Presidential Also-Rans Running Mates 2000 Part I: Gore-Lieberman Leslie H. Southwick This article is a pocket part of sorts to Judge Southwick’s Presidential Also-Rans Running Mates, 1788 through 1996 (McFarland 2d ed. 1998), a useful and readable, even browseable, book that should not be permitted to go out of date. This pocket part covers Democratic Party candidates Al Gore and Joe Lieberman. A second part, which will appear in our Spring 2004 issue, covers Green Party candidates Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke. – The Editors Nominations President – Winona LaDuke. This was the same ticket that had been nominated in 1996. Green Party Convention (2nd): June 24-25, Republican National Convention (37th): 2000, at Renaissance Hotel in Denver, July 31-August 3, 2000, at the First Union Cen- Colorado. There were about 300 delegates ter, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. President – representing 39 states. President – Ralph George W. Bush, nominated on the Õrst ballot Nader, nominated on the Õrst ballot with 295 after a four-day “rolling roll call” of states, with votes. Ten votes were cast for Stephen Gaskin, 2,058 votes. Alan Keyes received 6 votes, John described as an “aging hippie” who was some- McCain 1, and there was 1 abstention. Major what prominent in the 1960s counterculture of GOP candidates during the primaries were San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Gary Bauer (Va.), Gaskin wanted universal health care, Pat Buchanan (D.C.), Elizabeth Dole (N.C.), campaign Õnance reform, and to decriminal- Steve Forbes (N.J.), Alan Keyes (Md.), Orrin ize marijuana. Ten votes also were received by Hatch (Utah), John McCain (Ariz.), Dan Jello Biafra. Biafra’s actual name was Eric Quayle (Ind.), and Bob Smith (N.H.). Vice Boucher. He was the lead performer for a President – Dick Cheney, nominated on the punk rock group called Dead Kennedys. Vice Õrst ballot by acclamation. The four-day Leslie Southwick is a Presiding Judge on the Mississippi Court of Appeals. Copyright 2004 Leslie H. Southwick. 141 Leslie H. Southwick rolling vote for President had not yet been Los Angeles, California. President – Al Gore, completed on Wednesday, August 2, when nominated on the Õrst ballot with 4,328 votes; Cheney was nominated. That made the vice there were 9 abstentions. Bill Bradley (N.J.) presidential nomination Õnal before the was the only serious challenger during the presidential nomination was concluded. primaries. Vice President – Joe Lieberman, Reform Party National Convention (2nd): nominated by unanimous consent on the Õrst August 10-13, 2000, at the Long Beach, ballot. California, Convention Center. The party was undergoing a public and bitter factional Õght. General Election, One group, consisting of many of those who November 7, 2000 had supported Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996, felt that Patrick Buchanan was disqualiÕed Popular Vote because he initially ran as a Republican, then encouraged people who did not support the Al Gore-Joe Lieberman 50,996,064 Reform Party to vote for him in the pre- George W. Bush-Dick Cheney 50,456,167 convention mail balloting. Buchanan received Ralph Nader-Winona LaDuke 2,864,810 49,529 (64.4%) of the mail votes cast, and John Pat Buchanan-Ezola Foster 448,750 Hagelin claimed 28,539 votes (36.6%). A two- Others 615,138 thirds vote of the convention delegates could reject the mail ballot outcome. In the ensuing Electoral Vote parliamentary gridlock, those who would not Bush-Cheney 271 accept Buchanan left the convention. The Gore-Lieberman 2661 remaining delegates formally nominated Patrick Buchanan for president. Buchanan Winners chose Ezola Foster (Cal.) as his running mate. George W. Bush, 43rd President The bolters met nearby at the Long Beach Dick Cheney, 46th Vice President Performing Arts Center. This group nomi- nated John S. Hagelin (Iowa), who then chose Losers (at least 2% of vote) Nat Goldhaber (Cal.) for vice president. Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, Ralph Nader, Hagelin also ran as the nominee of the Natural Winona LaDuke Law Party. Hagelin’s group Õled a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, 2000 Presidential Nominee – charging that Pat Buchanan “hijacked” the Democratic Party Convention by blatant violation of procedural rules. The FEC declared in September that Al Gore Buchanan would receive the $12.6 million in federal campaign money to which the Reform Full Name: Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. Party was entitled because of the substantial State Represented: Tennessee. turnout for Ross Perot in 1996. Neither Birth: March 31, 1948, in Washington, D.C. Reform Party ticket drew signiÕcant general Age on Inauguration Day ( January 20, election support. 2001): 52 years, 9 1/2 months. Democratic National Convention (43rd): Education: Harvard University (1969 B.A. August 14-17, 2000, at the Staples Center, in government); attended Vanderbilt University 1 One D.C. elector chosen for Gore submitted a blank ballot. 142 7 Green Bag 2d 141 Presidential Also-Rans Running Mates 2000 Graduate School of Religion (1971-72); supply company. The parents divorced when attended Vanderbilt Law School (1974-76). Tipper was 14 months old; she was raised by Religion: Baptist. her mother and grandmother in Washington, Ancestry: Scots-Irish in some accounts, D.C. Tipper Gore is a social activist on mental Anglo-Irish in others. Distantly related to health and children’s issues, also a writer and blind U.S. Senator Thomas Gore of Okla- photographer. The Gores married on May 19, homa, who was Õrst elected in 1907, and that 1970. Senator Gore’s grandson, writer Gore Vidal. Children: Karenna (August 6, 1973- ) Occupation: Reporter (1971-76); in public married Dr. Andrew SchiÖ in 1997; she is a oÓce continuously (1977-2001). lawyer. Kristin ( June 5, 1977- ) is a writer in Public OÓces: United States House of Los Angeles. Sarah ( January 7, 1979- ). Albert Representatives (1977-1985); United States III (October 19, 1982- ). Senator (1985-1992); candidate for Democratic Historic Sites: Gore family farm lies near presidential nomination (1988); Vice President Carthage, Tennessee, and is still owned by (1993-2001); Democratic presidential nominee family and not open to public. Bust of Gore in (2000). Capitol along with those of other Vice Home: Carthage, Tennessee, and Washing- Presidents. ton, D.C. Movies: War Ro om (1994), a documentary Personal Characteristics: A ruggedly hand- about the 1992 Clinton campaign that also some, athletic man, with once-thick brown includes scenes involving Al Gore. hair thinning in middle age. He can be stiÖ and boring in public speaking, and awkwardly forced in his eÖorts to overcome that style. He is said to be engaging and witty in private. In 1970, Democratic United States Senator Al Father: Albert Arnold Gore, Sr. (December Gore, Sr. of Tennessee narrowly lost re- 26, 1907-December 5, 1998); United States election to conservative Republican congress- Representative, 1939-1953; United States man and candy fortune heir Bill Brock. Also Senator, 1953-1971. in 1970, Republican Congressman George Mother: Pauline LaFon (1912- ), daughter Bush tried to move up to the Senate, but lost of Walter and Maude LaFon. Walter was a narrowly to Democrat Lloyd Bentsen. The state highway department worker on occasion, senior Gore concluded a long political career and operated a general store in northwest with his 1970 defeat for the Senate. The senior Tennessee. Pauline Õrst married when she was Bush was just commencing his own lengthy 17, and divorced after less than a year. Married public service. The namesake son of each of Gore on May 15, 1937. She graduated from law these defeated 1970 Senate candidates would school but was unable to get a meaningful meet in electoral combat thirty years later for legal position. the highest oÓce in the country. Al Gore, Jr., Siblings: Nancy LaFon Gore ( January 23, and George W. Bush would, like their fathers 1938-July 11, 1984). Married attorney Frank in 1970, both experience in 2000 the prospect Hunger of Greenville, Mississippi. They had of apparent defeat. Unlike their fathers, each no children. 2000 candidate would be convinced that he Wife: Mary Elizabeth “Tipper” Aitcheson had won. Only one took up residence at 1600 (August 19, 1948- ). Her parents were Jack and Pennsylvania Avenue. It is the life story of the Margaret Carlson Aitcheson, owners of an other that will be examined here. Alexandria, Virginia plumbing and heating Al Gore, Jr., was born and raised in Green Bag • Winter 2004 143 Leslie H. Southwick Washington, D.C. Considering the nature of marrying a wealthy heiress, Peretz would politics, and especially Southern politics, become the publisher of the New Republic. He Washington roots are less than optimal. Thus would assiduously support his former student Gore’s ties to the Tennessee farm of his in its pages. parents were much more emphasized in At Harvard Gore also encountered a tutor political campaigns than his childhood on named Erich Segal, a classics instructor whose Embassy Row in the Fairfax Hotel, which in writings about campus life would become the the 1950’s advertised itself as “Washing ton’s movie Love Story. Gore as vice president would Family Hotel.” It is now the Westin Embassy stir controversy when he claimed that he and Row. Tipper were the models for the lead characters, The prestigious school for the sons of portrayed in the movie by Ryan O’Neal and Ali Wa shing ton’s elite was St. Albans, adjacent to McGraw. Segal said that Gore and Jones were the then-uncompleted National Cathedral in blended to form the male character, while the the northwest part of the District. The school author did not know Tipper well enough to had been started in the late 1800’s for the have borrowed from her background and choirboys at the cathedral, but well before personality.