SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) — A petition calling for Al Gore to enter the 2008 election race was swollen by thousands of signatures after the former US Vice-President's Nobel Peace Prize victory, organisers revealed Tuesday.
The national Draft Gore organization (www.draftgore.com) said traffic on its website surged dramatically in the wake of the latest honor given to the environmental crusader, who has also won an Oscar and an Emmy in the last year.
Draft Gore said the number of signatures on its petition spiked to more than 200,000 in the four days since the Nobel victory was announced, a jump of some 70,000. The site received nearly 100,000 hits on Friday.
According to web tracking firm Alexa.com, traffic on Draftgore.com surpassed Hillary Clinton's official campaign website by more than two-to-one on Friday.
"Interest in a Gore candidacy is skyrocketing," said Draft Gore founder Monica Friedlander. "People are stirred to action in record numbers by the possibility of America's greatest statesman and global leader becoming the next president of the United States."
The online Draft Gore petition currently has 208,000 signatures. An additional 45,000 people have signed a paper version of the petition, and these are not included in the online total.
Both documents are to be delivered to Vice President Gore's office in Nashville, Tennessee.
Gore, the beaten Democratic candidate in the 2000 election, has repeatedly said he has no interest in mounting a fresh bid for the White House.
However speculation that he could run has refused to die down, and Gore fuelled the buzz by declining to take reporters' questions during brief comments following the Nobel Prize.
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