More
HenchPAC NewsMcWherter: Early voting cost Gore state. Ex-governor also blames veep for loss
UNION CITY, Tenn. -- Former Gov. Ned McWherter says Tennessee's early voting period cost Al Gore his home state, and that cost him the presidency.
A record 750,000 Tennesseans -- nearly 25 percent of the state's 3.1 million
registered voters -- cast ballots during the 15 days of early voting that ended
Nov. 2, five days before the traditional Election Day.
"I think that's where the Republicans got the edge on Gore. They
smelled an opportunity for victory in Tennessee and put resources in here to do
it with," McWherter told the Union City Daily Messenger.
He said Republicans had TV, radio and print ads throughout the state
during early voting and "blanketed the state" with yard signs.
Not so the Democrats.
McWherter said they didn't get ads on the air featuring him and Tennessee
Titans running back Eddie George until two days before early voting ended.
Yard signs touting Gore were tough to find, too.
McWherter, a Democrat like Gore, also blamed Gore for his home state loss.
He said he suggested several years ago that the vice president with presidential
aspirations spend more time in Tennessee -- at political hot spots like Mule Day
in Columbia and the World's Biggest Fish Fry in Paris.
The advice went unheeded, and the price was paid when Gore lost a Tennessee
election for the first time in his 24-year political career.
McWherter, a popular two-term governor, Tennessee's Democratic elder statesman,
longtime Gore family friend and former adviser to President Clinton, said the
vice president could have learned from his boss.
"With all of Bill Clinton's problems, you'll see his picture in the
Memphis paper and the Little Rock paper where he'll be coming out of a duck
blind," McWherter said. "He's stayed in contact with Arkansas, and
that was important."
McWherter said he saw how Tennesseans felt about Gore's absence during the
first stop of a bus tour on the vice president's behalf in Johnson County, a
very Republican area of East Tennessee.
"They told me, 'Ned, we're glad to see you. You're always welcome
here. You're our friend and always will be. But we haven't seen or heard from Al
Gore since 1992.'"
Gore, who won all 95 Tennessee counties during his senatorial re-election
in 1990, became Clinton's running mate two years later.
McWherter also blamed Gore's national campaign officials for failing to
recognize the importance of Tennessee and its quirky electorate, where no
Democrat or Republican can get elected statewide without independent voters'
support. "It just failed to recognize that Tennessee is a basic
middle-of-the-road, moderate, independent, majority control state," the
former governor said.
McWherter, governor from 1987 to 1995, was quick to add that he doesn't
blame Tennessee Democrats.
"But they obviously didn't have enough clout with Gore's national
campaign to get funds allocated for radio and TV spots and newspaper ads and
yard signs."
Substantially less money was spent in this campaign than in 1992 and
1996."
McWherter also said Gore should have ended the battle for Florida's key 25
electoral votes much sooner.
"I thought Gore should have made a concession speech before it went to the Supreme Court.
HENCH adds: Just the beginning of the "Blame-Al" campaign by Democrats to assure that he ISN'T the nominee next time. Face it, if the loser couldn't win his home state, blaming it on early voters, or lack of yard signs, is missing the real problem. People who KNOW Al Gore would never vote for him.
More
HenchPAC News
[ Home ] [ News ] [ Products ]
To leave HENCH a message,
comment, or link: