re: How did Bush win in 00’s after Clinton left relatively successfully with high approvals

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How did Bush win in 00’s after Clinton left relatively successfully with high approvals

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1. Gore was a weak candidate.

2. Clinton pissed off the Cubans in Miami with the whole Eilan Gonzalez thing. Which caused enough Dade county voters to switch to republican or just stay home that red northern Florida beat blue South Florida.

Really it is more that the American press is completely biased now that Biden and Kamala even have a remote chance. The press used to be a little bit honest until all the old guard was replaced and the new people who controlled the media went hard left regardless of the facts. I think Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are much worse candidates than Gore and Kerry.

Let's remember how far Biden was behind all the other candidates until they worked out a deal for him to choose Harris as VP. The next thing you know he won the South Carolina primary. Harris was the same. She was possibly the worst of all the Democratic candidates. It is amazing how powerful the fixers are in politics. Republicans as well. Trump still gets an enormous amount of resistance from RINO's.

I guess Al Gore should have also invented memes when he invented the internet.

Maybe he could have memed his way to office.

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I don't think anyone outside of Vandy grads and a few "elites" in Nashville consider Gore to be much of a Tennessean. I know that him being "raised" here meant absolutely nothing to my parents in East TN during the 2000 election. He never had a chance of winning TN because he never connected with Southern voters.

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Yeah, Gore grew up going to the most exclusive prep school in Washington, DC. His accent was always a put on and embarrassing. I remember a friend of mine calling Hillbilly Elegy “Sundays with Meemaw” back when Vance was on the anti-Trump train. I think that applies doubly to Gore

I grew up in Tennessee where the Gore name was revered and in the 80s where everyone thought Al would be President before he even won a statewide race, so I sort of followed this election a lot.

Gore was troubled/embarrassed by the Lewinsky scandal and didn't fully embrace Clinton. That might have been the correct course, or maybe not. But it certainly made it harder for him to campaign on "keep the good times rolling" and to take full credit for the good economy under the Administration.

Second - the Lewinsky scandal in particular, and Clinton's behavior in general, allowed Rove and Bush to draw in even more social conservative/evangelical/etc voters, particularly in the South. By 2000 Gore could not even carry his home state. There is more to it than Clinton's scandals - but that had a lot to do with it.

Also - Bush was just a better candidate. He was likeable, but not in the slick Clinton way, more like a goofy jokester - and his campaign did a good job of contrasting that with "wooden" Gore.

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Plus Clinton had charisma and Hore doesn’t. It would be like if Trump left office after two terms wildly popular and then voters had to choose between Pence and someone else. It’s not entirely clear that Trump support transfers to Pence support

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This make sense I was a child but I remember well Gore being bland and uninspiring. Basically if Dems ran someone with a little more personality they would have won.

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The CIA installed him so they could do what needed to be done to pass the Patriot Act

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And the rest is history as they say

A few random points about the 2000 election.

-Gore came across as a know it all, and somewhat unlikeable. His debate performance with all of his sighing and frustration with W came off bad.

-The Bush family still had a respectable name, and nobody at the time knew Dick Cheney would have a huge say in nearly everything Bush decided.

-Ralph Nader and the Green party took votes from Gore. Just looked it up and Nader had just under 3% of the popular vote. Not sure of the swing state breakdown.

-Tennessee, regardless of whom the Democrats run, is a hardcore Red state. There's not much threat of it going Blue for multiple election cycles to come.

The economy, stupid.

At one point during Clinton, the NASDAQ was at 5,200. On the day he departed, it was1,919.

No one ever liked Gore. Granted Kamala is on a totally different level of bad. But Gore came off as wooden, and had none of the charisma of Clinton. He also had the baggage of his wife wanting to censor music, etc.