United States presidential election, 2000

George W. Bush and Al Gore

In 2000, the United States presidential election was one of the closest and most controversial presidential elections in history. A month of recounts and court challenges followed, culminating in the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore. Following the court's 5-4 decision, George W. Bush was declared the winner over Vice President Al Gore by 537 votes in the state of Florida. Domestic issues as opposed to foreign policy dominated the campaign. Key issues were prescription drug prices, campaign finance reform, Social Security, and education. Each candidate claimed their economic plan would reduce the deficit. Bush parodied himself as a "compassionate conservative." The Bush campaign did not make an issue over the sex scandal and impeachment of Bill Clinton's Presidency less then two years ago.

In an interesting twist, based upon what was to occur, a few days before the election polls were suggesting that Bush would win the popular vote by a small margin come election day, but that Gore could win the electoral college. The Bush campaign floated the idea of the unfairness of such a situation occurring and it the Gore camp that strongly reiterated that the popular vote didn't matter -- it was the electoral college that determined the rightful President.

Primaries

The contest for the Republican nomination came down to two men: Governor George W. Bush and Arizona Senator John McCain, an ex-POW in North Vietnam. Most Republican leaders endorsed Bush, who was popular with social conservatives. Despite early victories for McCain in the New Hampshire and Michigan primaries, Bush went on to win South Carolina and 9 out of 13 super Tuesday states. McCain dropped out in March after a bitter primary.

Incumbent Vice President Al Gore faced a challenge from former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley. Bradly ran to left of Gore on universal health care, gun control, and campaign finance reform. Gore eventually trumped Bradly, winning all 50 primary states.

Campaign

As a Vice President for eight years to a popular President during a time when the economy was still believed to be doing well, Gore appeared to have some strong starting plusses. Indeed, he easily won the Democratic primary. But due to Clinton's scandal and impeachment near the end of his term, Gore sought to distance himself from the sitting President. Clinton, for his part, did little to help Gore. Indeed, when Clinton gave his big speech where he was supposed to pass the baton to Gore, he could never quite do so - instead talking about his own accomplishments and saying little more than 'and Al Gore was there too'. During the campaign political pundits stressed the need of Gore to show that he was the 'alpha dog', but he never quite achieved that breakthrough and it would 'dog' him throughout his campaign. Gore tried to find a balance between adopting the economy and yet steering clear of Clinton's moral failings, but could never quite find the right mix. He was also hampered by the public perception that the economy under Clinton was due more to good fortune than any Clinton initiatives. With Republicans controlling Congress for the last 6 years of Clinton's terms, there was a view that Clinton's role was one of not doing anything to stop the expansion more than doing something to cause it.

Bush also came out of the Republican primary relatively unscathed, and had a 'pedigree' of being the son of a previous President and a strong record as governor of Texas and being well liked by the hispanic populace, a group that Republicans had struggled to vote their way. The press began to attack Bush and his speaking style where he had a tendency to sometimes mispronounce or garble words. Indeed, going into the debates there was even mention of the idea that Bush was a "moron", a contention that the Gore camp quitely Chuckled along with.

Debates

The two candidates had a series of three debates. Gore, a seasoned Ivy league debater, was declared the winner by the press and 'ivory tower' pundits in each of the debates -- even as Bush's poll numbers increased. Bush's speaking style, while causing disgust to the elites, played well in middle America who considered him real. Also, the downgrading of Bush's intellect within the press before the debates led Bush to easily exceed expectations. Gore also confounded himself, as he showed a different style in each of the debates leading the American people to wonder who he was. It was especially apparent in the last debate, when, after hearing that he didn't attack enough in the previous debates, Gore actually walked over to where Bush was while Bush was giving an answer and started to question him. Bush gave a quick retort and Gore continued to ask more questions. Bush finally turned to the moderator who restored order. The press was ecstatic after the debate saying that Bush had to cry out to be saved, but the American people had a different view of such blatant breaking the rules and Bush's numbers continued to increase.

Last minute surprise

While Gore had enjoyed a lead through much of the campaign, a few days before the election Bush's bounce from the debates was enough to put him in the lead by a small margin. It was then that a "surprise" was dropped that Bush had a DUI in 1976, over two decades ago. Blasted on the airwaves continuously before the election itself and with little time to defend it, undecided voters in the last days went heavily for Gore and actually gave him a majority of the popular vote.

The Networks rush to be wrong

The networks, in a rush to be the first station to present results, began to call the election for Gore while voting was still going on in most of the country. As it turned out afterwards, the networks were all using the same polling data, which made a math error in their presentation of the results in the state of Florida. As was shown in the Carter-Reagan election in 1980, the belief your candidate has been defeated has a tendency to demoralize the voters for that candidate and make them less likely to come out to vote. Pat Buchanan pointed out afterwards that voters in western Florida, which is prime Republican territory, heard that Florida had gone for Gore and that Gore had won while they were still voting. Many got out of line and went home without casting their ballots. By the time the networks realized their error as the Florida numbers kept coming in showing Bush as leading, voting across the country had already shut down. The networks then called the state for Bush, which turned out to compound their error when a sudden influx of Gore votes from Democratic precincts made the state too close to call at the end of the evening. Indeed, the seeds of Bush v. Gore had been sown.

Recount

This was the 16th time in history that a candidate won the Electoral College vote without receiving the majority of the nation's popular vote.

The campaigns of both Ralph Nader on the Green Party ticket and Pat Buchanan on the Reform Party ticket gained major media attention during the campaign. Although this failed to translate into any electoral votes for either, with the final margin of victory being so small, the role of both and what impact they had on the election received prominence during the time when neither major party candidate would concede.

There has also been much speculation on what might have happened if there had been additional recounts. A consortium of newspapers did an investigation, and concluded that Bush would have won under the recounts that Gore had proposed. However, the Florida supreme court had attempted a closed-door recount using unspecified procedures, and no one knows how it might have manipulated the outcome.

In a rare situation in Presidential elections, Al Gore lost his home state of Tennessee to George Bush. Had he carried that state, the whole question of how Florida voted would have been moot.

The Election Results eventually showed

Candidates	Popular Vote	Percent	Electoral Vote
George W. Bush	50,460,110	47.9%	271
Albert Gore, Jr.	51,003,926	48.4%	266
Ralph Nader	2,883,105	2.7%	0
Patrick J. Buchanan	449,205	0.4%	0
Other	620,892	0.6%	0

Aftermath

Unknown to the voting public at the time, the economy had already begun a steep decline before the election. The uncertainty over who would be President and the court battle that ensued caused a steep drop in the stock market leading to the loss of 5 trillion dollars of equity on paper. Such a huge loss would start the next Presidency in a very difficult situation economically and would only be compounded with the complete breaking of the dot com bubble.

Further reading

• A Blatant Conflict of Interest, Theresa LePore should recuse herself from the Palm Beach vote-count process, John Fund, OpinionJournal, November 12, 2000.

See Also

Bush v. Gore