A running mate that may have saved Al Gore

[Sumner 1868]

Needing a running-mate to save him emphasizes how weak a candidate Gore was.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Bob Graham

[brucejoel99]

Hindsight is 20/20, & as it turned out, Florida was the key. And Florida was so close that Bob Graham would've very likely been able to put Gore over the top.

However, Graham was, by all accounts, not on Gore's shortlist, & had he been picked at the time, he would've been regarded as a fairly flat pick. Even going into the election, whether he could've kept Florida in the Democratic column would've been debatable; after all, they felt Lieberman would put Florida in play due to his appeal to South Florida's Jewish voters.

At most, Graham was considered at some stage of the VP selection process & was a name in the pot, but wasn't actually on Gore's actual shortlist, which seems to have been Lieberman, John Kerry, John Edwards, Jeanne Shaheen, Dick Gephardt, & Evan Bayh.

I'd argue (without hindsight) that, strategically speaking, Shaheen would've been the best conceivable alternate running mate. She would've stood up nationally, especially with women voters who voted for Clinton in 1996 but liked Bush's "compassionate conservative" message in 2000 &/or who were still upset over the Clinton sex scandals. So, she probably would've been a pretty solid choice all around.

However, the final Gore VP shortlist was apparently narrowed down to just Lieberman, Kerry, & Edwards, with the likeliest alternate/non-Lieberman pick for Gore probably being Kerry.

But Gore/Lieberman only lost New Hampshire by 22,000 votes out of more than 1/2 a million cast, so not only would it be pretty much inarguable that Shaheen would've made up that difference in her home state, but considering that, from a media market perspective, New Hampshire is essentially a suburb of Boston, Kerry definitely would've made up that difference in his backyard as well.

Not to mention, Kerry (who won all 3 of the 2004 presidential debates vs. Bush) probably wouldn't lose the VP debate to Cheney too. That's not worth a lot in isolation, but it might make a difference re: the directionality of the campaign.

Now, the only place where Lieberman would've helped Gore 2000 is, for reasons mentioned above, probably Florida... & that obviously didn't work out. So, Gore/Shaheen-or-Kerry probably loses Florida by 1-2 points, but nonetheless wins New Hampshire &, with it, the election.