Gore VP pick without Monica

If the whole Monica Lewinsky affair hadn't blown up, who would Gore have chosen for VP? Certainly not Lieberman who had no pull or buzz and only got picked because he was the religious moral scould of the Senate and Gore wanted to run as far away from Clinton as possible.
 
If the whole Monica Lewinsky affair hadn't blown up, who would Gore have chosen for VP? Certainly not Lieberman who had no pull or buzz and only got picked because he was the religious moral scould of the Senate and Gore wanted to run as far away from Clinton as possible.
Lieberman was also picked to court the Jewish vote in Florida, but the Elian Gonzalez Affair turned Cuban voters against the Democrats. On Gore's shortlist were John Kerry, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, Evan Bayh, and Jeanne Shaheen. Lieberman and Kerry were the top two because they balanced the ticket geographically. Gore didn't want to repeat Clinton's strategy of two southerners on the same ticket, so that's why Edwards fell to third. Edwards and Bayh had also only been US Senators since 1999, invoking questions of their experience. When Cheney was announced as Bush's VP nominee, Shaheen fell to the bottom because, while she was experienced as a governor on the state level, she was considered inexperienced on defense. Had Gore picked Kerry, Gephardt, Bayh, or Shaheen, and campaigned with Clinton in Arkansas, Tennessee, and New Hampshire, Florida wouldn't have mattered. Kerry and Shaheen would have helped in New Hampshire, Gephardt would have helped in Missouri, Arkansas, and Tennessee, while Bayh would have helped in Ohio and Kentucky. John Edwards maybe would have saved Tennessee and made Virginia closer, but that's hard to say.
 
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