I.

Introduction

Al Gore, born in 1948, vice president of the United States (1993-2001) under President Bill Clinton, the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2000 election, and co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. In one of the closest and most disputed elections in U.S. history, Gore and his running mate, Senator Joseph Lieberman, were defeated by the Republican ticket of Texas governor George W. Bush and his running mate, Dick Cheney. Gore actually won the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes out of more than 105 million votes cast nationwide. He lost the electoral vote, however; after five weeks of legal wrangling, Gore failed to overturn election results that gave the state of Florida, with 25 electoral votes, to Bush. Gore was the first presidential candidate since 1888 to win the popular vote and yet lose the electoral vote.

Gore represented Tennessee for eight years in the U.S. House of Representatives (1977-1985) and for another eight in the U.S. Senate (1985-1993). In Congress, he compiled a moderate-to-liberal voting record and a reputation as a fervent environmentalist. Clinton granted Gore unprecedented influence as vice president, giving him leading roles in U.S.-Russian relations, telecommunications policy, reform of the federal bureaucracy, and environmental protection. Gore also stood loyally beside Clinton during the president’s 1998 impeachment, emerging as one of his staunchest defenders. Besides Bush, Gore’s main opponents in the 2000 presidential race were consumer activist Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate, and political commentator Pat Buchanan, who ran on the Reform Party ticket.