Al Gore

Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician who served as the 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He ran for President in 2000 following Bill Clinton's two four-year terms, but was defeated by the Republican candidate George W. Bush in a bitterly contested election that included multiple recounts and a Supreme Court decision that effectively decided the election in favor of Bush. While Gore received the most popular votes, the states Bush won gave him a majority in the U.S. Electoral College and Bush was elected President. The election remains one of the most divisive and controversial topics in recent American politics.

2000 presidential election

After two terms as Vice President, Gore ran for President. In the Democratic primaries, Gore faced an early challenge from Bill Bradley. Bradley withdrew from the race in early March 2000 after Gore won every primary election.

Related Topics:
President - Bill Bradley

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In August 2000, Gore surprised many when he selected United States Senator Joe Lieberman to be his vice-presidential running mate. Lieberman, who is claimed to be a more conservative Democrat than Gore, had publicly blasted President Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky affair. Many pundits saw Gore's choice of Lieberman as another way of trying to distance himself from the scandal-prone Clinton White House. Lieberman was also the first Jewish nominee on a major party's national ticket.

Related Topics:
Joe Lieberman - Monica Lewinsky

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During the entire U.S. presidential election, 2000, Gore was neck and neck in the polls with Republican Governor of Texas George W. Bush. On election day, the results were so close that the outcome of the race took over a month to resolve, highlighted by the premature declaration of a winner on election night, and an extremely close result in the state of Florida.

Related Topics:
U.S. presidential election, 2000 - Republican - Governor of Texas - George W. Bush - Florida

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The race was ultimately decided by a razor thin margin of only 537 popular votes in Florida -- an astonishingly close margin out of some 105 million votes cast nationwide. Florida's 25 electoral votes were awarded to George W. Bush only after numerous court challenges. Al Gore publicly conceded the election after the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore voted 7 to 2 to declare the ongoing recount procedure unconstitutional, on the grounds that it was not being carried out statewide, and 5 to 4 to ban further recounts using other procedures. Gore strongly disagreed with the Court's decision, but decided that "for the sake of our unity of the people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession." He had previously made a concession phone call to Bush the night of the election, but quickly retracted it after learning just how close the election was. Following the election, a subsequent recount conducted by various U.S. news media organizations indicated that Mr. Bush would have won using the partial recount method of 4 strongly Democratic areas advocated by Mr. Gore, but that Mr. Gore would have won given a full recount of the state. http://www.bushwatch.com/gorebush.htmhttp://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/florida.ballots/stories/main.html.

Related Topics:
Supreme Court - Bush v. Gore

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The Florida election has been closely scrutinized since the election. Several irregularities are thought to have favored Bush; others may have given Gore an edge. Irregularities on the Bush side included the notorious Palm Beach "butterfly ballots", which produced an unexpectedly large number of votes for third-party candidate Patrick Buchanan, and a purge of some 50,000 alleged felons from the Florida voting rolls that included many voters who were eligible to vote under Florida law. Many Bush supporters, however, believed that an unfair advantage was given to Gore when all major news networks, early on, prematurely projected Gore as the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes at 7:52 PM Eastern Time. This happened before the polls closed in 10 small Florida counties in the heavily Republican western panhandle which are in the Central Time Zone, and thus closed at 7 PM Central Time (8 PM Eastern). Some have thought that this depressed the pro-Bush vote in that area -- although none have shown any proof that voters who were at home and saw the networks call the election failed to go vote in the last 8 minutes. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/stories/02/02/cnn.report/cnn.pdf During the numerous recounts (which made the phrase "hanging chads" infamous in the American vocabulary), there were also allegations of both pro-Bush and pro-Gore tampering by low-level operatives in the controversial counties. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2000/11/26/230955.shtml It is unclear what effect, if any, this may have had. And while the Gore camp, fought (with some success) to keep overseas absentee votes out in counties thought to be pro-Bush, Bush operatives similarly (albeit wihile drawing less attention to their efforts) prevented the counting of overseas absentee votes in strong Democratic counties. Both sides contended that the votes were cast after election day, and since many of the envelopes did not have cancelled stamps, it was not clear when the votes were cast. Reports later surfaced that many overseas voters attempted to vote only after learning of the closeness of the Florida vote.

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Some commentators still see such irregularities, and the legal maneuvering around the recounts as casting doubt on the legitimacy of the vote; as a matter of law, however, the issue was settled when the U.S. Congress accepted Florida's electoral delegation, only after a challenge to the Florida electors was presented in the congressional chambers on January 6, 2001 by members of the Congressional Black Caucus who could not secure the signature of one Senator to bring the challenge to a debate.

Related Topics:
U.S. Congress - Congressional Black Caucus

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Concern about the possible disenfranchisement of voters in the Florida vote led to widespread calls for electoral reform in the United States, and ultimately to the passage of the Help America Vote Act, which authorized the United States federal government to provide funds to the states to replace their mechanical voting equipment with electronic voting equipment. However, this has led to new controversies, because of the security weaknesses of the computer systems, the lack of paper-based methods of secure verification, and the necessity to rely on the trustworthiness of the manufacturers whose employees also count those votes.

Related Topics:
Help America Vote Act - United States federal government - Electronic voting

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Although Gore won the nationwide popular vote by more than 500,000 votes, receiving the most votes of any candidate in U.S. history (until the 2004 election), he lost the election by five electoral votes (with one DC Elector, pledged to Gore, casting a blank ballot to protest the District's lack of representation in Congress).

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Gore lost his home state of Tennessee, making him the first presidential candidate since South Dakota Democratic Senator George McGovern in 1972 to lose his home state in a presidential election.

Related Topics:
Tennessee - South Dakota - George McGovern - 1972

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Joe Lieberman later criticized Al Gore for adopting a populist theme during their 2000 campaign. Lieberman said he objected to Gore's "people vs. the powerful" message, believing is that was not the best strategy for Democrats to use to recapture the White House.http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28519

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While running for president in 2000, Al Gore was used as a voice actor for the television show Futurama. He played himself again in another episode after the campaign was over.

Related Topics:
Futurama - Himself

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For more information on Al Gore's 2000 campaign, see: Al Gore presidential campaign, 2000

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For more information on the 2000 election, see: U.S. presidential election, 2000

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For other information, see: Al Gore controversies

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