Hello and welcome to another edition of the presidential election series. Today, we’ll be discussing the Election of2000; American has entered into a new millennium with high hopes for the future, but it will end the year in what might still be the closest and most controversial election in U.S. History.
Clinton’s Second Term & Vice President Gore
With Bill Clinton’s second term coming to a close, he can look back at his presidency knowing that he oversaw a booming economy, made efforts in ending the Bosnian War and played a role in places like Britain and Ireland plus Israel and Palestine having peace talks with each other.
By the same token, Clinton’s involvement (or lack there of) in places like Rwanda, Somalia and Kosovo were promblematic as well as his signing the 1994 Crime Bill and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act with the latter repealing the Glass-Steagull Act of 1933 leading to banks having more control over commercial and investment banking which would be a issue in the following years.
By far the biggest blunder of the Clinton Presidency would have to be the president’s affair with intern, Monica Lewinsky and the impeachment trial that proceeded it after Clinton strongly denied that he had any sexual relations with Lewinsky…Although he was aquitted by the Senate, the scandal and impeachment trial tranished his legacy.
Regardless, Vice President Al Gore decided to make another run for the presidency and after subduing New Jersey Senator and former Basketball Player, Bill Bradley to win the Democratic Party’s nomination, Gor picked Joe Liberman, a Senator from Connecticut as his running mate with Liberman becoming the first Jewish candidate to be nominated on a major party’s presidential ticket.
The 2000 Republican Presidential Candidates
Going into the 2000 election there were a number of Republicans vying the nomination; Some of them were well known like Steve Forbes, Dan Quayle and Alan Keyes, but the two candidates who got the most attention were Arizona Senator and War Hero, John McCain and George Walker Bush, the Governor of Texas and oldest son of former president George HW Bush.
Bush ran as a moderate yet compassionate conservative and he won the Iowa Caucuses but lost the New Hampshire, Michigan and Arizona primaries to McCain. While this could’ve been the end for Bush’s presidential efforts his campaign advisor, Karl Rove conducted a smear campaign against McCain which allowed Bush to regain momentum come Super Tuesday and he soon became the party’s nominee.
Dick Cheney, the former Secretary of Defense for Bush Senior was chosen to lead a team that would help in finding a running mate for George W. Bush in the election, but ultimately Cheney thought he himself would be a great running mate for Bush and the Texas Governor accepted which meant that Cheney had to change his voting registration back his homestate of Wyoming as both men were living in Texas at the time and having a presidential nominee and his running mate from the same state would make the votes in that state invalid.
Campaigns Strategies & Debates
During the election, Al Gore tried to distance himself from Clinton out of fear that the Lewinsky Affair and any other scandals surrounding the president would be connected to his campaign; Most historians believe this was a bad move by Gore, as Clinton was still popular in spite of the extra martial affair.
Nonetheless, the VP promised to balance the budget on a year basis, lowering taxes for middle class Americans and paying down the national debt while also looking to maintain Medicare and Social Security with the budget surplus. Governor Bush meanwhile promised to end Washington partsianship, pledged to bring “Honor and Diginity” back to the White House and criticized President Clinton’s foreign policy efforts of sending troops overseas to interven in foreign conflicts.
During the Presidential Debates Gore came off as more intelligent and calculating compared to Bush which helped him in the eyes of some viewers but it also hurt him as many pundits and voters felt Gore came off as cold and aloof while Bush was more folksy and down to earth with their personalities; It probably didn’t help Al Gore’s case that he constantly rolled his eyes, sighed and basically came off as condescending in the debates when Bush attempted to response to the question.
Election Night Fisaco
Little did anyone know at the time that November 7th 2000 (the day of election) would end up being one of the most polarizing events in modern American History as both Bush and Gore were getting close to reaching 270 electoral votes which is the tiniest amount of votes needed to become president.
Before the night was out, many news networks had called the state of Florida for Gore which would’ve meant that he was the new president, but the vote was too close to call in Florida, so the networks retracted their statement and placed Florida in the undecided category, before soon calling the state for Bush at around 10 PM.
The following morning, more votes began to come in for Gore in three key locations in the state of Florida and the state again was placed in the undecided pile; This led to Gore retracting a previous concession call he gave Bush the night before as the votes were still being counted.
When it came time for a recount, Bush reportedly won the state by 300 votes to 930 votes if you include overseas ballots but even that had some problems around it and this all led to Gore and his team calling for manual recounts in four key counties in Florida and this whole debacle eventually made it’s way to the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court Ruling & Election Results
On December 12th more than a month after election day, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision saying that the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in allowing recounts in the state passed the original deadline was deemed unconstitutional and with Bush ahead by just 537 votes in the state, he was given all of the electoral votes in Florida by the Supreme Court and thus won the elction.
Bush became the 43rd President in U.S. History carrying 30 states with an electoral vote total of 271 while Al Gore carried 20 states and D.C. to get 266 electoral votes.
However, Al Gore had actually won the popular vote with 48.4% compared to Bush’s 47.9% with about 543,895 votes seperating the both of them, making this the first time since 1888 that the person who didn’t win the popular vote ended up becoming president.
Many believe that Ralph Nadar, the Green Party’s presidential candidate in 2000 had spoiled the election for Gore leading to the race being so close and things certain weren’t helped when Republicans began airing ads of Ralph Nadar’s campaign in states that would split the liberal vote…But there is zero evidence to back up the claims of Nadar spoiling the election.
This election became the closest in American History since 1876 and much like that election, the outcome of this race would change the course of history for generations to come.
