A smidgeon of history provided free for nothing to journalists and other interested parties

The Associated Press printed this story today about Al Gore going to the White House for the traditional congratulations by the President for winning the Nobel Prize. Of course, instead of reporting the story, the AP leads with this commentary in the first paragraph:

Talk about an inconvenient truth. Al Gore finally won his place in the Oval Office on Monday — right next to George W. Bush. Forever linked by the closest and craziest presidential race in history, the two men were reunited by, of all things, White House tradition.

I briefly mentioned this effect yesterday when I wrote about the Electoral College. In that post, I originally was going to include the outcomes of each vote since 1876 but then decided against it because I thought it was not relevant to the point I was making. After reading the AP story, I changed my mind. A lack of historical context is permeating our society and it is important for us to keep our history in perspective so that we can better meet the unexpected in the future.

Regarding the AP claim that 2000 was the closest election in history, this is not 100% accurate:

• In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote and only won the election by 1 (one) electoral vote. In 2000, George W. Bush did not win the popular vote and won the electoral college vote by 5 (five) electoral votes. Samuel Tilden's 1 vote loss is a much closer electoral loss in 1876 than Al Gore's 5 vote loss in 2000.
  
• In 1876, Tilden won the popular vote by 252k votes. Whereas in 2000, Gore won the popular vote by 544k votes.
  
• The Gore margin of victory was only 1% whereas the Tilden margin of victory was 3%. However, in 2000, the 3rd candidate (Nader) accumulated 3% of the vote while in 1876, the 3rd party candidate (Cooper) only gained 1%.
  
• The fact that the Florida vote in 2000 was so close has no bearing on the argument because the Florida margin only affected the closeness of the electoral college which was not as close as 1876.
  

The claim that 2000 was the "craziest" presidential race in history is harder to dispute because it is a subjective statement (subjectivity and journalism is, of course, now allowed). Here are some situations which I subjectively think could qualify as crazier:

• The election of 1800 in which political parties emerged for the first time, a sitting President was deposed, there was a tie in electoral votes, the House of Representatives chose the President, and the presidential and vice presidential candidates fought it out for 36 rounds of voting in the House of Representatives before Jefferson emerged the winner. This was a true crisis - with the country only 12 years into the new constitution, it could have easily fallen apart.
  
• Or how about 1912 when Theodore Roosevelt, unhappy with his hand-selected successor William Taft, split the Republican party when he decided to run as a 3rd party candidate (the Bull Moose Progressive Party) after he did not win the Republican nomination. The incumbent, Taft, won only 8 electoral votes, Roosevelt 88 and Woodrow Wilson, the winner, garnered 435 (even though he won just 42% of the popular vote).
• What about 2008? There are 17 people running in the primaries of the two major parties. None of those involved has been either President of Vice President - the first time in a long time. In addition, this election cycle features several prominent minorities who have a realistic chance of winning it all. This election also features how powerful the internet is and will be in electing people. Previously the internet was used as a fundraising medium, this cycle is the first time it is being prominently integrated into all aspects of the campaign - fundraising, advertising, PR, debates, etc. This internet movement is empowering voters like never before which is probably one of the primary reasons that there are so many candidates running and that the polls are so evenly split amongst them.
  

Lately, I've used this forum to critique others writing. This is not the intention of this blog. This blog exists to capture my thoughts on a multitude of topics while also serving as a way for me to test new internet technologies. However, sometimes I read something that moves me to write my own thoughts down. This is not intended as an attack on the writer (well sometimes it is) but more as an outlet of expression on topics that interest me.

Thank you to infoplease for the historical election data.