Al Gore suggests Obama blame high altitude for debate

Former vice president and environmental activist Al Gore suggested the altitude in Denver might be to blame for President Obama’s performance in Wednesday night’s debate.

“I’m going to say something controversial here,” Gore said on Current TV following the debate. “Obama arrived in Denver at 2 p.m. today, just a few hours before the debate started. [Mitt] Romney did his debate prep in Denver. When you go to 5,000 feet and you only have a few hours to adjust — I don’t know, maybe.”

Several versions of the clip were posted on YouTube by mostly right-leaning blogs, and later distributed by a GOP video channel.

By Thursday afternoon, the altitude remark propelled “Al Gore” to a nationally trending topic, helped along by Comedy Central’s Indecision account and conservatives such as Republican National Committee Political Director Rick Wiley, who called Gore’s theory “priceless.”

From the creator of the internet, Al Gore, the reason O did poorly last night bit.ly/PZk6VH PRICELESS

— Rick Wiley (@rick_wiley) October 4, 2012

Al Gore is working on a documentary proving that the Earth's altitude is getting dangerously high.

— Indecision (@indecision) October 4, 2012

The terms “altitude” and "Al Gore" were closely tied to mentions of Obama on Twitter the day after the debate, according to PoliPulse, a social-media monitoring project by the PR firm Powell Tate.

The University of Denver hosted Wednesday's presidential debate. Denver is located a mile above sea level.

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