Subject: How Gore Wins

Headline:
How Gore Wins

(DataLounge Editorial and Analysis
Thursday, 26 October 2000)

Text:
NEW YORK -- We might be forgiven for thinking that George W. Bush won the election weeks ago given the relentless assault of positive Bush media imagery flooding into our living rooms.

Bush-leaning pundits speak as if the election were already over, offering cheery assessments of Vice President Al Gore's unelectability and offering endless early post-mortems and critiques of his campaign.

I cannot count how many times I have turned on the television and flipped through cable outlets for news on the election only to hang my head in despair at the drumbeat of "double plus good news" on Bush's run for the White House.

For some reason that has yet to be adequately explained, the loudest and most watched pundits have declared that the closeness of the race benefits Bush; that a faltering and disjointed appearance in the last of three debates benefits Bush; that turmoil in the Middle East benefits Bush; that an unwillingness or inability to adequately reason out his policies benefits Bush. Well, the spin stops here.

George W. Bush has not won the election. The electorate is divided -- evenly. If people are having trouble embracing an aloof, boastful and stiffly overbearing Gore, a charge repeated ad nauseam in the media, it is equally true people are also having trouble putting a pampered village idiot in charge of the most powerful and influential country on earth. We just don't hear that take as often.

For the record, the race is now tied. Neither candidate enters the final stretch with a built-in advantage, despite the rank punditry spilling from your TV. The number of votes in the electoral college is neatly split down the middle (Gore can count on 204, Bush can count on 205, according to ABC News). States representing 129 votes in the electoral college are currently up for grabs. 270 are needed to win.

Yes, it is true that Gore's home state is too close to call and that Ralph Nader's candidacy is hurting Gore's prospects in Oregon and Washington. But in addition to his 204 base, Gore is doing well in Florida and Michigan, the two largest states in play. If Gore carries both of them, his home state of Tennessee, Wisconsin and just one of two New England states in which Bush is competitive, Gore carries the election.

Not an election night scenario you're likely to see presented on Fox News anytime soon.

This particular spread assumes Gore loses the states of Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, West Virginia, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, New Hampshire and New Mexico, which is a long bet no matter how it's sliced. The numbers can be juggled around quite a bit (Gore loses Michigan but wins in Washington and Oregon, for example), but Gore wins as long as one state remains in his column.

That state is Florida, the Sunshine State, the palm-tree dotted and air-conditioned haven for millions of the nation's retirees. And like many intelligent people who have been closely following this election, the Governor of Texas does nothing so much as scare the daylights out of them.

For all the whooping, hollering and stomping that calls to privatize Social Security provoke in high school auditoriums, voters 65 and older who rely on those monthly checks don't like hearing Bush's numbers aren't adding up. And they also aren't buying that Gore is using "fuzzy math" to scare them into the voting booth.

They know a pile of hokum when they see it, and the crown prince of the Republican party is giving it to them in spades.

The New York Times reports Thursday that while new statewide polls in Florida give Gore a statistically insignificant two point lead in the state (44 percent to 42 percent), seniors give the Vice President a 10 point edge on his Republican rival (49 percent to 39 percent).

While the remainder of the state's electorate is about evenly divided between the two, seniors, who make up about a third of those who actually vote in the state, may tie the state up for the Vice President.

Combined with large Democratic turnouts in key battleground states, this election is anything but over. And for all their bluster and over-confidence, Gov. Bush's folks know that all too well.

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