ELECTION #54, 2000. The NASTY METER is 10 again.

QUOTE from Green Pary candidate Ralph Nader: "Only Al Gore can beat Al Gore. And he's doing a pretty good job of that."

I could write a book about this 2000 campaign/election but will make it short as we all know what happened.

The CANDIDATES in 2000.

DEMOCRAT: AL GORE.

Clinton left office with a 68% approval rating, even higher than Reagan. As Clinton's VP it looked like an easy ride to the presidency for Al Gore. It didn't happen as we all know. Gore beat out Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey for the Democratic nomination. He chose Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut as his VP mate.

REPUBLICAN: GEORGE W. BUSH.

Bush was born into a wealthy Republican family. His grandfather was a U.S. senator and his father had been president from 1989 to 1993. He was educated at Exeter and Yale and got his MBA from Harvard. A real New England Yank. But he is forever associated with Texas where he unsuccessfuly ran an oil company, unsuccessfully ran for Congress, and partied successfully. (He stopped drinking and became a born-again Christian in 1986, under the influence of the Reverend Billy Graham.) He became governor of Texas in 1994 and in 2000 he was perfectly situated to seek the presidency. He chose Dick Cheney as his VP mate.

The CAMPAIGN in 2000.

Gore lacked Clinton's charisma and didn't make use of Clinton's accomplishments as president - violent crime was at a thirty-year low, the budget was balanced, the government had a surplus, the country was at peace and the economy was on a roll. Gore was upset with Clinton's sexcapades and probably felt it necessary to distance himself from Clinton - but in the process he was distancing himself from the genuine accomplishments of the Clinton administration. Even Karl Rove said that if Gore had paid more attention to the great shape the country was in, "we Republicans should have gotten our brains beaten out."

The Bush stratetists positioned him as a man who was out to bring back to America a sense of decency. He also became a "compassionate conservative" and set out to "reform" Medicare and Social Security and fix the environment. McCain had said in the primaries that, "If he's a reformer, I'm an astronaut." The Republicans also made fun of Gore in his statement about "inventing the internet." Actually, Gore said, "During my service in the Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." According to some people Gore was instrumental in approving research for the "Information Superhighway," which helped transform it from a military communication system into a worldwide networking and information channel.

The Democrats suggested that Bush was an idiot, a sort of chuckling fool. Bush made statements like, "My favorite book was the kid's classic THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR." He claimed that the Democrats wanted "the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program." He also said things like "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dreams."

The WINNER was GEORGE W. BUSH (eventually) and he became the 43rd president of the United States.

Bush got 50,456,062 popular and 271 electoral.

Gore got 50,996,582 popular and 266 electoral.

Nader got 2,883,105 popular and 0 electoral.

Gore got over a half million MORE votes than Bush -but didn't become president. WHY? It was because of the electoral college and the U.S. Supreme Court. Without going into detail it came down to the recount in Florida - the Florida Supreme Court ordered a recount and it was in progress when the five conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices ordered the recount to be stopped - and the presidency was handed to George W. Bush. What is funny about the U.S. Supreme Court decision is that conservatives have always been for state's rights but in this case they forgot about that and told the Florida Supreme Court to go to HELL.

The last time the popular vote getter lost in the electoral college was in 1888 between Republican Benjamin Harrison and Democrat Grover Cleveland -Harrison won.

If anything, the 2000 election most closely resembles the Rutherford Hayes vs. Samuel Tilden contest in 1876. Samuel Tilden almost certainly won but had the election stolen from him when Republican "returning boards" in Louisiana, South Carolina, and, yes, Florida, changed the popular vote totals so Hayes would get the electoral votes. So the 2000 and 1876 elections are tied for first place in being the biggest rip-offs in U. S. election history.

It is interesting to note that a Republican won all three of these elections.

My personal opinion is that "Let's get rid of that damn electoral college." It is not democrary to see the popular vote winner lose.