November 14, 2016
A warning we ignored
Progressive Review, 1999 - According to Democratic pollster Rob Schroth, Donald Trump, and Clint Eastwood would beat Gore in a three-way race with Bush, with Trump coming within four points of Bush. Oprah Winfrey would come within two points of Elizabeth Dole and beat Gore by the same margin. Shroth also found that in a three-way race between Bush and a generic "successful business person who's never run for office before" Bush would get 35%, the unknown would get 34% and Gore would get only 25%.
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That's really a lot of nonsense. 2000 was Gore's race to lose and that subsequent loss is all on him regardless of the various apologists claims afterwards. Popular unrest with the neolibral global assault had already become manifest at that time as was evidenced with the Seattle WTO protests in January of that same year, 1999. As in 2016, Gore's 2000 demise was about the public's repudiation of the eight years of the Clintonian 'triangulation' that folks correctly perceived as anathema to their own bet interests.
The Democrats were smug in 2000, they weren't hearing or even wanting to hear anything negative about the economic direction they were navigating the nation. I remember speaking with staff in Gore's Keene, New Hamspire campaign office, asking in particular about Gore's positions on WTO and GATT, etc. The campaign had no position papers to present, only regurgitation of the tired talking point, "It's now a global economy and we have to accept..."
Point being, there was nothing populist about Al Gore and it was clear his was to be more of the same. On the campaign trail Gore offered nothing of substance, only parsed campaign gibberish. It seems the confidence was so high within the Democratic ranks that they didn't feel the necessity to have to risk resorting to statements of substance. It was only after it was becoming apparent in late September/early October that Ralph Nader's populist message was gaining traction and Democrat numbers falling that Gore even began to alter his drab mutterings with tinges of the psuedo-progressive. With that change in rhetoric the numbers for him began to recover, but as it turned out not enough to assure his overall victory. Had Nader not forced Gore to stop playing it safe and move leftward, Bush may well have won by a near landslide as folks were voting not so much for 'W' as they were voting against the legacy of Clinton years. And that, in a nut shell, pretty much explains what occurred November 8th.
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