If Gore Hadn't Depended Too Much On His Advisors, could he have beaten *

[Sinistrous]

by a wider margin? I read his speech and saw the streaming video. (1) I actually like him now as an orator.(2) I supported him in 2000 b/c i didn't want *, but I thought Bradley was a better speaker, even though he was a weak candidate.(3). If he hadn't relied on Brazile & Co. about the earth-tones and debate conduct, maybe he could have survived the conservative slander against him.(4) Their attacks on Gore were largely due to fumbles that originated amongst his staff.(5)

NOTE: This is a reissue of mot78's post of the same title, reformatted to conform to the temporary posting guidelines of the GD forum. I have taken this step because of the importance of the discussion on the effect and impact of advisors on the Gore campaign and on campaigns in general.

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[RandomKoolzip]

1. He did beat Bush.

If it weren't for the ad hominem attacks from the media, paid for by Bush's own team, Gore could have won by a much wider margin. As it stands, Gore won, but Bush cheated.

[Sinistrous]

3. The question is:

What if Gore (or the Gore campaign staff)had aggressively rebutted the Rovian lies that were spread about him? Gore's handler's recommended that he stay above the fray, so to speak, and hope that the electorate would somehow see the falsity of the lies, while Gore maintained a "presidential demeanor".

So, were all the voters that COULD have been convinced aware of the truth, or would have rebuttals swayed more voters to his side?

[rock]

6. And since the bush*sucks team was bound

to steal the election at whatever cost, Gore's actions don't mean much. In short, no, it didn't matter.

[liberalnurse]

2. Yea, what he said....

We all know Gore won.....he did not get beaten.

[trumad]

4. Earth Tones?

The first indicator that you are not a Disciple of Bob Somerby and the Daily Howler. Sinistrous, please head over to the Howler, grab a cold beer, sit back and read Bob's incomparable archives.

If you take the time to do this, you will be deprogrammed from the cult know as "Media Whoreness"... I promise..;-)

[Sinistrous]

7. This was a mere restatement

of a thread composed by another.

Even so, Your message is a bit cryptic. Could you explain whatever point you are trying to make in more commonly known terms?

And since Somerby's mission is exposing Media Whoredom, I take that you think I am not already well aware of that phenomenon? To put it mildly, trumad, I am insulted.

[stickdog]

5. Yes.

And just think how well he could have done had his advisors not depended so much on Karl Rove.

[birdman]

8. Always the victim

Al never does anything wrong :

1) It was the media - they all hated him.

2) It was his advisors - I think somebody should smack the
daylights out of the person who hired those advisors.

3) It was the DLC - they thought he was too populist

4) It was the Pubbies who had the nerve to use Al's own statements
as (gasp) "talking points".

5) It was Karl Rove who had infiltrated Al's advisors.

6) It was the party who didn't stand behind him in the recount.

It was everybody but Al.

[Sinistrous]

10. Personally, I think Gore wimped out in 2000 and it cost him several states

The question is, would a more agressive response to media lies have made a significant difference in the outcome of the election.

[Cheswick2.0]

38. blah blah blah

we all know how much you hate Gore. One would think you have stock in the BFEE if one didn't know you were such a loyal democrat.

[ObaMania]

9. I think yes.

Although he did beat * he would have kicked his ass had he not relied on his damn daughter and her "branding" crap along with those focus groups to fine tune and "reinvent" him.

[trumad]

11. See here we go again...

First off Gore won the election by 500,000 votes, and garnered more votes that any Democrat in history. Second: When Gore started his campaign against Bush he was 15 percentage points behind George Dubya Bush. But ya know what happened... He made up for that and won by those er.... 500, 000 votes....

Now what did he have to do to do all that.... WELL...He had to go through what was probably the biggest smear, lie campain in the history of Journalisim. The Ho's were so effective in their campaign that even today, knuckleheads like you folks above still spout their horseshit!

So keep spouting your misinformed bullshit and keep looking like the fools that you are!

[Sinistrous]

12. Am I reading you correctly?

You seem to be upset that people are saying that Gore was too much in thrall to his advisors and handlers, when you know something different.

The fact is that Gore was way too passive in the face of the torrent of lies spewed against him.

Apparently you have some information about the true source of that phenomenon. Would you please share that information with us? Was it a command decision by Gore himself?

[sangha]

14. Yes, it was Gore's decision

There have been numerous reports about how Gore disregarded the advice he was given to

1) go on the attack
2) fight for the recount
3) make better use of Clinton

Gore chose to ignore this advice. He won anyway

[Terwilliger]

13. The DLC tried to manage Gore and he looked like an idiot

and you seem to have a thing

[trumad]

15. When a Green speaks does anybody listen

Stay out of this Greenie....

And again...for you knuckleheads who are to lazy to research the Media Ho lies here's a nice link from the howler about those Earth Tones.

http://www.google.com/custom?q=earth+tones&cof=AH%3Acenter%3BAWFID%3Ac32a032061318778%3B&domains=dailyhowler.com&sitesearch=dailyhowler.com

[Sinistrous]

16. We are all aware of the media lies, trumad.

The issue is the lack of rebuttals by Gore and his campaign. Could you possibly comment on that, and, if it is not asking too much, would you mind taking a whack at the questions addressed to you above?

[edward]

35. "Stay out of this Greenie"

A Gore supporter shows his character.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

17. AL did fine in the campaign, it was the recount battle that killed him

I firmly believe if he had gotten a better recount strategy lined up on Nov. 8, he would have won. The GOP had better lawyers, and they ran out the clock. :-(

[NewYorkerfromMass]

18. whaaa....Did I kill this thread?

[Touchdown]

19. Join the club.

I seem to be a thread killer too, which is why my post count is so low.:P

[Touchdown]

20. He did win, but could've been much better.

Like others have said, he could've gone on the attack and defended himself from the Repug attacks...People love candidates that fight back. If you don't, they start to believe their true. He also shouldn't have run away fromn Clinton, and his 8 years of success.

But...and I'll probably get flamed for this...he should've gotten somebody else than Lieberman. I think Lieberman was a detriment to Gore's campaign. What do most liberals hear when they see a politician railing about morality, family values and other social wedge issues like that? I see pitchforks and torches, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Here we have Cheney, who stands by his lesbian daughter, and comes out in favor of Gay rights, and even supports gay marriage on MTP (whether he believes it or not is irrelevant...he said it). Then...as soon as Lieberman is named running mate, he starts railing on Hollywood, screaming about the sex and violence that they peddle, demanding that they "clean up your act!" Then we get onto a bunch of touchy-feely "family hour" episodes where he talks about this mystical "traditional values" while smugly sitting by a fireplace with his wife.

The result...25% of gays and lesbians voted for GWB*. How many of just these guys left because Holy Joe just couldn't shut up about it? How many women were turned off? How many pro-choicers saw too much into the "values" rhetoric, because they've been burned before? Nobody knows. But IMHO, with a better running mate, Gore would've taken a couple of more states and made Florida irrelevant.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

21. good point, why he didn't pick Bob Graham is beyond me

and I am sure he was in the running. :shrug:

[dolstein]

22. What makes you think he depended on his advisors?

It's not as if his advisors -- who Gore hired and was paying, after all -- held a gun to his head or had some compromising photos of him.

Sorry, but if you don't like how a candidate ran a race, blame the candidate. He's the one who decides whether or not to follow the advice of his advisors.

[sangha]

25. You are very wrong

Al Gore is a wonderful candidate, therefore he could not have made any mistakes. If mistakes were made, they were made by those disgusting advisors that Gore was forced (by the DLC, of course) to hire (and of course, this happened before Gore became a "populist")

[Sinistrous]

26. Interesting point.

But if a candidate were expert in all aspects of campaigning, he or she would not feel a need to hire advisors, would they?

It seems plausable that a candidate hires advisors because he or she feels a need for their expertise on aspects of the campaign and might actually adopt their recommendations because he or she believes in their competence.

[sangha]

32. The answer is "No"

But if a candidate were expert in all aspects of campaigning, he or she would not feel a need to hire advisors, would they?

There's only 24 hours in a day. When the candidate is on the road, someone has to mind the shop. The candidate can't do everything.

[Sinistrous]

34. sangha, that was a rhetorical question

to which the answer is obviously "no". It has meaning only in the context of dolstein's assertion that "He's (i.e. the candidate) the one who decides whether or not to follow the advice of his advisors."

I still hope to have dolstein clarify his statement.

[sangha]

36. my bad

carry on

[Terwilliger]

27. BULLSHIT

Your DLC friends wanted him to act like a prefect little centrist and IT DIDNT WORK!

You people should be shunned by the party as having caused the loss of the Congress and the presidency. GO THEE HENCE!

[SEAburb]

23. Yes, Gore grew up in politics.

He just needed to follow his instincts. His team relied to much on focus groups, that is why they chose Lieberman. Gore should have asked Clinton to campaign for him in the NE and west coast, which his team opposed.

One thing that Gore's team should get credit for is his "toxic Texan" campaign. When the Gore team started running the ads, all the media laughed at them, saying nobody is interested in this issue, it isn't even in the top ten issues that concern voters. But by election day Gore had made it a top three issue.

[grasswire]

24. honestly....

...I don't think Donna Brazile is that effective a strategist or communicator. I've never seen her really on top of the game, really assertive. Her style seems to be to react to things, not to seize opportunities. If you watch her on television, she sort of sits back and watches the others and is very low key. A presidential candidate needs someone whose every sense is on overdrive and who tries to be 6 steps ahead of the competitor.

[SEAburb]

28. yes, I agree about Donna

but it goes beyond Donna. The whole team seemed to be playing from the same book, except for Al's family.

[seventhson]

29. Gore Bashing Again?

I'm with Trumad. It is disgusting and is one of the reasons Gore did not win bigger. It is the infiltrtation of the "dems" by those who actually are intent on misinforming and spinning things Bush's way. We are vicitims of it here and we will be in the future by those posing as lefties and dems. It is one of the oldest spook ploys. Lead and mislead the opposition.

I happen tpo be pretty close to sme folks inside the Gore campaign and I can say without any hesitation whatsoever that Gore's advisors inclkuded Rove plants, unbeknownst to Gore. Any candidate needs advbise and help on issues and strategy and logistics. Key advisors can screw you up. leak things that are damaging or which can be spun, they can withhold info from you - and they can convince you to do things that ultmately will hurt you if you are not aware that they are spooks.

One example is IMHO, the Begalas. Paul Begala was a media/lobbying/PR business partner with KARL Rove's PR main man, who is also an old friend of Begala's and whom Begala advised to go to work for Bush (his name is Mark McKinnon and Public Strategies is the PR firm repping Rove/Bush where Begala was a key player). \For that reason I do not trust Begala one iota. Begala's sister RAN Gore's PR operations. D'Ya think....?

I discovered this after researching it because of Begala's dis of CynthiaMcKinney (a serious Rovian operation to get her, man) and Begala was part of it.


In any event I think there were many at the top who did everything they could to hurt Gore while pretending to be on his side. Clinton was among them IMHO. Clinton screwed Al ROYALLY and Al knew it. As a matter of integrity Gore tried to stay above that sh*t.

But I agree with the premise of the question - Gore probably listened and was persuaded by spooks in his campaign to take courses of action that harmed him. He tried to win honestly and without fighting dirty. But that appeared as if he was walked all over. I admire his principles, but I would say Gore's chief mistake in judgment was underestimatng the degree of corruption around him and in politics and so he would know you cannopt trust ANYBODY (with few exceptions)

I'd say his daughters were probably the only ones he could trust and they gave him damn good advice.

Abnd I hope and pray he changes his mind and comes back in to help us all defeat Bush and undo the harm that we are suffering daily. It sucks without you, Al!!!

[trumad]

30. 15 points down at the beginning and still wins by 500,000 votes

You can say this until you turn Blue but the knuckleheads up above keep claiming that he lost because of his advisors...

It seems to me that he won hence his advisors seemed to work. Again, for the hard of understanding...15 points down at the beginning and he comes back and wins by 500,000 votes...

It's like the Patriots upsetting the Rams a couple of seasons ago... They weren't expected to win and they were big underdogs.... As a matter of fact the point spread might have been around 15 points... But they won in an upset... So with the knucklehead logic they came from being underdogs to winners and it was the er...assistant coaches fault!

See how goofy that is and that's why I don't get you knuckleheads... You're dissing Gore's Handlers for helping Gore overcome a 15 point deficit and winning the election. :shrug:

[Sinistrous]

31. Woah, friend.

You just gave us some of the background I was looking for. I agree that Gore had really poor advice almost throughout the campaign. I was not aware, however, that Rovian moles were inserted into the campaign staff. Although there was that little shmooze session between Donna Brazil and Karl Rove awhile back that popped into the news for a few seconds.

Regarding trumad's point (if I am reading him correctly: I think it is common knowledge that the media smear job on Gore had a distinct Rovian stink to it. That smear did not ORIGINATE in the newsrooms, the media whores were merely spear chuckers.

[gasperc]

33. oh ..c. Gore did win the election!

Bush cheated in Florida and God knows where else, Gore was outspent by over 60%

In Seminole county Florida, the last county to report during the recount, the total votes cast in the recount exceeds the original votes cast by 620 votes. In precinct 28 alone, 429 votes appear out of nowhere. They didn't recount actual or unreadable ballots, they ADDED ballots during the recount!!! Thus giving the impression that Bush "won" the recount. The net 98 votes Bush got in Seminole county is crap.

[Cheswick2.0]

37. he did say , before he dropped out (or never dropped in)

that this time he would do it his way, he would have a different group of people and he did Dis the DLC by not showing up at last years suck up festival....even though he was in town at the time.