On November 2, 2000, Republican Presidential candidate George W. Bush made a gaffe where he implied that Social Security
isn't a federal program. Put into context, it is pretty clear that Bush simply misspoke about this topic:
[Link removed out of necessity.
]
And here is the relevant gaffe/quote:
"This frightens some in Washington because they want the federal government controlling the Social Security, like it's some kind of federal program. We understand differently though. You see, it's your money, not the government's money. You ought to be allowed to invest it the way you see fit."
Anyway, Al Gore appears to have taken this Bush gaffe/quote out of context and used it to make a new ad which he aired in both Pennsylvania and Florida right before the 2000 election:
[Link removed out of necessity.
]
"Seizing a chance to sow doubts about Gov. George W. Bush's ability to be president, Vice President Al Gore today ridiculed him for suggesting on Thursday that Social Security was not a federal program, and the Gore campaign rushed out a television commercial highlighting the gaffe.
...
The Gore campaign prepared a television commercial on the comment to begin airing Saturday in Pennsylvania and Florida, the two states with the largest numbers of retirees who count on Social Security -- voters whom Mr. Gore must mobilize to the polls on Tuesday to win those states."
In addition to this, Gore also made use of this Bush quote/gaffe (once again, out of context) on the campaign trail in the final days of the 2000 campaign:
"''Do you want to entrust the Oval Office to somebody who doesn't even know that Social Security is a federal program?'' Mr. Gore asked a rally of students in Iowa this afternoon."
Also, while I unfortunately couldn't find a video of this Gore television commercial, I
did manage to find a transcript of the content of this Gore television commercial:
[Link removed out of necessity.
]
Anyway, here is my question to all of you--How many votes do you think that this Social Security gaffe and Gore's subsequent exploitation of this gaffe ended up costing Bush in Florida in 2000? Also, how many votes do you think that this Social Security gaffe and Gore's subsequent exploitation of this gaffe ended up costing Bush in the rest of the country (as in, in U.S. states other than Florida) in 2000? Finally, do you think that this gaffe actually ended up costing Bush any states (such as New Mexico, which Gore only won by 363 votes)?
Any thoughts on this?
COMMENT: I unfortunately had to remove my relevant links here due to the fact that I apparently cannot post links in my posts until I will have 20 posts. That said, though, you can do a Google search to find the necessary information for this.
