When you look at the fundamentals, you'd think Gore should have coasted to victory. Unemployment was low, satisfaction with the country was historically high, and Gore's boss, Clinton, was incredibly popular. At a time when people are generally satisfied with the country and its leadership, wouldn't the majority of voters want to stick with the status quo and elect Gore, hoping he would be like Clinton's third term? That's what happened with Bush in 1988, and Reagan was actually more unpopular than Clinton at that time? So what gives??
Bush won because of the United State's voting system.
More people voted for Gore than Bush. Therefore, more people wanted Gore to be president. I won't pretend that I don't have very ill feelings towards the United State's pre-Industrial Revolution era voting system.
So in a way, Gore did win, just not the presidency.
In any case, I think a recount in Florida wouldn't have likely changed the outcome, I think Bush did legitimately win the election, but... well 537 votes isn't much, and the list of controversies over at Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Florida,_2000), doesn't exactly lead me to believe that the outcome was entirely fair.
Not that fairness is part of the equation.
Bush won.
No, he didn't.
As Al Gore was pulling ahead in the FL vote count, the Bush-aligned Supreme Court stopped the vote count and installed GWB as POTUS in a coup d'état.
Learn history ...
He couldn't have been pulling ahead in the vote count because he handpicked which counties he wanted to recount (which the Supreme Court said was a violation of due process)?
