People say the same thing now as they do then- W was a
Compassionate Conservative and a
Populist and Gore looked like he just wanted to work at the Brookings Institute or the back office of a large law firm. It also pissed off a bunch of people that he was more focused on the environment than jobs. That helped Bush get started in places where McCain, Romney, and especially Trump now do really well. Then again, the D bench was thin.
In some ways, I think Bush had a lot of problems in October and Gore had a lot of problems in September.
If you look at the results, Gore actually won 5 really close states and Bush only won New Hampshire in Florida. If Bush closed better, he could have won NM,OR,MN,IA, and WI but probably fall short of PA and MI. The narrative should have been that there just wasn't enough late stage momentum for Gore. The only other state he could have won if he closed better would have been NH. If Gore actually ran a better campaign, he MAYBE would have a shot at Missouri and Nevada.
