ABSTRACT
The shorthand strategy for accomplishing all this is to get the Bruce Springsteen, Lauryn Hilly and Pete Seeger vote united in one party.
— Daniel Cantor
Al Gore lost the 2000 election for a lot of reasons. Some were political. He was hurt by his long association with President Clinton. There were too many versions of Gore —the man of the people, the candidate of small government, the arrogant preacher, and the meek me-too-er. He backed off of using quasi-populist themes that had clearly boosted his standing when he plugged them hard.1 He blew the debates. He alienated liberals with a final TV ad that boasted of his role in welfare reform. He lost his home state of Tennessee to George W. Bush by 51 to 48 percent and President Clinton's home state of Arkansas by 51 to 45 percent. He turned off young voters with the selection of Joe Lieberman as his running mate and their condescending attacks on popular entertainment, producing a huge drop-off in Democratic voting among those twenty-nine and younger, costing the ticket almost 3 million votes compared to 1996.2 Pat Buchanan's gallbladder operation in late summer defanged his right-wing threat to Bush. Ten times as many Florida Democrats voted for Bush than swung to Nader. Senior citizens, the supposed core of Gore's base in that crucial state, split their vote evenly between the two major candidates.
