What if...Gore had been elected president?

Bullshit.

Al Gore in 2002:

(A)ll Americans should acknowledge that Iraq does indeed pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf region, and we should be about the business of organizing an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.
(snip)
Indeed, should we decide to proceed, our action can be justified within the framework of international law rather than requiring us to go outside the framework of international law. In fact, even though a new United Nations resolution might be helpful in the effort to forge an international consensus, I think it's abundantly clear that the existing U.N. resolutions passed 11 years ago are completely sufficient from a legal standpoint so long as it is clear that Saddam Hussein is in breach of the agreements made at the conclusion of the Persian Gulf War.

 

1. Higher standards for anyone not living in the White House.

2. OMG, please don't scare us like that. Souter? The court jester of eminant domain?

 

To save us a lot of time . . .

I'll see your Al Gore quote in 2002, and raise you weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq in 2003.

And that goes for the other 834 pre-2003 quotes you have saved.

 

And wanted revenge so bad in 2004, he couldn't muster the courage to run.

 

Lets not forget that Gore was on hand for 8 years when Clinton tied the hands of the CIA. Who knows how his foreign policy would have shaped up? (Would another Madeline Albright have been better than Condi Rice?) I don't know.

Katrina still would've been a royal cluster at the local and state levels. (Or does anyone not remember Mayor Chocolate saying everybody who left the city had their chance and there were only a few people in the Superdome?) You may argue the federal response would've been better run (ice trucks from across the country and whatnot), but there is no way to know for sure how that would've worked out.

Agreed that instead of Alito and Roberts we would've had a more liberal supreme court.

 

If Gore were elected in 2000:

Sept. 11 would still have happened. We would have still gone into Afghanistan after Bin Laden. We would have not gone into Iraq on the ground. We would still be using sanctions, and occasional bombing raids to show Saddam that we are still watching him.

The Republicans would have held onto Congress, as voters wouldn't have been so mad at them because of Iraq and Bush. Katrina response would have been better, no 'Heckuva jobs'.

Gore would have been reelected, although it would have been close. Repubs wouldn't have been able to attack him for his patriotism, like other Dems, because we did go into Afganistan. They wouldn't have been able to blame him for 9/11, because the wounds would still have been fresh. Repubs would spend most of their time attacking him for his environmental views and trying to rally their voters around gay marriage opposition.

Economy would have been roughly the same for 99 percent of the population. The richest 1 percent would have less money to spend on their limos.

And like others said here, there would be more liberal votes on the Supreme Court.

 

I agree that 9/11 would have happened and I do think he would have been reelected in 2004 but not because of his abilities, more so because at that point people who voted for Bush (IMO) were doing so to "support theiir war-time president",

I think the Republicans would have made a big deal out of 9/11 in the debates because Bush did against Kerry. He used the war and argued that the country is safer with the person in charge already vs. the insecurity of bringing in an unknown person and it hit home for a lot of people. That's why I think Gore would have easily won again.

So where would we be today? I think gas prices would still be high, but not $4 high. I think you'd still be looking at Obama winning the Dem seat but with a much harder road to the White House because his credentials would be much more tightely evaluated.

The Republicans would probably still be running with McCain or, if something strange happened, might be going with Jeb Bush or Romney in this election.

I still say Obama wins in November to the tune of 65% of the electoral vote. Had Gore come in following the 2K election, Obama would have probably gone in with slightly more than 50%.

Oh, and in my heart I believe the dollar would be much stronger. The environment? I don't tthink people would have cared any less/any more. Except, of course, for the man in charge.

 

Katrina would have never happened because Al Gore would have fixed global warming.

 

Yeah, but it seemed like they were just taking a break for political expediency. By the end of 2001, they were already starting to slip some shots in again.

Seems like we're coming to a consensus that 9/11 would've happened no matter who was in charge. If that's the case, I don't think Gore would've survived a re-election bid in '04. Once the 9/11 report came out, and the number of shots we had to capture bin Laden in the 1990s came to light, Republicans would've tied Gore to Clinton. How could he survive that?
Especially if McCain, who didn't run in 2004 simply because there was a Republican in the White House, had run on his maverick reputation and a platform of "there's a new sheriff in town"?

 

I agree that he probably would not have seen a second term, even if it was for no reason other than people got sick of having a democrat in the office for 12 straight years, which is part of the reason why Clinton was elected in the first place.

 

Agreed on all counts.
But we don't get the Bush tax cuts, so would the economy have recovered as quickly as it did after 9/11? I have my doubts. We certainly would be in the same energy mess, because nobody, Democrat or Republican, moved on that before oil started to skyrocket.

 

Federal money once earmarked for the levees were diverted . . . to Iraq.

Would that have happened had Gore been elected?