Bradley 2000?

According to this, Gore might have had a bad scare from Bradley. I don't think Bradley would come anywhere near the nomination. After all, the entire national machinery would Blitzkrieg him a dozen times over, but how serious could Bradley's challenge have been?
 
Probably not very; Bradley is very smart (good thing in a potential President) but talks way over people's heads. Like Adlai Stevenson without the cynicism, or a modern day Bobby Kennedy. But 2000 is not 1968 - Bobby got the benefit of the doubt because people usually assumed politicians were honest and moral, more or less. People assume the opposite today, so being incomprehensible leads to major losses.

The "entire national machinery" can't stop a candidate with popular support. But Bradley can't build popular support.
 
The fundamental problem with Bradley is less his wonkishness, and more his appeal. His ideology is much closer to Gore than Jesse Jackson. The point is that he is an articulate, intelligent, and experienced New Democrat. If anything, he hails from the same "technocrat" strain as Gary Hart. But unlike Hart, 2000 is not 1984. Gore is obviously also a New Democrat, and with much higher name recognition and national support. The best Bradley could have done was to run really hard in New Hampshire and hope Gore screws up really badly. I seriously wonder if Bradley wanted to win, or if he just wanted to prove a point.
 
The fundamental problem with Bradley is less his wonkishness, and more his appeal. His ideology is much closer to Gore than Jesse Jackson.

This misses the point of 2000, which was less about any kind of massive policy debate so much as it was about Clinton fatigue. Bradley ran against Gore to his left as a campaign finance reformer and outsider, and that could have had a lot of appeal; Gore was not an especially strong candidate that year and Bradley could easily have given him a run for his money had he won New Hampshire.

The problem with Bradley was two-fold: he had a broadly shit campaign in which Gore hammered him most of the time, and McCain's run was just a lot more interesting to people, especially the media, as an outsider run than Bradley's was. Give Bradley a better primary campaign, give Gore a few mis-steps, and knock the head on McCain completely and he would have given Gore a fight. I don't think he would have won - it was probably impossible for him to win, because Gore pinned down pretty much the whole range of Democratic endorsements early on - but he could have been competitive at least up to Super Tuesday. That wouldn't do Gore any favours in the general though; he was already playing catchup to Bush IOTL.
 
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Well yes and no to Clinton. Of course there was fatigue over the scandals, but not the prosperity, which is affiliated with Gore. Had a more liberal, or even a more conservative candidate run, there would have been more room to maneuver.
 
Well yes and no to Clinton. Of course there was fatigue over the scandals, but not the prosperity, which is affiliated with Gore.

You make my point for me: there wasn't a big debate on things like the economy, because it was doing so well. The big theme of that cycle was on cleaning up the White House. Bradley and McCain ran on that, and Bush ultimately won on it. Gore famously hardly ever really made an issue of the economy at any stage in that election, lest the policy connection to Clinton be made. Clinton was the ghost of Banquo at that election.
 
You make my point for me: there wasn't a big debate on things like the economy, because it was doing so well. The big theme of that cycle was on cleaning up the White House. Bradley and McCain ran on that, and Bush ultimately won on it. Gore famously hardly ever really made an issue of the economy at any stage in that election, lest the policy connection to Clinton be made. Clinton was the ghost of Banquo at that election.

Good point. I still think that had Gore run a "take it or leave it" campaign with a focus on peace, progress, and prosperity, that he would have won.
 
I remember watching Sunday interview shows in late 99 or early 2000 and I assume the same reporter asked Bush and Bradley who was thier political hero. Bush said Jesus Christ. Bradley said Gorbachev. I remember thinking back on that circa 2001 when I was talking to a former Bradley supporter. I told him that if Bradley won the nomination, we would have gone to bed a lot earlier on the election night.
 
I remember watching Sunday interview shows in late 99 or early 2000 and I assume the same reporter asked Bush and Bradley who was thier political hero. Bush said Jesus Christ. Bradley said Gorbachev. I remember thinking back on that circa 2001 when I was talking to a former Bradley supporter. I told him that if Bradley won the nomination, we would have gone to bed a lot earlier on the election night.

What does this have to do with Bradley's religion? Was he a closet agnostic or atheist?
 
It's not that he wasn't religious, it's just that he didn't combine faith and politics which would hurt in 2000.
 
Good point. I still think that had Gore run a "take it or leave it" campaign with a focus on peace, progress, and prosperity, that he would have won.

This is what is commonly suggested, but the actual analysis is a little ambiguous. For example, it's pretty clear based on the response data that a more active intervention of Bill Clinton personally in the campaign would have discouraged more swing voters from voting for Gore than it would have brought on board.

Gore certainly lost that campaign, but despite all that he all but essentially won the election anyway. If a few more chads had dropped, we would probably be praising his strategy now. Fate is fickle.
 
This is what is commonly suggested, but the actual analysis is a little ambiguous. For example, it's pretty clear based on the response data that a more active intervention of Bill Clinton personally in the campaign would have discouraged more swing voters from voting for Gore than it would have brought on board.

Gore certainly lost that campaign, but despite all that he all but essentially won the election anyway. If a few more chads had dropped, we would probably be praising his strategy now. Fate is fickle.

Sure is. What's amazing is that Bush led for most of the race until the DUI bomb dropped. It really poked a huge hole in his message of a moral White House. At that point the Gore campaign had it all. If they had put a little more effort in Ohio and Florida they could have won. Even New Hampshire. Really a blown opportunity that should make any Democrat scared of Obama using Bill Daley as a campaign adviser.
 
Keep McCain out of the GOP contest, and New Hampshire breaks for Bradley, who then has momentum and can raise the money to perform well later, though still losing South Carolina.

Bradley, if he can get the Democratic nomination, has a different political calculus than would have Gore in the selection of running mates and an overall campaign strategy. Butterflies suggest further that the prospects of a Buchanan candidacy could weaken those of minor parties. Bradley could win in a squeaker against Bush IMO, but the outcome will be clearer than in our timeline.
 
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