Al Gore to Anchor 2 Presidential Debates on Current TV (Updated)

Al Gore, the former vice president and one of the network's founders, will lead Current's coverage of the first and third Obama-Romney showdowns

Updated 2:58 PST

Once the candidate and now the commentator, Al Gore will anchor Current TV's coverage of two of the three debates between President Obama and Republican contender Mitt Romney.

The first is scheduled for Oct. 3, from Denver.

He will be aided in the upcoming debates by a roundtable of several Current show hosts: Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Cenk Uygur and John Fugelsang, the network announced on Wednesday.

The former vice president and 2000 Democratic Party candidate for the White House also anchored Current's coverage of both the Republican and Democratic national conventions.

Coverage of the first debate in Denver will begin at 8 p.m. ET, with on-screen analysis coming an hour before and after the 9 p.m. parley.

Gore will be traveling in Europe during the vice presidential debate on Oct. 11 and the second presidential debate on Oct. 16, but the same roundtable of pundits, sans Gore as moderator, will provide coverage, a Current spokesman told TheWrap.

Gore will return on Oct. 22 for the final presidential debate in Boca Ratan, Fla.

Correspondent David Shuster, once a contributor on the now-defunct "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" show, will be the network's boots-on-the-ground at all four debates, while the commentators analyze the events from a New York City studio.

Gore, who co-founded the network in 2005, apparenlty is making a greater push in this election cycle to give viewers some face time. 

"He's always sort of been an on-air presence for us when we needed him," spokesman Ashok Sinha told TheWrap. "Given the news and news analysis that we're doing, it's a good way for him to come in for big tent-pole events like this."

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