ABSTRACT
Election of 2000 began as a referendum on the Bill Clinton Administration. It featured Clinton's vice president, AI Gore, running against George W. Bush, the son of the former president Bill Clinton had defeated in 1992. There are a number of ways to analyze the general election campaign. One is to compare significant indicators from Labor Day to election day, employing polling data in relation to what they tell us about the candidates and the campaign. In a most basic way, these can be interpreted as measures of the effectiveness of the candidates' efforts. Politically, the Gore campaign calculated that Clinton was least popular among the swing voters and in the swing states Gore hoped to focus on. The Bush campaign was more reactive to issues raised by its opponent and preferred more general statements of policy intent. Nonetheless the differences between the candidates and the parties, while often muted, were real enough.
