Reply #83: I would like a link for the oil thing

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I don't recall anything like that, and I honestly would find it totally bizarre.

As to the "x% of Democrats voted for Bush". Well I live in the South and I know what kind of Democrats these people are. Now unless and until you are willing to advocate at least 2 of the 4 following things then these people won't vote for you. 1) Eliminate the right to abortion. 2) End any and all programs that help bring about desegregation. 3) End any and all gun control. 4) Pass laws making homosexuality a criminal offense and ban homosexuals from any position of trust in society. Frankly I don't want to do those things. I also think politically we would lose as many votes as we would gain from doing any of those things. Now if you honestly want us to do some of the above, then OK, you are right, we have some votes we could have gotten. But, I sincerely hope you don't want to do those things. It should be noted that Gore got a higher percentage of Democrats to vote for him than anyone since LBJ. That includes Clinton in 96. In all honesty that is probably because more of the above people are either dying off or reregistering to the party to which they really belong. But it is a fact.

As to the notion that Gore is to blame for his loss. All of the following is true:

A) Gore gained 15 points from the date of his announcement to election day, while his opponent lost only 2 points. (announcement day Gore 35 Bush 51, election day Gore 50 Bush 49) Since the advent of modern polling only 3 elections say equal or greater comebacks. Truman v Dewey, where polling methods were very much a contributer, Bush 1 v Dukakis, where Dukakis dropped like a stone, and Ford v Carter where Ford almost won but Carter also dropped several points. Gore's awful campaign convinced nearly one out of 7 voters to vote for him in the period of 16 months while his opponent held nearly all his own votes. You will try in vain to find another example of that.

B) From 1948 until 2000 there were 14 elections in which we finished 6 wins, 7 losses, and 2000. Gore outperformed every single loser and every winner save Carter and LBJ. That means his awful campaign did better than Truman, Kennedy, and Clinton (twice). He actually came pretty close to Carter (with Nader's vote he actually would have done better than he did). The only two who did better were LBJ, running as the heir of a martyr against a man who scared the Hell out of everyone, and Carter who ran against the man who pardoned Nixon and couldn't fight inflation. Incidently, he also out performed Kerry who didn't have a Nader factor to speak of.

In short, but for Nader's meddling in Florida people would have written tombs about the brilliant comeback campaign of Al Gore. He would have been cristened the modern version of Truman. All with the 'lousy' campaign and handlers.