Regular readers of this column will recall that I have been predicting a Democratic landslide for the past couple of years. I never wavered even as I watched the impeachment proceedings. But as so often happens when the self righteous start preaching, it was not Clinton but Gringrich and Livingston who were caught with their pants down and run out of town. My landslide prediction still looked sound as Clinton’s poll numbers kept climbing.

Then along came Dubya. The Republicans, so desperate to throw the hated Clintons out of the White House, raised mllions of dollars to anoint this Bush family scion as their nominee. Of course, they had to destroy the popular John McCain to clear the way. I took a new look at the election with the GOP golden boy in the race. It looked dismal for the Democrats. Gore’s candidacy was not exciting. Sitting vice presidents rarely emerge from their back seat to be directly elected to the presidency. George Senior was the first to do so since Martin Van Buren. And he had to overcome the “wimp” label, remember.

I still predicted a landslide for Gore. Why? Because of the hard right wing of the party. Barry Goldwater, the father of the modern conservative movement, in his dying days observed, “What we used to call the lunatic fringe is now our mainstream.” I could see a frightening convention with cries for more prayer in schools, more bans on abortion, more gay bashing, and unregulated guns for almost everybody. I saw a Republican party torn asunder, handing the election to the democrats.

What happened? Jerry Fallwell, Pat Robertson, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Tom Delay, and other fanatics all remained strangely and strategically silent. Even so, I reasoned, the dauntless Pat Buchanan, flush with $12.5 million as the Reform Party candidate, would stir up enough controversy to drain some ten to fifteen per cent of the vote from Bush.

There was no thunder on the right from Buchanan. Rumor has it that he funneled a lot of that $12.5 million to his sister Bay who heads up some advertising and polling agencies and other companies to sell services for cash rich campaigns like brother Pat’s.

Instead the thunder came from the left--from Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. With a strong populist message on the environment, consumerism, and corporate finance reform, Nadar siphoned off enough votes from Gore in key states to deny him victory in the Electoral College.

It was a bitter defeat for Al Gore. He prepared all his adult life for the top political prize. In the end, he could not shake the historic plague of sitting vice presidents and his “wooden indian” image as Clinton’s second banana. He was never able to take proper credit for the outstanding economic accomplishments of his administration for fear of guilt by association with Clinton’s scandals, real and alleged.

Looking back, it is remarkable that the greatest economy the world has ever seen could not propel Al Gore into the presidency.