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The
closest political contest in a generation lived up to expectations
Tuesday night as Texas Governor George W. Bush narrowly defeated
Vice President Al Gore in a race that was decided only after every
electoral vote was counted.
Bush garnered 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 249 in preliminary
counts with a strong showing in Southeastern and Midwestern states.
It was Florida, however, whose 25 electoral votes determined the
election.
Initially called for the Democrats, Florida went to Bush, who held
off a very strong late surge by Gore.
The race was so close that an official winner won’t be known
until more than 15 million absentee ballots are totaled over the
next two days. But it looked like Bush held off a late Gore rally.
"I think it looks like Bush just had a lead that was greater
than Gore had time to catch up to," said pollster David Binder.
"His message ‘Gore trusts the government, I trust you’
was a very effective appeal to moderates."
The contest has confounded a legion of political scientists, media
pundits and professional pollsters for the past year. In the end,
the nation looked to just four states to decide the closest presidential
election in decades.
"All our models predicted the Democrats would win based on
the economy," said UC Berkeley political science professor
Bruce Cain, who believes Gore failed to capitalize on one of the
best economies since World War II. "People couldn’t relate
to him. He ran away from his record and moved the party away from
the center."
The virtual deadlock between Gore and Bush in late October and early
November polls prompted some experts to speculate the race could
be won by Bush among the populace, but by Gore in the electoral
college. But that didn’t happen Tuesday night.
"It’s certainly the most unpredictable election I’ve
ever seen," said Democratic pollster Paul Maslin.
In California, a state where President Bill Clinton remains enormously
popular, Gore's double-digit lead had fallen to 5 points prior to
the election, stoking Democrats’ fears about defecting populist
liberals and other undecided voters to Green Party candidate Ralph
Nader. But, preliminary totals indicated Gore won the state’s
54 electoral votes by six percentage points.
Nader could have played the spoiler in states like Michigan, Wisconsin
and Oregon that normally vote Democratic. He campaigned fiercely
but unsuccessfully for the five percentage points that would qualify
his party for federal matching funds in the next presidential election.
Across the nation, Nader averaged three percent of the vote in exit
poll totals.
In the final hours of the campaign, the two candidates concentrated
on appeals to undecided voters in the key swing states. Gore went
to Iowa, Missouri, Michigan and Florida before heading home to Carthage,
Tennessee. Bush made stops in Arkansas and Tennessee, home turf
of the President Clinton and Al Gore, prior to voting in Austin,
Texas.
They also intensified their attacks on each other’s agendas.
Gore characterized Bush's tax cut as tantamount to "class warfare
on behalf of billionaires." Bush said Gore would bloat the
government with costly social programs and chided Gore for scaring
senior citizens about Bush’s proposals to privatize parts of
social security.
Battling for electoral votes state by state, candidates traded leads
throughout the night as Gore won in some traditionally Republican
states while Bush prevailed in Democratic strongholds like Tennessee
and Missouri.
The vice president came out early, winning in key battleground states
according to early exit polls. He carried Michigan, Pennsylvania
and New York. In key battleground states, it was also a toss-up.
Gore won in Minnesota, while Bush took Missouri. It became apparent
close states scattered across the nation would determine the election.
Bush won despite problems in the final days of the campaign. Even
as he attacked the character of the previous administration and
President Clinton, a Maine TV news reporter broke the story that
Bush had been arrested there for drinking and driving in 1976.
Bush gave up drinking altogether 10 years later, but the event again
brought up the issue about his reluctance to provide details of
admitted "youthful indiscretions" and his refusal to answer
questions about whether or not he engaged in illegal drug use.
In a campaign that seemed to defy tradition, Gore, who was openly
criticized by reporters and pundits for exaggerating on certain
points, was having trouble taking credit for the administration’s
economic success.
"I think there was a lot of stupidity on the part of the Gore
camp. They allowed Gore to continue exaggerating when it was very
obvious he was going to get jumped on for that," said Cain,
who thought Gore should have placed more stress on prosperity as
a campaign theme.
But the Vice President, who repeatedly told voters they should regard
him as his own man, seemed concerned that any association with Clinton
would remind voters of the president’s marital infidelities
and other White House scandals.
"Gore was trying to separate himself from the achievements
of the last eight years," Cain said. "I think he could
have separated from Clinton and still been his own man."
Many Gore loyalists were privately critical that he failed to utilize
Clinton, who is considered one of the great political stumpers.
Clinton made a campaign push only in California during the campaign's
last week. Gov. Gray Davis said he asked Clinton to come to California
specifically to increase turnout of Gore voters.
Pollster Merv Field estimated over 70 percent of California’s
registered voters went to the polls Tuesday.
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