How did Gore not win comfortably?

[pbrower2a]

I also fault Joe Lieberman. Couldn't he have spent more time in New Hampshire, a state very close to Connecticut? To be sure New Hampshire isn't quite Connecticut, Lieberman's state, but it could have been enough. Much is said of Gore winning had Florida played out honestly, but when you face a cheating opponent you had better find ways to thwart the cheat.

Gore, I think, could have spent some time in West Virginia, a state which then was decidedly liberal on economic issues. Arkansas? Bill Clinton was still popular there. Tennessee? The Favorite Son effect is worth at least ten points in the polls if one doesn't throw it away as Gore did. Any one of those would have won the 2000 election for Gore had he won any one of them.

Florida was the political equivalent of the lions' den: the Republican nominee's brother was governor, and anything that Jeb Bush could do to help his brother without getting caught... he was going to do.

The political dynamics of 2000 were very similar to those that stared Barack Obama in the early autumn of 2008, when Obama had to win one of a handful of states to win the election outright. Obama played the game masterfully with a scattershot approach, forcing his opponent to defend everything. Obama won, of course -- comfortably -- because he chose a strategy that would beat a cheat.

Say what you want about Florida... but when you play poker with a cheat who has friends in the management of the casino, you had better find some other table if you can't leave the casino.

[pbrower2a]

I also fault Joe Lieberman. Couldn't he have spent more time in New Hampshire, a state very close to Connecticut? To be sure New Hampshire isn't quite Connecticut, Lieberman's state, but it could have been enough.

On the other hand, if not for Lieberman's pull with Jewish voters, Florida would have a clear, controversy-free win for Bush.

This, though, may have been the only meaningful contribution Lieberman made to the ticket.  Why would Al Gore NOT choose a running-mate with some charisma, given his own deficiences in that department?

Right. I also think that it was a huge blunder for Gore to bet everything on Florida , especially considering that Dubya's brother was Governor of Florida. The temptation for electoral fraud was high, so it would have made good sense to ensure that GOP vote fraud (if such in fact happened, and it cannot be repudiated) would have been pointless. Perhaps Gore underestimated how corrupt the Rove/Bush clique was; heck, if these fellows signed off on the "black baby" canard against a primary opponent, what would be too low for them? 

I can say this: had Gore picked up even one state with at least four electoral votes, then he would have also won Florida because nobody would have had an incentive to cheat.

Gore could have campaigned in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri; any one of those would have won the election. Was Clinton influence that weak that the incumbent President couldn't have pulled Arkansas? Lieberman could have also campaigned in Ohio, a state that (like Florida) also has lots of Jews and was also close in 2000.

When the opposition is as ruthless and amoral as the Rove/Bush clique one must play "Beat the Cheat".  One must put that opposition on the defensive everywhere that it can be put on the defensive. I contrast Obama in 2008, who took no such chance. Maybe McCain was not as ruthless and amoral as the Rove/Bush clique... but that was not a chance worth taking.

It could be that Joe Lieberman was a bad choice as a VP nominee. Connecticut was never in doubt, and John Edwards might have picked off one of the states that Clinton had won but neither Gore, Kerry, nor Obama has since won. "You go for Southern moderate populists and I'll go for Yankee liberals" might have made good sense in the 2000 election.

[pbrower2a]

I also fault Joe Lieberman. Couldn't he have spent more time in New Hampshire, a state very close to Connecticut? To be sure New Hampshire isn't quite Connecticut, Lieberman's state, but it could have been enough.

On the other hand, if not for Lieberman's pull with Jewish voters, Florida would have a clear, controversy-free win for Bush.

This, though, may have been the only meaningful contribution Lieberman made to the ticket.  Why would Al Gore NOT choose a running-mate with some charisma, given his own deficiences in that department?

Right. I also think that it was a huge blunder for Gore to bet everything on Florida , especially considering that Dubya's brother was Governor of Florida. The temptation for electoral fraud was high, so it would have made good sense to ensure that GOP vote fraud (if such in fact happened, and it cannot be repudiated) would have been pointless. Perhaps Gore underestimated how corrupt the Rove/Bush clique was; heck, if these fellows signed off on the "black baby" canard against a primary opponent, what would be too low for them? 

I can say this: had Gore picked up even one state with at least four electoral votes, then he would have also won Florida because nobody would have had an incentive to cheat.

...

For what's worth, Bob Shrum said last summer that in hindsight, the time and money they spent on Tennessee, should have spent on New Hampshire.

Also, as Chuck Todd said, West Virginia in 2000 was something similar with Indiana in 2008. A reliably Democratic/Republican state who nobody believed was in danger, until it was too late. 

Gore should have campaigned in New Hampshire, Ohio, and West Virginia. West Virginia should have been an easy state in which to campaign because it is one of the most unionized states in America; the UMW would gladly have bussed mineworkers and their families to Gore rallies.  By winning either, Gore would have succeeded at the strategy of beating the cheat and wouldn't have needed Florida. New Hampshire? You bring busloads of canvassers from New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey into New Hampshire where they can do some good.

If one can make campaign stops in West Virginia, one can also make them in Ohio. Really, Ohio is an easy state in which to campaign because it is so compact with population concentrated heavily in seven metropolitan areas (Cleveland, Toledo, Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus, Akron, and Youngstown).  Anyone who wants a political crowd can hardly find a better place than Ohio.

Here's one of the ironies: West Virginia and new Hampshire are separated by about a one-hour trip by jet. Neither state is glamorous, to be sure, but neither should have been ignored.

Non-partisan polls are the only reliable source of knowledge of how states are doing in a Presidential race.  Don't dispute them; work to change the results.