Excerpts: Gore rules out presidential campaign

I've decided that I will not be a candidate for president in 2004... And I found that I've come to closure on this. I don't think it's the right thing for me to be a candidate in 2004.

" A campaign that would be a rematch between myself and President Bush would inevitably involve a focus on the past "

I've run for president twice, and there are many other exciting ways to serve. I intend to remain actively involved in politics. I want to help whoever the Democratic Party's nominee is in 2004 to win the election. I'm going to explore a lot of other opportunities.

I personally have the energy and the drive and the ambition to make another campaign. But I don't think it's the right thing for me to do.

I think that a campaign that would be a rematch between myself and President Bush would inevitably involve a focus on the past - that would in some measure distract from the focus on the future that I think all campaigns have to be about.

The last campaign was an extremely difficult one. And while I have the energy and drive to go out there and do it again, I think that there are a lot of people within the Democratic Party who felt exhausted by that. Who felt like, 'okay, I don't want to go through that again'. And I'm frankly sensitive to that feeling.

" I make this decision in the full awareness that it probably means that I will never have another opportunity to run for president "

I think there has to be an unrelenting focus on the economy.

I think that the policies they [the Bush administration] are committed to do not work. And I think that if they don't change them, which I don't think they're likely to, that it's going to be apparent to people.

I've faced the decision on running for president twice before. And both times I have decided to jump in. And there was a big part of me that sort of assumed that that's what I would do this time around.

I make this decision in the full awareness that it probably means that I will never have another opportunity to run for president.