In my opinion, there is no doubt that if Gore would have picked Bob Graham as his running mate, he would have won Florida convincingly and thus won the 2000 presidential election. The choice of Lieberman was a horrible one. Connecticut was never in doubt and neither was the Jewish vote. Gore thought he had to run from the whole Clinton/Lewinsky debacle and that was a mistake. By the time of the election, impeachment was as much of the past as the Y2K bug.
Having a popular politician like Graham would have flipped some Nader voters and also probably helped a bit in the get out the vote. Bush would have also had to devote far more time and money in Florida, which might have also put Ohio in play for Gore in 2000.
IMO, Al Gore did not do what he needed to do to win the 2000 election - decide who he really was, make peace with it, and get the American people to like that person enough to vote for him, all well before the primary season, let alone before the general election. Even with all his advantages of experience, his campaign zigged and zagged. A different VP pick would not have made that much of a difference - Leiberman was wildly popular in Florida at the time, and worked very hard to get the ticket elected.
Electoral success at the presidential level stands or falls at the top of the ticket. A good VP pick can help a little, but not as much as a good candidate can help him or herself. A bad VP pick can hurt, but not so much that a candidate can’t recover.
My recollection is that Gore trailed in the polls for virtually the whole campaign right up until he chose Lieberman. By that standard, Lieberman seemed to be a fairly good pick.
On the other hand, Bob Graham is a little nutty. Not a lot, just some. Would the press have run wild over his OCD-like traits? Probably. Could he have won Florida for Gore? Probably, but then again, my strong suspicion is that Lieberman won Florida for Gore, too.
No. All presidential elections since the 1970’s have been won by the candidate who is most charismatic. In 2000, that was Bush when compared to Gore. No change at the VP level would have changed that fact.
How does anybody see Bush as “charismatic”? He was my governor at the time & had always impressed me as a half-bright ex-Frat guy. Gore always seemed like a smart fellow; he still does.
Does “charismatic” mean you want to worship somebody? Or fuck them? Or get fucked by them?
No change at the VP level would have helped when the Governor of the swing state was one candidate’s brother.
And conservatives don’t understand how anyone can find Obama charismatic, yet a whole bunch of people in the middle of the country found both men appealing.
Running on the charisma theory, Bush definitely had more charisma than Gore in 2000. Bush pushed his image as a guy you’d like to sit down and have a beer with. Meanwhile, Gore was thought by many to be sort of… robot-like. So, Bush may not seem particularly charismatic, particularly when compared to Clinton before him or Obama after him, but compared to the likes of Gore and Kerry, well, he didn’t have to do much.
I was thinking of the more or less standard definition of charisma.
You almost made my point. Bush did come across as a half-bright ex-frat guy and Gore seemed like a smart fellow. But neither of those indicates or conflicts with charisma. Gore was seemed to be the smarter candidate but he was boring so Bush won. My contention, although I wish it were not, is that a well qualified but boring person cannot be elected but a friendly idiot can.
And to follow up:
Ford versus Carter
Carter versus Reagan
Reagan versus Mondale
G.H.W. Bush versus Dukakis
Clinton versus G.H.W. Bush
Clinton versus Dole
G. W. Bush versus Gore
G. W. Bush versus Kerry
Obama versus McCain
The nice, friendly - charismatic - factor is a perfect predictor.
Bush was on his way to a rather handy win in popular and electoral votes, but the DUI discovery the weekend before the election brought him back a few points.
Plus Gore was part of an administration that had the economy rocking along, peace with everyone (for the most part) and all was well on the home front. By rights, Gore should have walked away with that election. Bush did a hell of a job just making it close.
Yes, I heard those phrases about the guy you wanted to have a beer with versus the robot. Actually, I read them on the internet.
I never, personally said I’d like to have a beer with Bush; as an alcoholic who never got treatment, he’d probably be a mean one. He’d end up barfing & would have nothing interesting to say.
I never, personally, considered Gore to be a robot. I thought he was a somewhat reserved, intelligent guy.
I never heard anybody come up with these thoughts, either–on their own. And I live in Texas, although I hang out with pretty smart folks. Don’t believe everything you read.
(And, how does “charisma” win you fewer popular votes & more electoral ones?)
This is just my personal take, and I wasn’t even old enough to vote in 2000, but I don’t think much of Bush’s appeal to the public came until after 9/11. During the 2000 election both Bush and Gore didn’t seem particularity exciting, to me at least, and the drawn out fight in Florida seemed pointless to me because I didn’t think either of those guys looked like they had what it would take to serve more than one term.
Obviously, I was wrong, but it wasn’t until 9/11 that the Bush we all came to know appeared and won over at least 50.9% of the country. His black and white view of things, “us vs. the evildoers” struck a chord with people after the attacks. The same policies could appeal to the hawks and the Religious Right.
I don’t know where “the guy you wanted to have a beer with” thing came from. I think it was from people trying to explain his win in 2004 because they couldn’t see that it came down to him looking like a War President when Kerry didn’t.
I’ve been old enough to vote for many years now; I don’t get my excitement from politicians. The drawn out fight in Florida was not pointless; it was a corrupt state government fighting to have the governor’s brother become president. Then the Supreme Court stepped in.
George Bush was my governor; he wasn’t too bright, but many Texas governors aren’t. During his candidacy & presidency, his ability to speak in public declined. People razz Obama for using teleprompters; it was suspected that Bush had an earpiece to feed him words, reading being a bit tough for him.
The “having a beer” meme was around during the first campaign. Again, I never heard anybody say this. But I read about it. How the heck could anybody consider Bush a better “war president” than Kerry? Kerry actually did go to Vietnam–as did Al Gore; Bush’s daddy got him a National Guard appointment that he did not complete with good faith.
The mechanisms that allow you to lose the popular vote and win electoral vote is the same regardless of the motivation of the voters. That is you win lose in states with few electoral votes and win by a slight margin in states with large numbers of electoral votes.
