If Gore had embraced Clinton rather than running from him (and picking Lieberman), it seems clear (to me) that he would have won his home state and would have won the election.
Your counter-factuals don't change the fact that lots of people in Florida intended to vote for Gore but ended up voting for Buchanan due to the weird ballot. If those votes had been cast as they intended, and counted properly, Gore would have won.
There were lots of reasons why Gore lost (Lieberman, the butterfly ballot, being unable to crush the "inventing the internet" criticism, people being taken in by "Compassionate Conservatism" and "Reformer with Results" and "Humble Foreign Policy" and "No Nation Building" and all the rest. His somehow being a creature of the DNC (or the DLC, even) wasn't one of them.
Oh, and he did win the popular vote, of course. Somehow Democrats winning the popular vote in 6 of the last 7 presidential elections is a sign of failure...
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Your counter-factuals don't change the fact that lots of people in Florida intended to vote for Gore but ended up voting for Buchanan due to the weird ballot. If those votes had been cast as they intended, and counted properly, Gore would have won.
There were lots of reasons why Gore lost (Lieberman, the butterfly ballot, being unable to crush the "inventing the internet" criticism, people being taken in by "Compassionate Conservatism" and "Reformer with Results" and "Humble Foreign Policy" and "No Nation Building" and all the rest. His somehow being a creature of the DNC (or the DLC, even) wasn't one of them.
Oh, and he did win the popular vote, of course. Somehow Democrats winning the popular vote in 6 of the last 7 presidential elections is a sign of failure...
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.