Debunked: The Myth That Ralph Nader Cost Al Gore the 2000 Election
Photo: Don LaVange (CC)
Matthew Jones of USC’s Political Science Department says:
It’s really difficult to make the argument that Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the 2000 election, for multiple reasons. There were only 560 votes separating George Bush from Al Gore. That’s essentially within every margin of error, which when it gets within the margin of error, means that there’s too many other factors that could have affected it to say with any confidence what caused Al Gore to lose and George Bush to win.
Every 3rd party candidate got over 600 votes, which means that if any one of those 3rd party candidates had potentially dropped out and those votes had gone to Al Gore, he would have won too. So once you start to make those arguments, you open up a can of worms that you just cannot put back. Almost half of the Democratic Party voters stayed home, so who’s…
This Day in History: Al Gore Gives Up … So The Stock Market Could Keep Going Up
Interested in hearing your ideas about what we haven’t heard yet about the 2000 election. I have my ideas, but looking forward to hearing what you have to say, nine years later:
Almost a century and a half ago, Senator Stephen Douglas told Abraham Lincoln, who had just defeated him for the presidency, “Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I’m with you, Mr. President, and God bless you.” Well, in that same spirit, I say to President-Elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of this country.
— Vice President Al Gore’s concession speech on December 13, 2000, after the Supreme Court decision Bush v. Gore, effectively ending his hopes of becoming the 43rd president of the U.S.
Full text of Vice President Al Gore’s concession speech here.
