Al served the USA as vice president to president Bill Clinton, a self-described "Conservative Christian Democrat". The Clinton-Gore administration
is known for reducing government bloat- they had a 123 BILLION dollar budget surplus in 1999, which is the largest recorded surplus in the USA, even adjusting for inflation.
An example from Vice President Gore himself when he appeared on letterman, they found that the ashtrays used in government buildings had to be made of such quality that they
had to break into a certain amount of pieces if broken! Reducing wasteful practices like this is on a huge scale is said to be how they cut so much fat while preserving muscle,
so to speak. Al ran for President of the United States and won in 2000 with Joe Lieberman as his runningmate- his platform ran on topics such as medicare, social security, and climate preservation-
he did a fairly decent job to take credit for the Clinton-Gore administration's victories while dodging the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. Al won the popular vote by 543,895 votes, but lost in the electoral college, at
the time making him the only person besides Grover Cleveland to have this happen (Though Hillary Clinton soon followed). It was a topic of insane debate at the time, many calling for a recount, but Gore conceded to
maintain humility.
In-Jokes
Gore has been the subject of a number of jokes and running gags in the media, so here's a list of some of my favorites and their backstories.
Lockbox
"Lockbox" comes from the first presidential debate of 2000, in which Gore says he plans to "put social security in an iron-clad lock-box".
Because Gore uses this phrase "lockbox" a noticable amount of times, it was satirized in the SNL cold-open of the same debate, where Darrel Hammond's
Al Gore goes into excruciating detail describing a physical lockbox during a debate with Will Ferrel's George Bush: This cold open was such a smash hit that I STILL see people commenting "lockbox" on Al's posts.
Al himself expanded on the joke during the 2000 Al Smith memorial dinner, claiming he will put
"medicaid in a walk-in closet" and put "nasa funding in a hermetically sealed zip-loc bag".
Al Gore is a Robot (stiff jokes)
Though I never understood it, many people claimed that the reason Al didn't appeal to people was because he was "stiff": he spoke in a monotone fashion, he didn't gesture much, it was a pretty common thing to joke he just wasn't human. Though I
don't think Al ever addressed the robot allegations, he embraced the "stiff" jokes, making a few in his Al Smith speech and starting his first appearance on letterman with a few more.
In his second appearance on letterman which I can't find evidence of besides news articles and transcripts, apparently during a break he had to go to the bathroom, which started another in-joke which refuted the allegations.
Many think that this general consensus that Al was a robot came because he was neutral, cold, and his humanity didn't quite show, and this was the reason he felt the need to
awkwardly open-mouth kiss tipper before accepting his democratic nomination
ManBearPig
ManBearPig originates from episode 6 season 10 of South Park, in which former Vice President Al Gore comes to the boys' school to hysterically rant about the newest threat he's identified: ManBearBig. Al Gore, characterised as being an attention-seeking
loner, describes mbp as being "half man, half bear, and half pig" and asserts that hes super cereal and only he can stop mbp. Eventually, he cons the boys into hunting for mbp in a cave which they all get stuck in because Al fired a shotgun inside- after
the boys dig their way out of the cave, he attempts to take credit for their safety (despite the fact that he tried to flood the cave to 'kill mbp'). Evidently, mbp was an allegory for climate change, and Al Gore portrayed as an unhinged, washed up idiot
who's salty he lost an election. HOWEVER, 12 years later, after climate change became outright undeniable, Trey Parker's Al Gore makes a return to save South Park from the very real ManBearPig. It is revealed that the elderly of the town selfishly
signed a contract with him in order to keep him away for a few years while they keep their fast cars and ice cream. At the end of the two-episode saga, the boys sign another contract to keep him away for a few years so they can keep Red Dead Redemption and soy
sauce. Repeatedly through the episodes, Gore says hes "super cereal"; a reference to his appearance on Oprah where she asked him what his favorite cereal was. Gore, thinking she meant serial(ised show), responded with "Oprah". The answer was actually wheaties.
One of the few instances of South Park admitting they were wrong, this stupid 3 episode saga is the sole reason I watched any more of the show and ended up adding NedBo and McDaniels to this list.
Al Gore's Penguin Army
Al Gore's Penguin Army is a two minute long shitpost posted in 2006 on youtube. It's stylized in a way that makes it appear as an independent home video, but upon closer inspection,
the wall street journal discovered that the author of the video was a computer registered to a DCI group. From Wikipedia: "a public relations and lobbying firm led exclusively by Republican party officials. At the time the video was made, DCI's clients
included General Motors and ExxonMobil. DCI has refused to comment on its involvement with the video". This seems to be one of the many examples of astroturfing against Al Gore.
Inventing the Internet
In a 1999 interview, Al famously misspoke and accidentally claimed he "took the initiative in creating the internet". Although, evidently Al didn't INVENT the internet, he sure did a lot to facilitate the popularization of its use, namely, he was the prime
sponsor of the 1991 High-Performance Computing and Communications Act, generally known as the Gore bill, which allocated $600 million for high-performance computing. He also popularised the term "Information Superhighway". As expected, Al had the piss taken out of him for his claim quite a few times. Don't worry, Al, I believe you. Why else
would they be called Al-Gore-ithms?