Gore Can 'Buy' 2008 Election

Al Gore has such a fortune in Google stock that he could easily fund his own campaign for the White House, Democratic insiders say.

Gore became a senior adviser to the Internet search engine back in February 2001, and is a close friend of CEO Dr. Eric Schmidt. Google shares went public in 2004, and the stock has soared from $85 a share to more than $400. Co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are worth an estimated $11 billion each.

Gore "owns a ton of Google and he's made enough money that he could wait until a month before and just drop $50 million in to launch a [2008] race," a well-placed Democrat told Deborah Orin of the New York Post.

"He's got way more than enough money to buy this thing at any point in the process."

Gore spokesman Mike Feldman said the former vice president "is not running for president" and is focused on global warming.

Gore stars in a documentary about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth,” which premieres next week.

But a Gore friend told Orin: "He's doing what he should do if he wants to run. When you run and get the most votes as he did in 2000, I don't think psychologically you ever move on.”