Why Gore Lost
I wrote this back in Jan, 2001, but I still think it is a better analysis than any other that I have read:
I read a number of "Why Gore Lost" opinion pieces (sadly, several of them before the election) and I felt that all of them missed the big factors as to why Gore (kind of) lost. To me, the three big factors are the 3 M's - Money, Minor parties and the Media.
Bush outspent Gore $183 million to $118 million, the Republicans outspent the Democrats on hard money $251 million to $154 million, and the Republicans outspent the Democrats on soft money $198 million to $181 million (all numbers from www.opensecrets.org). Overall, Bush and the Republicans outspent Gore and the Democrats by almost 40%. Most of those expenditures were for TV advertising, and TV advertising is an effective way of convincing swing voters to vote for you. Bush was able to pick up a lot of swing votes just because he had deeper financial resources.
In 1992 and 1996, the minor party challenge came from the Right, but in 2000, the minor party challenge came from the Left. Nader received 2.6% of the popular vote, most of which would have gone to Gore if Nader hadn't run, and Buchanan won 0.4%, most of which would have gone to Bush if Buchanan hadn't run. If Gore had won 80% of Nader's votes and Bush had gotten all of Buchanan's votes, then Gore would have won Florida and New Hampshire and would now be President.
It is hard to sum up a year's worth of media coverage and at different times, the media favored different candidates. However, I feel the media was far harder on Gore than Bush and significantly swayed public opinion towards Bush. There were three areas that I felt the media did a particularly unfair job - they overreported Gore's scandals and underreported Bush's, they misquoted Gore to create stories unfavorable to Gore, and they severely punished Gore when he was caught lying but let Bush off the hook on his lies.
The best example I can think of the media's overreporting Gore's scandals and underreporting Bush's is the placement of two stories that were in the front section of my newspaper on the same day. One story covered a two year old memo leaked from the Justice department arguing for a special prosecutor to investigate Gore for the Buddhist temple visit, which contained absolutely no new facts. The other story was the initial publishing of evidence that Bush had been AWOL for two years from the National Guard. The Gore story was the lead story on page 1 and the Bush story was buried in the middle of the section when all logic would dictate it should be the other way around. Bush's possible false affidavit concerning the May lawsuit got little coverage, but Gore's possible lying relating to 1996 fund raising got lots of coverage.
Gore never said he invented the internet - the media took a quote out of context, changed it slightly, and then wrote about how Gore exaggerates. Gore never claimed that he and Tipper were the basis for Love Story - the media again took a quote out of context, changed it slightly, and then wrote about how Gore exaggerates. Gore never said he discovered Love Canal - again, the media took a quote out of context, changed it slightly, and then wrote about how Gore exaggerates. Gore did do farm chores while growing up, but many pundits said that he was a city boy exaggerating again. The "RATS" story is the closest the media came to inviting a bogus story about Bush, but even then it was a story blown out of proportion instead of an untrue charge.
During the first debate, Gore misstated that he had toured a disaster area with the FEMA director. He was pounded unmerciful in the media for his misstatement. Actually the pounding started just before the debates on whether pills for dogs are more expensive than pills for humans. At that time, Gore was up comfortably in the polls, but the media attack on his truthfulness soon dropped him behind Bush. In the third debate, Bush claimed credit for developing and passing two bills in a bipartisan fashion, when the reality is that he did nothing for one and he actively opposed the other. And the media did...nothing. When Clinton pointed out that Bush told a bold face lie, the media did...nothing. When the DWI story broke, the Bush Watch website quickly found instances were Bush had made public statements implying that there was no such skeletons in his past. But the mainstream media could never find anyone. Instead, Bush was able to spin that he never lied about not being arrested. And the media did...stories on how well Bush handled the crisis. The day after Bush's press conference, his spokesman was challenged on Bush, when trying to get his license back, told Maine officials that he was an infrequent drinker who only drank once a month and how that squared with other Bush statements that he was a heavy drinker before his 40th birthday. Bush's spokesman gave a defense of "It depends on the meaning of...." Did the media nail the Bush campaign for such a Clintonian statement? No, they totally ignored it (the only place I say the statement was in a transcript on Salon).
Does the fact that Gore (kind of) lost mean that he ran a poor campaign? Since Johnson passed his civil rights bills, conservative Republican candidates have run away with the Presidential election. In '68, Nixon defeated Humphrey 43.42% to 42.72%, despite losing 13.53% to Wallace. In '72, Nixon crushed McGovern 60.69% to 37.53%. In '76, running against a moderate Republican after the worst presidential scandal in at least 50 years, Carter was able to win by only 50.06% to 48.00%. In '80, Reagan defeated Carter 50.75% to 41.01%. In '84, Reagan crushed Mondale 58.77% to 41.03%. In '92, Bush defeated Dukakis 53.37% to 45.65%. In '96, Clinton won over Bush 43.01% to 37.45%, but only because Perot took 18.91%. In '96, Clinton defeated Dole 49.24% to 40.71%, but Perot took 8.40%. If you throw out '76 as an anomaly, and add Wallace and Perot's votes to the Republican candidate, conservative Republican candidates won the presidency by an average of 12.26%. For Gore to have won the popular vote against a conservative Republican, and for Gore/Nader to have a larger margin in the popular vote over Bush/Buchanan than Clinton did over Dole/Perot indicates to me that Gore did a great job.
Almost all of the "Why Gore Lost" opinion pieces focused on Gore's personal flaws or poor campaigning. Instead, they should have given Gore credit for doing so well in the face of obstacles - the 3 M's - beyond his control.
7:45:26 AM 
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