upon the work that Al Gore has done for so many years on behalf of climate change,” the former First Lady said.

Al Gore’s spokeswoman, Kalee Kreider, declined to comment on the Obama offer but was complimentary about all three of the presidential candidates.

“Former Vice President Gore thinks that both candidates are very strong. Both of them have offered plans to address the worsening climate crisis … as has Senator John McCain,” she said. “It’s a real turnaround to have candidates on both sides of the aisle offering, you know, solutions and plans to the climate crisis.”

Gore, who narrowly lost the 2000 election to George W. Bush, has dedicated most of his professional life since then to fighting climate change.

Although he may not be eager to get back into the political fray as the tight race between Obama and Clinton rages on, Gore definitely has an agenda: to make certain that global warming on the top of the president’s priority list.

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