# Would Al Gore/Bob Graham have won in 2000? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 5, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-al-gore-bob-graham-have-won-in-2000/542072 "2010-06-05T16:20:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2010, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-al-gore-bob-graham-have-won-in-2000/542072/21 "2010-06-08T14:50:24Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > 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. > [@Superhal](#): > > Gore did win, but George’s brother and Katherine Harris fixed the election to give him Florida. And this leads to the crux of the issue. IF Gore lost because the Florida Republicans stole the election, then having Graham as a running mate wouldn’t have helped; the Republicans would simply have stolen more votes. IF Gore lost because the ballots were confusing, then it didn’t matter who his VP candidate was. IF Gore lost because he wasn’t liberal enough to persuade the Nader voters, it’s highly unlikely Graham would’ve motivated them any better. Besides, Nader received 1.6% of the vote in Florida. Nationally, he received 2.7% of the popular vote – which means that Nader was even less of a factor in Florida than might be expected. A better topic for discussion is why Al Gore lost Tennessee by 80,000 votes. If Gore had won his home state, and its 11 electoral votes, the Florida vote wouldn’t have mattered. ---
**Author:** ![Futurist110](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e4f/32.png) [@Futurist110](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futurist110)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-al-gore-bob-graham-have-won-in-2000/542072/22 "2015-11-25T07:29:38Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > 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. Actually, based on my examination of the election results in the heavily Jewish counties of Florida in 2000 and in other elections, I am tempted to believe that Lieberman **did** somewhat help energize the Jewish vote in Florida. However, I completely agree with you that Graham would have helped Gore more in Florida than Lieberman did. Indeed, with Graham on the ticket, I think that Gore would have won Florida by at least 1.00%. 🙂 Frankly, the only weird thing about Graham is his decades-long habit of keeping notebook entries of **every single** event of **every single** day of his life since 1977 or so; however, I doubt that this would have hurt the Gore-Graham ticket due to the fact that Gore and Graham could simply say that Graham is an extremely detailed organizer and wants to be aware of his past schedule in the event that he will need to reference some past event/meeting/et cetera of his. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Futurist110](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e4f/32.png) [@Futurist110](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futurist110)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-al-gore-bob-graham-have-won-in-2000/542072/23 "2015-11-25T07:34:29Z")
> [@Typo\_Knig](#): > > 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. I would think that Lieberman’s primary appeal was to Jewish and moralistic voters (many of whom still voted for Bush, though), no? In contrast, Graham could have probably appealed to a **much** larger segment of the Florida electorate; after all, Graham already won **five** statewide elections in Florida (in comparison to Lieberman’s **zero** ). 🙂 Frankly, that might have been all that Gore needed in 2000–after all, even if Gore would have lost New Mexico and either Iowa or Wisconsin, Gore would have won in 2000 if he would have won Florida. 🙂 Also, as a side note, later events indicated that Graham was more in touch with Gore than Lieberman was. After all, both Gore and Graham supported the Gulf War in 1991 and opposed the Iraq War as early as 2002. Plus, Joe Lieberman ended up exposing himself as a turncoat later on. Indeed, while satirical, this 2008 The Onion article appears to sum it up quite nicely 🙂 ;): [http://www.theonion.com/article/supreme-court-overturns-bush-v-gore-2620](http://www.theonion.com/article/supreme-court-overturns-bush-v-gore-2620) " President Gore will not be the only new arrival in the White House to face criticism, however. Joseph Lieberman—the former independent senator from Connecticut who in just two months has gone from the short list of possible Republican running mates to nearly being ousted from the Democratic Caucus to becoming the first Jewish Vice President—will also have much to answer for. “Uhh,” Lieberman said in his first official address Wednesday. “Umm…yeah.” " ---
**Author:** ![Futurist110](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e4f/32.png) [@Futurist110](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futurist110)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-al-gore-bob-graham-have-won-in-2000/542072/24 "2015-11-25T07:38:26Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > And this leads to the crux of the issue. > > IF Gore lost because the Florida Republicans stole the election, then having Graham as a running mate wouldn’t have helped; the Republicans would simply have stolen more votes. > > IF Gore lost because the ballots were confusing, then it didn’t matter who his VP candidate was. > > IF Gore lost because he wasn’t liberal enough to persuade the Nader voters, it’s highly unlikely Graham would’ve motivated them any better. Besides, Nader received 1.6% of the vote in Florida. Nationally, he received 2.7% of the popular vote – which means that Nader was even less of a factor in Florida than might be expected. Frankly, Gore appears to have lost both because he was a poor candidate **and** because the U.S. Supreme Court halted the Florida recount and refused to allow a new recount to occur in Florida. However, the reason that the U.S. Supreme Court was able to do this in the first place while allowing Bush to win Florida is because Bush was ahead by several hundred votes in the Florida vote count. In contrast, if Gore would have been ahead by several hundred or especially several thousand votes in the Florida vote count, then there would have been nothing that the U.S. Supreme Court could have done to make Gore lose Florida and the election in 2000. 🙂 > [@](#): > > A better topic for discussion is why Al Gore lost Tennessee by 80,000 votes. If Gore had won his home state, and its 11 electoral votes, the Florida vote wouldn’t have mattered. As far as I know, Gore lost Tennessee in 2000 because he flip-flopped on issues such as abortion and gun rights after he became U.S. Vice President. ---
**Author:** ![Futurist110](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e4f/32.png) [@Futurist110](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futurist110)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-al-gore-bob-graham-have-won-in-2000/542072/25 "2015-11-25T07:46:14Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > 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. In addition to Bush’s DUI story, though, Bush’s November 1, 2000 statement that Social Security is not a federal program might have also hurt him. While Bush obviously misspoke with that statement (indeed, this statement in context would have almost certainly been harmless for Bush; see here: [George W. Bush on Social Security](http://www.ontheissues.org/George_W__Bush_Social_Security.htm) ), Gore took this statement of Bush’s out of context, repeatedly mentioned it on the campaign trail (out of context, of course), and even made and ran an ad in both Florida and Pennsylvania with this statement (out of context, of course). Plus, as far as I know, Bush also took a day off in the final days of the 2000 campaign instead of sucking it up like he should have and campaign on that day. While this might not have mattered too much in the popular vote, an extra day of campaigning might have prevented or at least shortened the recount drama after the 2000 election. > [@](#): > > 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. I certainly agree with this. After all, while the U.S. economy was already slowing down in late 2000, it still appeared to be relatively strong during this time. Plus, Gore could have talked about he was a member of an administration that created even more jobs than Reagan’s administration did and that the U.S. economy went into a recession under Bush Sr.'s watch. Heck, Gore could have also hammered the Republicans for talking about the Lewinsky scandal and pointed out that the Republicans prefer to talk about a scandal that Gore himself was **not** personally involved in instead of talking about things such as jobs and the economy. ---
**Author:** ![Futurist110](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e4f/32.png) [@Futurist110](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futurist110)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-al-gore-bob-graham-have-won-in-2000/542072/26 "2015-11-25T07:48:46Z")
> [@tim-n-va](#): > > 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. To be fair, though, Bush might have very well lost Florida and the electoral vote as well if a full manual hand count of both overvotes and undervotes would have been done in Florida after the 2000 election. Indeed, that is what happens when Bush takes a day off near the end of the 2000 campaign and when Bush doesn’t campaign in Florida as much as he should have (in spite of his brother Jeb’s warnings). (Thankfully for Bush, though, his friends on the Supreme Court ended up bailing him out of this mess in the end.) ---
**Author:** ![Futurist110](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e4f/32.png) [@Futurist110](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futurist110)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-al-gore-bob-graham-have-won-in-2000/542072/27 "2015-11-25T08:01:23Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > 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. Yes, I certainly agree with you that Gore had every right to contest the Florida results up to the point when his legal options finally became exhausted. > [@](#): > > 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. Frankly, you’re certainly not the only one who noticed this 🙂 ;): > [@](#): > > Yes, he was really[on the job](http://www.historycommons.org/events-images/299_booker_classroom_closeup2050081722-9138.jpg) on 9/11. Are you suggesting that Bush shouldn’t have continued reading The Pet Goat to a bunch of elementary schoolers on 9/11? If so, then would that have actually done anything meaningful? After all, couldn’t this have simply traumatized these students. > [@](#): > > The “having a beer” meme was around during the first campaign. Again, I never heard anybody say this. But I read about it. Frankly, I prefer the “having a barbecue” meme (courtesy of myself ;)). After all, neither I nor Bush are alcoholics. Also, frankly, Yes, I myself would have preferred Gore as U.S. President in 2000 but would have preferred to have a barbecue with Bush. 🙂 Indeed, I would think that, as a Texan, Bush is capable of having great barbecues. 😃 😉 > [@](#): > > 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. While Bush was certainly a chicken-hawk, he was also a visionary, at least in his rhetoric: > **[Remarks by President George W. Bush at the 20th Anniversary of the National...](https://www.ned.org/remarks-by-president-george-w-bush-at-the-20th-anniversary/)** > > United States Chamber of Commerce Washington, D.C. Indeed, Bush’s goal of reducing support for terrorism among Muslims by bringing democracy to the Muslim world actually appears to be extremely noble. Of course, while Bush was certainly (at least rhetorically) a visionary in regards to this, he and his advisers also certainly didn’t know how to properly execute this goal of theirs. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Futurist110](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e4f/32.png) [@Futurist110](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futurist110)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-al-gore-bob-graham-have-won-in-2000/542072/28 "2015-11-25T08:02:58Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > (And, how does “charisma” win you fewer popular votes & more electoral ones?) Well, charisma certainly isn’t a “bullet-proof” way of getting elected. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Futurist110](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e4f/32.png) [@Futurist110](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futurist110)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-al-gore-bob-graham-have-won-in-2000/542072/29 "2015-11-25T08:06:20Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > 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. You are assuming that Gore would not have gotten a boost in the polls with another VP pick, though. Of course, I am tempted to disagree with you in regards to this. > [@](#): > > 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. Are you talking about Bob Graham’s notebooks here? If so, then I would like to point out that while this habit of Graham’s was both weird and quirky, I would suspect that it probably wouldn’t have hurt the Gore-Graham ticket. 🙂 Also, though, like it or not, but Gore officially lost Florida. Frankly, the official vote count is literally the only vote count which matters in regards to this. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-al-gore-bob-graham-have-won-in-2000/542072/30 "2015-11-25T14:10:05Z")
Futurist, Tom admonished you once already about bumping zombies. Future such action may result in the loss of your posting privileges. Don’t do it again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-al-gore-bob-graham-have-won-in-2000/542072.md?page=1)