Some other memories of the 2000 election:
* Bush had a comfortable lead of about 4% over Gore in all the major pre-election polls, until the weekend before the election a democratic operative pedaled a traffic citation from 1977 in which GWB had hit a mailbox in a single car accident. The MSM inferred this was evidence of drunken-driving and spent the entire 3 days before the election speculating on GWB’s alcohol habits on all major newcasts. This coordinated smear campaign is what made the election close.
* The Florida panhandle is in a later time zone than the rest of the state, and the panhandle counties are very heavily republican. The MSM all called Florida for Gore well before the polls closed in the panhandle counties, which had the effect of supressing voter turnout there. Statistical analysis has shown that this cost Bush 10s of thousands of votes which would have made the state not even close.
* I personally viewed the 2000 election as a bit of a political epiphany. Though I’d always been aware of the news media bias in analysis (a roundtable discussion panel would consists of a moderate republican and three democrats), I had always thought that facts were facts and all journalists were professional enough not to lie about basic facts. On election night 2000, my brother told me about a website called “Free Republic” that was posting actual unfiltered election information. A few weeks later, I was on a business trip to DC and joined a hardy group of Freepers outside the Naval Observatory in chanting ‘Out of Cheney’s House’. We made the local 11pm news and I was a hero at my business meeting the next day (at a defense contractor). Meanwhile, my 4 year old son made his liberal pre-school teacher’s head explode by drawing pictures of “Al Gore stealing elections” in class. By January 2001, I had forever cancelled my NPR subscription, and was lobbying my local cable company for Fox News.
Ah, the memories ...
Glad to have you on board Captain.
It’s great to hear all the stories of how people found FR.
Mine was from poo-pooing my son (adult) when he told me I should read one of Rush’s books. I started listen to Rush on the radio - and I found myself saying, “I can’t believe there’s anybody else in the would who believes like I do”. Needless to say, I was hooked. While listening to Rush, he started mentioning FR - curiously, I started searching for them on the internet.
I’ve been a member ever since.
Hope to see you again.
That is a great story, CaptainMorgantown...you must have been at Cheney’s house with the Trooprallys and their crowd (DC Chapter)...:)
i can not remember the news woman who said as the florida results came in for bush... “we lost florida”... she wasn’t reporting, but in the background walking by...
said a lot about the journalistic integrity of the election... to me.
t