Zach Clark (.2753)
Political Science 4152: Term Paper
Electing a President of the United States is always a historic event. Each election is unique and filled with many twists and turns. Campaigns are faced with important decisions daily, any of which may help lead to victory or be fatal to the candidate’s ascendency to lead the most powerful country on Earth. The voluminous decisions campaigns are required to make, together with ubiquitous access to partisan political media coverage in print, television and on the internet, has increasingly lead to many popular theories as to why a campaign succeeded or failed. While there have always been ‘armchair quarterbacks’ who have second-guessed campaign decisions, the increased availability to information and increased scrutiny on campaigns have led to even more American’s circulating unproven theories as to why a particular Presidential Candidate won or lost.
Throughout history, presidential campaigns have become more sophisticated which have led to an increased reliance on technology being used to influence the direction campaigns take. Voter surveys, economic data, and demographic data are regularly used to assist decision making inside campaign war rooms. The collection of this data is an invaluable tool that political strategist can study and use to refine decision making in future campaigns. Not only is this scientific collection of data critical during and after a campaign, but it is also necessary to confirm or debunk popular theories relating to why an election turned out a certain way. The use of scientific data is critical in analyzing the veracity of the popular theory that Ralph Nader detrimentally cost Al Gore the 2000 presidential election.
Popular Account
Up until 2016, no election, real or fake could have captured the extraordinary twists and turns of the U.S. presidential election of 2000. This election pitted the current Vice President, Democrat Al Gore against the then current governor of Texas, Republican George W. Bush.
Gore, who had been Bill Clinton’s vice president for eight years, was the clear favorite in the Democratic Primary, and captured the nomination easily, defeating challenger Bill Bradley, a former U.S. senator from New Jersey. The majority of the early primary excitement came on the Republican side, as Governor Bush faced off against a tough challenger from the state of Arizona, U.S. Senator John McCain; other candidates in the Republican primary included a diplomat and conservative commentator by the name of Alan Keyes, businessman Steve Forbes, another U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch, and conservative activist Gary Bauer. Bush ultimately prevailed after a strenuous fight, culminating in an especially brutal effort by his campaign during the South Carolina primary.
Despite the continued economic growth that Gore could attribute to his time with the Clinton administration, early in the general election campaign it appeared that Bush might easily defeat Gore, who potential voters thought appeared wooden and dismissive of Bush during the televised debates and who was criticized repeatedly by the right as being an over-exaggerator. However, in late October the gap in the polls between Gore and Bush had narrowed drastically.
On election night, no clear winner emerged. Print and broadcast media cited often contradictory exit-polling numbers, and the races in Oregon and New Mexico would remain too close to call for some days. Ultimately, the contest focused on Florida. After mistaken news projections on the night of the election led the Democratic party’s candidate Al Gore calling to concede the election to George W. Bush, the Republican candidate, that he withdrew an hour later, and the 36-day long legal battle that would ensue to resolve what was basically a tie, Bush eventually was offered the presidency when a highly political and divisive Supreme Court ended the manual recount in Florida that could have potentially produced a different result. This was the closest presidential election in the history of the United States of America. Only a couple hundred voted in Florida It was the closest presidential election in American history, with only several hundred votes in Florida deciding the winner of an election where more than 100 million ballots had been cast.
The U.S. constitutional system bent but by no means broke during this trying period. The outcome of the election was determined by the courts, and although he strongly disagreed with the decision Al Gore ultimately accepted the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision. Even most Americans managed to give Bush the benefit of the doubt and accept the validity of his election. As riveting and historic as the weeks-long post-election struggle to determine the winner of the 2000 presidential contest was, one important question remained yearning to be answered. Why did Vice President Al Gore not easily defeat Bush? At the time of the election, the nation was enjoying a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity. President Clinton’s overall job approval ratings were viewed as some of the highest of any modern president. Under Clinton and Gore, the Democratic party had managed reposition itself near the center of the spectrum ideologically, promoting policies that were at the top of the public’s agenda. Additionally, Al Gore was an experienced and knowledgeable politician, whose grasp of national and international issues far surpassed that of his Republican adversary. How did it ultimately get to the point where a few hundred votes in Florida determined who would be moving into the White House? According to a majority of the American public, the answer to that question is because of one man; Ralph Nader.
Nader was a consumer activist and Lawyer who was nominated by the Green Party to be their presidential candidate. His campaign focused primarily on universal health care, environmental and consumer protections, campaign finance reform, and strengthening labor rights. Nader had run for president four years prior in 1996 but at the time didn’t even manage to gain 1% of the public vote. Though Ralph Nader was a name few outside the US would even recognize, the actions of his campaign would have huge consequences in the 2000 election. As Justin Martin describes in his book Crusader, Spoiler, Icon: Nader’s goal in 2000 was to grab 5% of the vote, as doing this would unlock federal funding for the upcoming 2004 presidential election. As the 2000 polling drew razor thin between Gore and Bush, some in the Nader campaign wanted him to place his efforts into liberally-dense population centers like California and New York. Campaigning in these democratic safe states would easily allow Nader to tap into a concentrated group of people who might be sympathetic to the Green Party’s cause but would normally not vote Green for fear of handing over the electoral votes of say Ohio or Iowa to the other side. However despite this pressure from his supporters, Nader made a critical decision to do the exact opposite just days before the 2000 election and chose to campaign where votes were the scarcest; As Jonathan Chait described for New York Magazine, “[Nader]- insisted on spending the final days of the campaign on a whirlwind tour of battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Florida.”
George W. Bush won 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266. The specific controversy of the 2000 election usually revolves around Florida where the US Supreme Court rejected a recount that could have given the state to Al Gore, and thereby the Presidency. The official Florida vote count says that Bush won the state by 537 votes. In total, Nader won 97,488 in Florida. The argument goes that if Nader wasn’t running, enough of his votes would have gone to Gore for him to win the state.
Was the intervention of a third party candidate enough to tip the scales in favor of Bush and put the final nail in Gore’s coffin? No. Despite, being one tangible factor in the outcome of the 2000 presidential election, there were many more powerful forces at work that had a much larger effect on the election outcome than Nader’s campaign strategy. In fact, the data will suggest that Nader’s intervention in the 2000 election had far less on the overall outcome of the election than one may think.
Scientific Account
The glaring flaw with the argument of Nader ‘spoiling’ the 2000 election for Gore and the Democratic party is that it relies on the hypothetical premise that if the 2000 election was only between Bush and Gore more people who would have voted for Nader would have voted for Gore instead. The major flaw with this argument is that it simply did not happen. Nader was actually in the race. We could also pretend that Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson was running for president in 2000 (as opposed to in 2020) but that won’t really change what actually happened. Nader really ran, and people voted for him, over the other two candidates. According to recent research, people are increasingly more motivated to vote against a candidate or party than for one. If this is true we might assume that Nader voters were actually voting against both Bush and Gore. According to an exit poll in Florida by CNN, half of the Nader voters would have stayed home if he wasn't in the race. Furthermore, there were a total of 10 different candidates who got more votes in the Florida race than the 537 votes that separated Bush and Gore. Why does Nader get the blame when seven others could be blamed?
If anything, Gore should be the one who is accused of ‘spoiling’ the election. At the time, one group that typically voted Democrat in Florida were Caucasian women, however, Bush won 53% of their vote. Gore was the current Vice President in a popular administration in a prosperous economy, logically one could assume that it should have been an easy victory for him, but he couldn’t even win in his home state of TN. It is rare for a candidate to lose his home state and go on to win the election, only three presidents have done that in American history. Out of the 97,488, Nader received in Florida, only 24,000 of those votes came from registered Democrats. This pales in comparison to the 308,000 registered Democrats that voted for Bush in the election.
Second, the argument that Nader spoiled the election relies heavily on opportunity costs. It assumes that all votes that were cast for Nader would have automatically of gone to Gore if Nader wasn’t an option, but as I have pointed out earlier this assumption is false because most of the people who voted for Nader would have voted for Bush, or not voted at all. But should we assume to begin with? Of course not. There are simply too many variables. According to USC political science professor Matthew Jones, “because of the tiny vote difference between bush and gore in Florida, falls within the margin of error it is simply impossible to know for sure why gore lost there.”
However, there are plenty of other reason as to why Al Gore lost the general election. For instance, as we learned in class, one of the best indicators of how positively the American electorate views the incumbent party in power is on how well the nation’s economy is doing. Why was it then that despite all the praise being attributed to the Democratic party for the nation’s booming economy did Gore have such a tough time overcoming Bush?
First, the economy might not have had its normal potency suggested by the forecasters, primarily because it had been good too long and any benefits it would have had politically had become too widely dispersed and not concentrated around the Democratic administration. Still, others believe that elections as indicators of the economy’s performance are not as substantial during years when the presidency is openly contested. The exit polls indicate that this could be true, though not the large extent. Voters reported improved financial conditions and a buoyant national economy. Those who indicated that the economy the biggest factor in determining vote choice gave Gore a ?? percentage point advantage over Bush. Despite such a large advantage amongst the economically conscious portion of the electorate, this group was less than a ??? of the total vote count, suggesting that the election was framed less as a referendum on good economic times that might have been possible.
Second, the Clinton administration’s high job approval rating might not have captured the overall nuanced view the American republic had of his presidency. After all, Bill Clinton had just subjected the country to a painfully long impeachment scandal. Put rather bluntly, a majority of Americans were dismayed by former President’s behavior; as a result, he never fully reclaimed the lofty public standing he had enjoyed at the beginning of his administration. Of the voters who gave President Clinton high marks both personally and on the job Gore garnered 85 percent of their vote; but out of the fifth of the electorate who personally disapproved of Clinton but viewed his on the job performance as favorable Gore managed to only win 63 percent of the vote. This variance alone could potentially account for Gore’s below average showing on election day.
Potentially even more significant were the indirect effects the impeachment scandal had on Gore’s campaign strategy. Throughout the election, Gore never felt comfortable campaigning on his record under the Clinton administration. Gore’s obsession with separating himself from his past and running on the future stopped him from being able to sharply frame the election as a referendum on good times. And arguably most crippling was that President Clinton, one of the most effective U.S. politicians in history, was primarily delegated to fundraising and selective visits to Democratic safe-zones. There is overwhelming evidence that Clinton would have done more harm than good with swing voters in battleground states. Imagine how different the Democratic campaign strategy would have been if Clinton would have kept his hand's clean while in office.
The most detrimental consequence the Clinton scandal had on the presidential election of 2000 was the massive mobilization of social conservatives and an increase of the cultural divide in American politics. As we can see in Figure 1, the primary determinant in vote choice for the American electorate in the 2000 election was not the environment, economy or even education, but moral issues. This evidence helps explain Gore’s poor showing in states like West Virginia, Arkansas, and his home state of Tennessee. The Democratic agenda on Social Security, health care, and debt repayment might have overcome the moral issues of the election cycle had the Clinton-Lewinsky affair not turned away those who were unsure of who to vote for.
Figure 1
The fourth set of explanations centers on the candidates and their campaigns. Though political scientists tend to downplay the role of presidential campaigns because most regular voting members of the electorate pay little attention to the policies and politics campaigns espouse. Essentially the purpose of a presidential campaign is to mobilize fellow partisans by capitalizing on certain broad forces that shape the context of the elections. A large divergence in the quality of candidates, as well as the effectiveness of their individual campaigns in overcoming limits or exploiting opportunities, make a difference when it is down to the margin. However, because both sides are typically effective at seizing opportunities, they often neutralize one another.
This particular theory was put to the test in 2000. The Republican campaign did an excellent job portraying their George Bush as an ideological moderate and a strong leader, blurring differences on issues with a natural Democratic advantage, reducing the perceived policy stakes in the election, and pressing a telling critique of Gore as an overbearing and untrustworthy candidate. In light of Bush’s striking inexperience in national politics and policy, the conservative party platform on which he was running, the absence of any real enthusiasm outside the conservative base for his large tax cut proposal and plans to restructure social insurance, and his lack of stature on the political stage, this was an impressive accomplishment Nonetheless, after the Democratic convention and in the weeks leading up to the first debate, the Bush campaign appeared to falter. Gore, like Vice President Bush in 1988, closed a large deficit in the polls and moved into the lead by Labor Day. But unlike 1988, Gore surrendered his lead after the first debate and thereafter played catch up. The relentless critique of his personal demeanor in the debates (rude, programmed, and prone to exaggeration) reinforced the personal case Bush had been making against him, one that was consistent with the storyline developed in the press.
Two additional factors round out the story of how the 2000 U.S. presidential election ended in a dead heat. As shown in Figure 2, for much of the 29th century a large portion of the American electorate identified with the Democratic party more than the Republican. However, in the late 1970s during the Carter administration, the GOP began making large gains with the electorate. America today is virtually divided between Democrats and Republicans. The Democratic advantage of individual party identification shrank by almost 15 percent between the years 1937 and 1985 and to less than 3 points shortly after. Partisanship in the American electorate is strong—and reinforced by an ideological realignment that has sorted liberals and conservatives more decisively into two very large, very different parties.
Americans are also evenly divided in their desire for change or continuity. Good times economically and on the world stage fostered a certain level of comfort with the current political party in power but acrimonious politics in Washington and lewd behavior from the White House created a desire for change.
It is easy to blame Ralph Nader for Al Gore’s 2000 loss to George Bush; however, it is not that simple. Losing the 2000 election for the Whitehouse was devastating to partisan Democrats and those loyal to Al Gore. In a Presidential election, there will always be a winner and a loser. It is human nature to try and explain why ‘your side’ lost and often the most popular explanation is the one that is easiest to understand. Blaming Ralph Nader for the Gore defeat is the easiest explanation to understand. While Ralph Nader’s presence in the 2000 election certainly may have contributed slightly to the outcome of the election, scientific analysis of the extrinsic factors and of the decisions made by Gore’s campaign throughout the election show that Ralph Nader was not the reason Gore lost. In fact, the closest Presidential race in history easily could have turned in favor of the Democrats had any number of decisions or factors, not relating to Ralph Nader, been different.
Using research tools and scientific analysis of the 2000 election sheds light on to what really happened. It is important to learn from past elections, so what did we learn about the 2000 election? We learned that although the economy may be strong, a non-incumbent presidential candidate of the party in power may not benefit significantly from the strong economy, especially if the economy has been doing well for a long period of time and the non-incumbent candidate does not embrace the current president because of moral reasons. We also learned the morality of the sitting president matters and the American people may hold the members of the sitting president’s party accountable for the president’s moral transgressions. Finally, a candidate’s personality and how an opponent portrays his opponent matters. Bush was able to effectively exploit Gore’s stereotype of being boring while Gore was not able to generate much excitement. President Clinton’s strong personality exacerbated Gore’s perceived lack of personality.
Although many people believe Ralph Nader was responsible for Al Gore’s defeat in the 2000 presidential election, Ralph Nader was not responsible. It is clear, while Ralph Nader may have been a small factor in Al Gore’s defeat, Al Gore ultimately was responsible Al Gore’s loss.
References
Burden, B. C. (2005). Ralph Naders Campaign Strategy in the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election. American Politics Research, 33(5), 672-699. doi:10.1177/1532673×04272431
Dye, L. (1970, September 06). The Psychology of Voting. Retrieved December 28, 2017, from http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=119958&page=1
Herron, M. C., & Lewis, J. B. (2007). Did Ralph Nader Spoil Al Gores Presidential Bid? A Ballot-Level Study of Green and Reform Party Voters in the 2000 Presidential Election. Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 2(3), 205-226. doi:10.1561/100.00005039
Martin, J. (2003). Nader: crusader, spoiler, icon. New York: Basic.
Official General Presidential Election Results2000. (2001). Retrieved December 28, 2017, from https://transition.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm
Scher, B. (2016, May 31). Nader Elected Bush: Why We Shouldn't Forget. Retrieved November 28, 2017, from https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/05/31/nader_elected_bush_why_we_shouldnt_forget_130715.html
R. (2000, October 02). THE 2000 CAMPAIGN; Bush Catches Gore In Poll in Tennessee. Retrieved December 28, 2017, from http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/02/us/the-2000-campaign-bush-catches-gore-in-poll-in-tennessee.html