The "Gore lost because of impeachment" narrative
President Johnson:
I've often heard that the impeachment of Bubba cost Al Gore the election because the cloud of scandal hung over the White House. However, I'm not sure this narrative is actually valid. Polls showed voters liked Bubba and results he was delivering on the economy, the budget and foreign policy, but were disgusted by his personal conduct. So they liked his policies but not his behavior. But Al Gore was de facto offering that: Continue Clinton policies but without scandals. Nobody ever suggested he played a role in Clinton's wrongdoings, not even the Republicans went after Gore for this. If anything, Gore was more liberal than Clinton what may have cost him some support in southern states and Appalachia that had backed the Democratic ticket in 1992 and 1996.
SingingAnalyst:
Gore lost because of the butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County, FL (and I say this as one who voted for Bush in 2000): the excess Buchanan votes, evidently cast by people intending to vote for the 2nd name on the left side (Gore), over that which can be expected from the number of votes cast for Gore, well exceeds 537, Bush's official FL margin. (The Basic Practice of Statistics, Moore, Notz, Fligner, 8th ed., pp. 4-5)
KaiserDave:
yeah this narrative is silly
Gore was wrong to run away from Clinton
Orser67:
The 2000 election was close enough that you could make the case for a hundred different things making the difference between a Gore win and a Gore loss. Nonetheless, I think the narrative about impeachment costing Gore a win lacks strong supporting evidence. It seemed to emerge largely because people wanted to make the point that impeaching Trump would actually benefit Democrats politically (and they seem to have been wrong there, given that Trump's approvals are currently the highest they've been since his first year in office).
What is clear to me, though, is that the drive to impeachment cost Republicans in the 1998 mid-terms, leaving Bush with narrow majorities to push his programs through Congress.
Schiff for Senate:
Quote from: President Johnson on December 03, 2019, 03:10:38 PM
I've often heard that the impeachment of Bubba cost Al Gore the election because the cloud of scandal hung over the White House. However, I'm not sure this narrative is actually valid. Polls showed voters liked Bubba and results he was delivering on the economy, the budget and foreign policy, but were disgusted by his personal conduct. So they liked his policies but not his behavior. But Al Gore was de facto offering that: Continue Clinton policies but without scandals. Nobody ever suggested he played a role in Clinton's wrongdoings, not even the Republicans went after Gore for this. If anything, Gore was more liberal than Clinton what may have cost him some support in southern states and Appalachia that had backed the Democratic ticket in 1992 and 1996.
Agreed; in reality, this was Americans' general consensus on the matter: Clinton was a good president, though his behaviour in the case was deplorable. He deserved a censure, but nothing more. Impeachment was unnecessary, as he was a good president in other ways. In reality, the GOP impeaching a popular president actually backfired on them, because in backlash to the GOP's response, voters actually rewarded Clinton during his second midterm with more seats in Congress, the first time it had happened since 1822 and the second and last time nationally.
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