Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George Bush were locked in an excruciatingly close battle for the White House early Wednesday, a contest that either man could win depending on Florida and a handful of key states where voters waited into the night to cast their ballots.
The election for the country’s 43rd president was remarkable for a nation moving through one of the most prosperous periods in its history, a condition that traditionally would signal a likely Gore victory. But the Bush campaign was running strong all over the nation. Each of the candidates needed just a handful of electoral votes to collect the 270 needed to win the presidency.
Voter turnout played a major role in the contest. In New York, Chicago and its suburbs, Philadelphia, Miami–indeed in big cities all over the nation–turnout reached beyond what had been expected. Huge voter turnout in South Florida helped make a state once considered a lock for Bush a cliffhanger that could determine the presidency.
Gore, the son of a late U.S. senator, seemed to be collecting the vast majority of African-American votes and had strong support from working women. But Bush, the son of the last Republican president, successfully tapped suburban, white America with his message of lower taxes, less government and his promise of “compassionate conservatism.” He was performing well in all the traditional Republican strongholds, well enough to offset Gore’s advantage among urban Democrats in many cases.
Republicans appeared to keep control of both the U.S. House and Senate, but the Democrats scored a huge victory in New York, where First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was elected to the U.S. Senate in a contest with Republican Rick Lazio. Democrats picked up a few seats in the House, but the outcome of many of those House contests was not clear at day’s end.
Judging from exit polls of voters, Bush was by far the more popular presidential candidate on the personal level, a reality that had been reflected in opinion polls just before the election. Gore fared well in those earlier measures because he had the right position on the issues, but Bush was viewed as a much more attractive candidate on a number of levels.
Green Party candidate Ralph Nader was playing the spoiler’s role, particularly in the Pacific Northwest in Oregon and Washington, states that might have easily fallen into the Gore column. Nader was denting Gore’s performance in the Midwest, too, particularly in Wisconsin, where the outcome was uncertain late Tuesday.
Voter turnout across Illinois was heavy. While the Bush campaign had late hopes for Illinois, particularly in the heavily Republican suburbs, Gore won the state’s 22 electoral votes with a near 4-1 margin coming from Democrats in Chicago, matching President Clinton’s performance in 1996. Gore won 93 percent of the African-American vote and also had substantial support from suburban women and union members.
With 86 percent of the state’s precincts counted, Gore had 56 percent to Bush’s 41 percent. Green Party contender Ralph Nader had 2 percent and Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan had less than 1 percent.
In Illinois’ 10th Congressional District, where the race to succeed retiring Republican Rep. John Porter was among the most competitive in the nation, the contest remained too close to call. With two-thirds of the district’s precincts counted, Republican Mark Kirk had a narrow 52 percent to 48 percent lead over Democrat Lauren Beth Gash.
Election Day brought an end to one of the most contentious campaigns in modern times.
Bush argued that Gore was the “inside the Beltway” Washington candidate, a big spender and big taxer who wanted to expand the size of government and take decision making on everything from education to health care out of local hands and give it to indifferent Washington bureaucrats.
The Texas governor claimed he did not trust the federal government, an ironic campaign trail charge given the fact that his father was a congressman, Cabinet member, vice president and president. The younger Bush ran the classic Republican outsider’s campaign, projecting an engaging personality even as he decried the evils of big government. It was not unlike the campaigns that were so successful for Ronald Reagan, efforts long on personality and short on specifics.
Bush stumbled at a few points, particularly in explaining the details of his own proposals. He was also hit late in the contest with a report that he had been arrested for driving under the influence in Maine 24 years ago, a charge that commanded a response that put his campaign “off message” for a day or so.
Gore early on seized on a strong populist message–“I will fight for you”–and repeated that theme from the Democratic National Convention last summer right up to Election Day. He accused Bush of proposing a tax cut that would primarily benefit the wealthiest Americans and said the Texas governor’s plans for Social Security would put the nation’s retirement system at risk.
Perhaps to a fault, Gore emphasized his command of knowledge of government and its many programs. He was criticized at some points for being too intellectual and too pedantic, problems that were apparent in two of the three presidential debates between him and Bush.
Gore advocated using the mammoth projected federal budget surplus to prop up Social Security and spend money on education and various government programs. He offered a more moderate tax cut than Bush and argued that his campaign alone could continue the prosperity that has lasted through much of Clinton’s eight years in office.
Clinton was never highly visible during the campaign but he was a presence nonetheless. Gore began the process of separating himself from his former running mate back on June 16, 1999, when the vice president formally announced his candidacy, telling residents of his hometown of Carthage, Tenn., that he would “take my own values of faith and family to the presidency.”
“If you entrust me with the presidency, I will marshal its authority, its resources and its moral leadership to fight for America’s families,” the vice president said.
Ever since then, Gore has tried to distance himself from the negative side of the Clinton legacy–voter displeasure over the president’s character and his personal problems that stemmed from his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
At the same time, Gore tried to balance this disassociation with the president by assuming the positives of Clinton’s tenure, the high job approval ratings the president maintained largely as a result of the burgeoning national economy.
Despite the inherent advantages of running as the incumbent vice president, Gore conducted an uneven campaign that saw him attempt to remake his public image several times. Attempting to ease the stigma of being a Beltway insider, Gore moved his campaign headquarters to Nashville, hired former Commerce Secretary William Daley to manage his campaign and tried to recast himself from professorial patrician to Palm Pilot-carrying Everyman fighting for the working man and woman.
Gore also faced a contentious primary challenge for the nomination from former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley. Though Bradley failed to win any of the early contests, the Democratic rival wounded Gore’s credibility–“Why should we believe that you would tell the truth as president if you don’t tell the truth as a candidate?” Bradley asked at one point–which carried over to the general election and helped set up Bush’s character-based challenge in the general election.
Throughout the early portion of the general election campaign, Bush held a significant lead over Gore in public opinion surveys. But Gore reversed the trend following his pick of Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman as a running mate and after he delivered a Democratic National Convention nomination acceptance speech that energized his party faithful.
Gore’s plan to use part of the nation’s proposed budget surplus to expand Medicare benefits to include prescription drugs also put Bush on the defensive and redefined the summer portion of the campaign as a battle waged on issues rather than on personalities.
On June 12 of last year, Bush formally began his candidacy, telling a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that he was running to show that Republicans can “match a conservative mind with a compassionate heart.” With that mantle of “compassionate conservatism,” Bush was the last of seven contenders to enter the Republican presidential race.
But the Texas governor was always favored to win the GOP nomination. Carrying a campaign bankroll approaching $100 million for the primary and caucus season, Bush handily won the nation’s first balloting, the Iowa caucuses. But his chief rival for the Republican nomination, Arizona Sen. John McCain, opted to bypass Iowa and focused instead on the New Hampshire primary. McCain’s 19 percentage point win there forced Bush to reassess his campaign. Gone was any hint of moderation as Bush moved to the right.
After Bush tapped his father’s former defense secretary, Dick Cheney, to be his running mate, the Republican candidate moved to the center, emphasizing an attempt to reach out to minorities in a successful nominating convention in Philadelphia in August in which he aggressively went after Gore and attempted to link him to Clinton’s personal failings.
Though sidetracked by Gore’s strong showing coming out of the Democratic convention later that month in Los Angeles, Bush gained renewed strength from the three debates he held with the vice president. The debates renewed questions about Gore’s veracity, allowing Bush to come back to more comfortable ground in closing the race by focusing on the character of his opponent.
“We poured our hearts and souls into this campaign,” Bush said as voters went to the polls Tuesday. “Our organization here in Austin and around the country worked hard, and the people are going to decide. I trust the people. I trust their will. I trust their wisdom.”
