Why gore lost tennessee

While the final outcome was not decided until Gore conceded Florida's electors to Bush the following month, another Gore win in any other state -- including Tennessee -- would have made him the nation's 43rd president. Many voters noticed how Bush campaigned heavily in Tennessee in the presidential campaign while Gore did not. This perception, combined with Gore's eight years representing a national rather than a local constituency, fueled some voters' belief that Gore was a Washington insider and Tennessee outsider.

Even Democrats, like Tony Hall of Dickson County, Tennessee, said Gore "lost touch with his constituency" in Tennessee and could be challenged to win them back. Gore said he has traveled extensively around Tennessee "reconnecting with [friends] and making some new ones" -- all part of his quest to win back Tennessee, where he and his father, Albert Gore Sr.

Still, publicly and officially, he has kept a low profile since relinquishing the vice presidency a year ago. He has refused to comment publicly on the election, on Bush or on almost any political issue, not addressing the press except for two statements expressing support for Bush and promoting national unity following the September 11 attacks.

But just like Pellicone's true candidate leanings were masked, it seems that the boisterous enthusiasm for Gore in downtown Nashville was merely a political mirage. And so the man who was catapulted to Washington as the son of a state political icon, worked for five years at The Tennessean, the largest state paper, and was born in Carthage--was rudely rejected by his state at the ballot box.

In this absurdly close election, it has made all the difference. The Democratic Party, America's oldest political party, was founded in Nashville by Andrew Jackson years ago and it has a long history of staying true to its roots.

Gore was wildly successful in his early career in Tennessee politics, winning five terms in the U. House and two terms in the U. He even won the Democratic presidential primary in Tennessee--part of his failed first bid for the presidency. But since Gore left the Senate in , residents say the state has taken a sharp turn to the right--a turn that cost him in last Tuesday's election.

Both of Tennessee's current U. Don Sundquist, the state's Republican governor, won a second term in with a record 69 percent of the vote. This conservative switch led Texas Gov. Bush to make multiple visits to the state, campaigning hard and trying to embarrass Gore in his own backyard.

Both candidates aired a deluge of television ads and made campaign appearances in the state during the final hours before the election. White women divided their vote evenly between Bush and Gore, eliminating any net effect on the total vote.

White men voted in favor of Bush. This Republican strength among white males was the overwhelming gender influence in the election, probably gaining Bush a net advantage of over 4 million votes. An explanation for this difference is not easy to find. The simplest reason would be issues with particular impact on one sex or another, with abortion the most obvious possibility.

But there is almost no difference between men and women on their "pro-choice" or "pro-life" attitudes. Moreover, although attitudes on abortion were mirrored well in the vote, that issue was actually of very little importance in this election campaign.

Issues may have produced the large gender gap in more subtle ways. Gore's policy agenda was a more "female" agenda, in a political rather than biological sense: the vice president focused on questions likely to be of more concern to women because of their social situation. The social reality in the United States is that women bear a greater responsibility for children's education and for health care of their families and parents, and that women constitute a disproportionate number of the aged.

This reality was reflected in political concerns, as women saw education, health care, and Medicare as the principal issues of the election. A gender gap has two sides, however, and in it reflected men's preferences even more than women's.

Bush's appeal, too, can be found in particular issues. The social reality is that men are more likely to be the principal source of family income and to assume greater responsibility for family finances. This reality was again mirrored in issue emphases, with men making the state of the economy and taxes their leading priorities, with defense and Social Security of lesser importance. The gender difference in issue focus was the foundation of gender difference in the vote.

Gore was favored among voters who emphasized the "female" issues of health care an advantage of 31 percent , education 8 percent , and Social Security 18 percent , and Medicare 21 percent. But Bush was favored far more strongly on taxes a huge advantage of 63 percent and on world affairs and defense 14 percent , as well as on lesser issues that brought male attention, such as the stereotypically gendered issue of gun ownership.

The presidential race should have been a runaway, according to precampaign estimates. In the end, to be sure, the outcome came down to miscounting or manipulation of the last few ballots.

Analytically, however, the puzzling question is why Gore did so badly, not why Bush won. The economy, usually the largest influence on voters, had evidenced the longest period of prosperity in American history, over a period virtually identical with the Democratic administration. A second predictor, the popularity of the incumbent president, also pointed to a Gore victory, for President Clinton was holding to percent approval of his job performance.

In elaborate analyses just as the campaign formally began on Labor Day, academic experts unanimously predicted a Gore victory. Their only disagreements came on the size of his expected victory, with predictions of Gore's majority ranging from 51 to 60 percent of the two-party popular vote.

The academic models failed. It is simpler to explain Clinton's inability to transfer his popularity to his selected successor. Vice presidents always labor under a burden of appearing less capable than the sitting chief executive, and there is a normal inclination on the part of the electorate to seek a change. Previous incumbent vice presidents, such as the original George Bush in and Richard Nixon in , had borne this burden in their own White House campaigns, but Gore's burden was even heavier, because he needed to avoid contact with the ethical stain of Clinton's affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky.

The limited impact of economic prosperity is more difficult to explain. Although the public overwhelmingly thought the economy was doing well and saw the nation as on "the right track" economically, Gore received little or no political advantage from this optimism. Only a fraction thought him better qualified than Bush to maintain the good times. There are at least three possible explanations. First, because prosperity had gone on so long, voters may have come to see it as "natural" and unrelated to the decisions and policies of elected politicians.

Second, voters might not know whom to praise and reward for their economic fortunes, since both parties in their platforms claimed credit for the boom. These explanations seem weak, however, because two out of three voters believed Clinton was either "somewhat" or "very" responsible for the nation's rosy conditions. A third explanation, better supported by the opinion data, finds that Gore did not properly exploit the advantages offered by his administration's economic record.

In his campaign appeals, Gore would briefly mention the record of prosperity but then emphasize his plans for the future. The approach was typified by his convention acceptance speech:. But now we turn the page and write a new chapter This election is not an award for past performance.

I'm not asking you to vote for me on the basis of the economy we have. Tonight, I ask for your support on the basis of the better, fairer, more prosperous America we can build together. Rhetorically and politically, Gore conceded the issue of prosperity to Bush. The Texas governor, too, saw both a good present economy and a challenge for future improvement in his convention speech:. This is a remarkable moment in the life of our nation.

Never has the promise of prosperity been so vivid. But times of plenty, like times of crisis, are tests of American character Our opportunities are too great, our lives too short, to waste this moment. So tonight we vow to our nation: We will seize this moment of American promise.

We will use these good times for great goals. Gore lost the advantages of the strong economy he inherited when, reviewing the past, he did not tie himself to this record. In the public's evaluation of the present, the vice president won among those who considered the economy "excellent" and their own financial situation improved in the past year.

But he did not reap votes from those who considered the economy simply "good," or their own situation unchanged see Table 2. Looking to the future, Gore led among those who thought the economy would improve in the next year, and trailed among the smaller number who expected an economic deterioration. The critical group, however, was the majority who thought the economy would remain stable--in this group, Gore trailed slightly by 47 to 49 percent.

Gore failed in the election because he failed to convince this swing group that continued prosperity depended on continued Democratic governance. Gender may also have played a role in undermining Gore's inherited advantage on the economy.

Although voters who emphasized this vital factor did favor the vice president 59 to 37 percent , he gained far fewer votes a percent gain on the issue than Clinton had four years earlier 34 percent , even though the economy had strengthened during the period. Here, too, as on issues generally, Gore emphasized the "female" side of his policy positions, such as targeting tax cuts toward education or home care of the elderly.

He offered little for men who would not benefit from affirmative action in the workplace or who would use money returned from taxes for other purposes.

As a result, he gained far less from men 57 percent than from women 68 percent who gave priority to economic issues. In theoretical terms, the vice president turned the election away from an advantageous retrospective evaluation of the past eight years to an uncertain prospective choice based on future expectations. As the academic literature might have warned him, even in good times "there is still an opponent who may succeed in stimulating even more favorable future expectations.

And he may win. More generally, Gore neglected to put the election into a broader context--of the administration's record, of party, or of the Republican record in Congress. All of these elements might have been used to bolster his chances, but he, along with Bush, instead made the election a contest between two individuals and their personal programs.

In editing his own message so severely, Gore made it less persuasive. If the campaign were to be only a choice of future programs, with their great uncertainties, a Bush program might be as convincing to the voters as a Gore program. If the election were to be only a choice of the manager of a consensual agenda, Bush's individual qualities might well be more attractive.

The Democratic candidate had the advantage of leadership of the party that held a thin plurality of voters' loyalties. His party was historically identified with the popular programs that were predominant in voters' minds--Social Security, Medicare, education, and health care--and the Democrats were still regarded in as more capable to deal with problems in those areas.

Yet Gore eschewed a partisan appeal. In the three television debates, illustratively, he mentioned his party only four times, twice citing his disagreement with other Democrats on the Gulf War, and twice incidentally. Gore neither challenged this argument, nor attacked the Republicans who had controlled Congress for the past six years, although promising targets were available. The vice president might have blamed Republicans for inaction on his priority programs, such as Social Security and the environment.

He might have drawn more attention to differences on issues on which his position was supported by public opinion, such as abortion rights or gun control. He could even have revived the impeachment controversy, blaming Republicans for dragging out a controversy that Americans had found wearying and 17 The public had certainly disapproved of Clinton's personal conduct, but it had also steadily approved of the president's job performance.

That distinction could have been the basis for renewed criticism of the Republicans. Yet Gore stayed silent. Gore's strategy was based on an appeal to the political center and to the undecided voters gathered there.

At the party convention and in his acceptance speech, he did try to rouse Democrats by pointing to party differences--and the effort brought him a fleeting lead in opinion polls.

From that point on, however, moving in a different direction, he usually attempted to mute those differences, and his lead disappeared. If there were no important differences, then Democratic voters had little reason to support a candidate whose personal traits were less than magnetic. Successful campaigns "temporarily change the basis of political involvement from citizenship to partisanship.

Turnout may have made the difference in the election results. Nationally, there was only a small increase over the last election in voter participation, to 51 percent of all adults, although there were considerable increases in the most contested states, particularly by union household members and African Americans.

Usually, the preferences of nonvoters are not much different from those who actually cast ballots, [19] but the election may have been an exception to that rule. CBS News polls immediately before and after the balloting suggested that, if every citizen had actually voted, both the popular and electoral votes would have led to an overwhelming Gore victory.

A stronger Gore effort to explain these differences and to bring those uncommitted citizens to the polls might have made the election result quite different. A greater emphasis on the economic record of the administration might have been particularly important in spurring turnout among lower-income voters, who voted in considerably lower proportions than in recent elections. Issues and Character in the Campaign. In the campaign was sharply contested, but reasonably civil--until the postelection period.

Attacks abounded, but they focused on real issue differences between Gore and Bush, as each contestant worried over the public's declared aversion to personal, negative campaigning. Bush is credited with a skillful campaign, but this judgment may be nothing more than the halo effect of eventually being the winner. Actually, Bush was criticized for his campaign both at its beginning and when he faced defeat during the recount. Moreover, the exit polls indicated that those who made up their minds later in the campaign were more likely to vote for Gore, despite his defective strategy, than for the presumptively better campaigner, Bush.

Overall, in fact, the campaign seemed to have had very little effect. Once the nominating conventions concluded, Bush and Gore were tied at the outset of the active campaign on Labor Day, and they remained tied on the day of the balloting--and beyond. The lack of substantial change is seen in the track or tne polls, in shown in Figure 2.

Specific events, such as the television debates, probably changed opinion from day to day, as indicated by the incessant polls, but they are probably given exaggerated importance. Bush made some errors in language, and Gore was not a model of etiquette. Gore could have been more vivacious in appearance, and Bush could have been more humble in demeanor.

In the overall campaign, however, voters focused on the central decisions--the direction and leadership of their nation in the new century.

No single issue dominated the campaign. Education, health care, Medicare and Social Security, defense, the federal budget, and taxes were among the priority issues for the voters, but none focused the voters' minds in the way that the economy had done in the Clinton elections.

Both Gore and Bush talked about these issues and each gave considerable attention to the same issues, enabling the voters to make a reasoned choice between the two candidates see Table 3. Bush apparently won on important elements of the issue debate.

A slightly greater proportion found that he shared their general view of government 51 percent compared to 47 percent. More specifically, voters tended to prefer the Republican's plan for across-the-board tax cuts and his proposal to allow individual investment of Social Security taxes. When voters evaluated the candidates on Election Day, they took two different approaches.