'I'm not best candidate
in 2004,' says Al Gore

Former Vice President Al Gore, who would be president today if he had only won his own state’s electoral votes two years ago, said tonight he will not run for the White House in 2004.

Al Gore

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In an interview taped just hours before "60 Minutes"
aired tonight breaking the story on CBS, Gore said he made his decision in the last few days – mainly in discussions with his family.

"I've decided that I will not be a candidate for president in 2004," Gore said. "I personally have the energy and drive and ambition to make another campaign, but I don't think that it's the right thing for me to do. I want to contribute to ending the current administration. I think the current policies have to be changed. I think that my best way of contributing to that result may not be as a candidate this time around."

The Democrat candidate won the popular vote by half a million votes in 2000, but conceded the presidency to Republican George W. Bush after a 36-day recount in Florida and a 7-2 Supreme Court vote requiring equal standards
for recounting all votes in the state.

Polls of potential Democratic presidential candidates showed him to be the early front-runner for the nomination. In a recent poll Gore had led the field of Democratic candidates, with 49 percent of those polled saying they favored his nomination. The second choice, Gore's former running mate Senator Joseph Lieberman, garnered only 10 percent. But Bush, whose approval rates are high, has almost a 20-point lead over Gore in polls that pose a 2000 rematch.

So far, among Democrats, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is running and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry has formed an exploratory committee. Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, Gore's running mate in 2000, has said he is very interested in a bid, but would not run if Gore did. Also considering the race are Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. Those close to Gephardt have said he is "very, very likely to run" no matter what Gore decided.

"The last campaign was an extremely difficult one," Gore said. "There are a lot of people within the Democratic Party who felt exhausted [by the 2000 race] ... who felt like, OK, 'I don’t want to go through that again.' And I'm frankly sensitive to that feeling."

White House officials declined comment on Gore's announcement.

After gradually re-entering politics over the past year, Gore campaigned for selected candidates this year, made trips to Iowa and New Hampshire, then spent the last month promoting a book on the family that he wrote with wife, Tipper. He also has been making an extensive round of media appearances, including "Saturday Night Live" over the weekend.

A year ago, Gore accepted the job of vice chairman of Metropolitan West Financial, a Los Angeles-based financial services holding company. The former vice president is helping the firm find investments overseas as well as private-equity investments in biotechnology and information technology. He has been juggling that job with his duties as college professor, guest speaker and author, traveling between New York, Los Angeles, Washington, his teaching jobs in Tennessee and his new home in the suburbs of Nashville, Tenn.