Draft Gore 2008 PAC

One of the two most popular potential candidate for the 2007 presidential election in France is Nicolas Hulot, who isn't "in politics". He has a long-running program on the environment on TF1. The equivalent of Marlin Perkins of the award winning Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, or Steve Irwin of Animal Planet's The Crocodile Hunter, on the network with the largest market share in the country.

He published a book-length work, Pour un pacte écologique, which as a political program calls for the creation of a cabinet level office responsible for sustainable (durable) development, and for a tax on carbon in fossil fuels, primarily petroleum, to reduce the emission of green house gases.

Just about every announced candidate has done the pro forma and "signed" the ecological pact, but none have actually taken the steps necessary, as candidates messaging in the half-year prior to the general election, to run on the substance of the pact.

There's a campaign committee that meets every week to coordinate, to "faire comme si" [trans: "do as if"]. It is about the same size as our own political action committee, and we also "do as if". Nicolas Hulot is waiting until January 15th before committing to running, or not running.

The latest Ipsos polling data has the undeclared candidate getting double-digits in the first-round ballot.