Reply #2: This is what would have happened to Gore... [View All]

[nannygoat]

PRESIDENT GORE: A LOOK BACK
http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/index.html?uc_full_date=20030429

<snip>

DAYTON, OHIO--Few political observers anticipated the widespread resentment that followed Al Gore's controversial assumption of the presidency in December 2000. "The U.S. Supreme Court merely adhered to the Constitution when it refused to hear Bush's appeal of the Florida ruling," notes a Harvard law professor now living in exile in France. "Federal courts have no jurisdiction over election disputes, which in the United States are a state matter." Although the ensuing recount ultimately gave Florida to Gore by a comfortable thousand-vote margin, Republicans refused to accept the results. Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh continued to refer to Gore as "Vice President Gore" and "Resident-in-Chief" and listed the time remaining in Gore's first term as "days left in captivity for the American people."

Republican candidate George W. Bush, meanwhile, refused to concede defeat. "Make no mistake," the former Texas governor declared from self-proclaimed "internal exile" in Crawford, Texas, "that man will never be my president." The GOP filed a slew of lawsuits challenging the election results, and right-wing militia groups issued dark threats about overthrowing Gore's "illegal junta."

Despite Gore's attempts to govern from the center--he appointed several Republicans to his cabinet, including Secretary of Defense Colin Powell--Congressional Republicans and their conservative Democratic allies stonewalled early Gore Administration attempts to deliver on key campaign promises. The Senate refused to ratify the Kyoto treaty on global warming. Bills to slash federal taxes for poor and middle-class workers, ban oil drilling in national wildlife refuges and crack down on corporate crime failed to make it out of Republican-controlled committees in the House. Senator Trent Lott let the President know that he could expect more of the same in the future: "It is my party's duty to represent the 48 percent of the voters who did not support Al Gore, and that's exactly what we're going to do," he said.

Gore's polls, already falling due to the lagging economy, hit rock bottom in the weeks after the September 11th attacks. "People rightly blamed the Commander-in-Chief for not doing anything to intercept planes that had clearly been hijacked and for ignoring warnings of an imminent threat," says a GOP pollster. "But concern about incompetence quickly segued into the 'wimp thing.' Disgust at Gore's cowardice became widespread when he abandoned Washington to the terrorists and flew off to hide in that silo under Nebraska. Diligent journalists then reminded Americans how he'd wussed out of Vietnam by joining the Tennessee Air National Guard and then going AWOL, and for many voters that was that."

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