December 12, 2000: Bush v. Gore

December 12, 2000: The Supreme Court of the United States overrules the Supreme Court of the State of Florida. It is the case of Bush v. Gore.

In the Presidential election of November 7, the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, the then Vice President of the United States, Albert Arnold Gore Jr., got more popular votes than the Republican nominee, the Governor of Texas, George Walker Bush: Gore 50,999,897, Bush 50,456,002, a margin of 543,895 votes. Ralph Nader, famous as a consumer advocate since the 1960s, ran as the nominee of the Green Party. He got 2,882,955 votes. Gore got 48.4 percent of the popular vote; Bush, 47.9 percent, Nader, 2.7 percent.

Bush's brother, Governor John Ellis "Jeb" Bush of Florida, saw how close the vote was in his State, and tampered with the voting process, and that one State held everything up for 5 weeks. The best attempt at a recount, in downtown Miami, was interrupted on November 22 by what became known as the Brooks Brothers Riot. As a result, there were votes that were never counted. I don't mean they weren't recounted, I mean they were never counted, not even once.

On December 8, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that all 61,000 "undervotes" had to be counted. Had that happened, Gore surely would have won. The Bush campaign immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. SCOTUS ruled on December 12:

* Four Justices ruled that the recount had to go forward: John Paul Stevens, appointed by Republican President Gerald Ford; David Souter, appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush, the current Republican nominee's father; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, appointed by the current President, Democrat Bill Clinton; and Stephen Breyer, also appointed by Clinton.

* Five Justices ruled that the recount had to stop immediately, all of them appointed by Republican Presidents: William Rehnquist, appointed by Richard Nixon, and promoted to Chief Justice by Ronald Reagan; Sandra Day O'Connor, appointed by Reagan; Antonin Scalia, appointed by Reagan; Anthony Kennedy, appointed by Reagan; and Clarence Thomas, appointed by the elder George Bush.

It was pretty easily guessed that all 4 Justices who voted to keep the recount going would do so; and that 3 Justices known for being archconservatives -- Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas -- would vote to stop it.

The question marks were 2 moderates, both known as "swing votes": O'Connor and Kennedy. If either of them had voted to keep the recount going, it would have been kept going, and Gore would have won. Instead, both voted to stop it.

And so, in an election where over 104 million votes had been accepted as counted, only two votes ended up mattering: Those of O'Connor and Kennedy.

It may have been the ghastliest decision in the Court's history, aside from the 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, that said that black people weren't citizens (a decision remedied by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution). It also marked perhaps the 1st time in the nation's history that political conservatives overruled a case based in part on a State's rights.

The editors of Time magazine announced that they were waiting for a winner to be certified before they named their Person of the Year. They named Bush. Had Gore been certified as the winner, they would have chosen him.

UPDATE: It may have been surpassed as the ghastliest decision in the Court's history by Trump v. United States in 2024, when the Court ruled that Presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution.

Gore conceded the election the next day, forever doomed to be "the 42nd 1/2 President of the United States" -- a President-elect, but never a President. On January 6, 2001, in his role as the outgoing Vice President, Gore properly read the Electoral Votes, including the 25 of the State of Florida. Whether those votes were properly arrived at is another matter. Congress then certified the Electoral Votes.

On that January 6, no Democrats stormed the U.S. Capitol Building in an attempt to stop that process.

Twenty years later, of course, when it was Republicans who didn't like the result, they did storm the Capitol, and attempt to stop the process. They only delayed the inevitable.

Rehnquist died in office in 2005. O'Connor retired right before that. Souter retired in 2009. Stevens retired in 2010, and died in 2019. Scalia died in office in 2016. Kennedy retired in 2018. Ginsburg died in office in 2020. Breyer retired in 2022. As of December 12, 2022, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas and Breyer are still alive; while Thomas is the only 1 of the 9 who is still on the Court. (UPDATE: O'Connor died in 2023. Souter died in 2025.)

Bush's 2 terms in office were an unmitigated disaster, both domestically (especially economically) and internationally. Had Gore been allowed to accept his victory, he would have governed completely differently, and most Americans, including the conservatives, would have been better off.

There are elementary schools named after Bush in St. Paul, Texas; and Stockton, California. His Presidential Library is on the campus Southern Methodist University, his wife Laura's Alma Mater, in Dallas. It opened on April 25, 2013.

Statue of the George Bushes,

at George W.'s Presidential Library

Bush remains the only President born in Connecticut. He and his father are the only ones who have lived in Connecticut, not counting time spent attending Yale University, although both also did so. And they are the only ones who lived in Maine. Nevertheless, the State each represented in politics was Texas.

Bush has been played by Timothy Bottoms in a comedic fashion on That's My Bush! in 2001 and The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course in 2002, and in the deadly serious DC 9/11: Time of Crisis in 2003. Steve Bridges played him on JAG in 2002, and in the pilot episode of its spinoff, NCIS, in 2003.

He was played by James Adomian in Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay in 2008, Josh Brolin (himself the son of someone much better in his profession) in Oliver Stone's film W. in 2008, Connor Trinneer in American Made in 2017, and Sam Rockwell in Vice (a film about his Vice President, Dick Cheney) in 2018.

On Saturday Night Live, he was played by Will Ferrell from 2000 to 2002, Chris Parnell in 2002-03, Will Forte from 2004 to 2006, and Jason Sudeikis thereafter. On rival show MADtv, he was played by Christian Duguay in 2000-01, Will Sasso in 2001-02, and Frank Caliendo thereafter.

*

December 12, 2000 was a Tuesday. Baseball was in its off-season, and the NFL doesn't play on Tuesday. But there were 8 NBA games played that day. The New York Knicks were not in any of them:

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 116-94 at the Brendan Byrne Arena in the New York suburb of East Rutherford, New Jersey. Stephon Marbury led all scorers with 27 points.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Sacramento Kings, 107-99 at the Philips Arena (now the State Farm Arena) in Atlanta. Jason Terry scored 38 points.

* The Toronto Raptors beat the Indiana Pacers, 104-90 at the Air Canada Centre (now the Scotiabank Arena) in Toronto. Vince Carter led all scorers with 33.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Dallas Mavericks, 92-87 at the Gund Arena in Cleveland. (It is now named the Rocket Arena.)

* The Miami Heat beat the Denver Nuggets, 96-85 at the Pepsi Center in Denver. (It is now named the Ball Arena.)

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 109-105 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Ray Allen scored 35 in victory, Shaquille O'Neal 26 and Kobe Bryant 25 in defeat.

* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Golden State Warriors, 101-93 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena (then named The Arena in Oakland). Antawn Jamison scored 30 for the Dubs, but Rasheed Wallace's 29 sent the Blazers to victory.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Orlando Magic, 97-92 at the Key Arena in Seattle.

And there were 4 NHL games played. The New Jersey Devils were not scheduled: 

* The New York Rangers lost to the San Jose Sharks, 3-2 at the HP Center in San Jose. (It is now named the SAP Center.)

* The New York Islanders beat the Washington Capitals, 3-2 at the Nassau Coliseum in suburban Uniondale (Hempstead), Long Island, New York.

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the Boston Bruins, 3-0 at the FleetCenter in Boston. (It is now named the TD Garden.)

* And the Philadelphia Flyers and the Nashville Predators played to a tie, 2-2 at the Gaylord Entertainment Center in Nashville. (It is now the Bridgestone Arena.) 

November 23, 1968: "Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29"

November 23, 1968: The most famous game in Ivy League history is played. The winners were... everybody who was involved, because it gets talked about more than most games that were glorious wins for one team or the other.

Harvard University was America's 1st college, founded in 1636 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, across the Charles River from Boston. Yale University was the 3rd, founded in 1701 and re-established a few years later in New Haven, Connecticut. (The 2nd was The College of William and Mary, in Williamsburg, Virginia.)

They first played each other in football on November 13, 1875, with the sport still in its infancy, on the Yale campus. Harvard won, 4-0 under the scoring rules of the time. But Yale took over the rivalry, going 9-0-2 through 1889. Eventually, their contest became each school's season finale, known as simply "The Game."

In 1968, both teams looked like they were among the best teams in the country, a rarity for Ivy League teams after World War I. Each went into their finale 8-0, the 1st time since 1909 that both of them were undefeated going into The Game.

Yale had Brian Dowling, an All-American quarterback from Cleveland. He had led them to 16 straight wins, and hadn't lost a game since the 6th grade. Yale student Garry Trudeau would start a comic strip titled Bull Tales, which in 1970 would become the nationally-syndicated Doonesbury. Dowling would be parodied as "B.D.," although the character and the real Dowling would turn out to be very different people. Yale also had running back Calvin Hill, who would star in the NFL, and whose son, Grant Hill, would become a Basketball Hall-of-Famer.

Harvard had a strong defense, nicknamed the Boston Stranglers after a recent serial killer. Their captain and top offensive player was running back Vic Gatto. One of their guards, good enough to make the All-Ivy League Team, was then listed as "Tom Jones." He became an actor under the name Tommy Lee Jones. His roommate was a prelaw student named Al Gore. (Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham were still 3 years away from starting Yale Law School, and George W. Bush had just graduated from Yale.)

The game was played at Harvard Stadium, but that didn't matter to the oddsmakers, who made Yale, then ranked in the national Top 20, heavy favorites. The stadium's seating capacity was then listed as 57,750, and there wasn't a seat to be had, despite the weather being cold, with the wind blasting off the Charles. Scalpers were demanding $100 for tickets -- about $831 in today's money. God only knows what would have been charged if Internet ticket brokers were possible at the time.

At first, Yale justified their classification as favorites: Dowling ran for a touchdown, then passed to Hill for another, then threw another. In the 2nd quarter, the Bulldogs led 22-0. No team had scored that many off the Crimson in an entire game since Yale themselves did it in a 24-20 win in New Haven the year before.

Harvard managed a touchdown before the half, but missed the extra point. It was 22-6. Early in the 2nd half, Yale fumbled a punt, and Harvard recovered in the end zone. This time, the extra point was converted, and Harvard was within 22-13. But early in the 4th quarter, Dowling took over again, drove the Elis down the Allston pitch, and scored himself to put his team up 29-13.

With 2 minutes left, Yale still led 29-13. And, due to injuries, Harvard was left with their backup quarterback, Frank Champi. But he was undeterred, and got the Crimson over the goal line with 42 seconds left on the clock. A 2-point conversion failed, but Yale was called for pass interference. Gus Crim took the ball in on their 2nd chance, so it was Yale 29, Harvard 21.

The most obvious onside kick in the history of football was coming. But Harvard managed to recover it. Time was running out. Champi got the Crimson to the Bulldogs' 8-yard line with 3 seconds left. On the last play of regulation, he was flushed out of the pocket, but still managed to get a pass off. Gatto caught it, and took it in. Yale 29, Harvard 27.

Fans poured onto the field. But there was still a 2-point conversion to be attempted. The fans were cleared off. Champi found Pete Varney. He would appear in 69 games as a catcher for the Chicago White Sox and the Atlanta Braves from 1973 to 1976, serve as head baseball coach at Brandeis University in nearby Waltham, Massachusetts, and coach for years in the Cape Cod Baseball League. Nothing he did matched the pass he caught from Frank Champi with no time on the clock.

It was a tie. Along with Notre Dame's games with Army in 1946 and Michigan State in 1966 -- both known as "The Game of the Century" -- this is the most famous tie in football history. Why not? It remains the game of the century as far as the Ivy League is concerned.

The next day, the Harvard Crimson newspaper printed a headline: "HARVARD BEATS YALE, 29-29." In 2008, on the game's 40th Anniversary, a documentary film would use that headline as its title.

Did Harvard "win"? Yale coach Carm Cozza later admitted, "That tie was the worst loss of my career."

I mentioned Army in 1946. After their tie against Notre Dame, they had a similar season-closing rivalry game, with Navy in Philadelphia. They led 21-0. Navy came back, and was down 21-18, and was on Army's 3-yard line with time for one more play. Navy coach Tom Hamilton tried to run it in, and failed. When asked why he didn't go for the tying field goal, he spoke words that have entered the American lexicon: "A tie is like kissing your sister."

For Harvard, this tie was more like kissing your sister's really hot best friend. For Yale, this tie was like kissing your sister's other best friend. You know: The only with the "great personality."

Look at it this way: Since the league's official establishment for the 1956 season, Yale have won its title outright in 1956, 1960, 1967, 1977, 1979, 1980 and 2017; and won at least a share of it in 1968, 1969, 1974, 1976, 1981, 1989, 1999, 2006 and 2019. But do any of those teams get talked about, even as a "great team," other than among Yalies? No.

The 1968 Yale Bulldogs, and the 1968 Harvard Crimson, both get talked about, as great teams that played a great game.

*

November 23, 1968 was a Saturday. There were other big college football rivalry games played that day:

* Number 1 USC beat UCLA, 28-16 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. But the next week, a tie with Notre Dame cost them the Number 1 ranking. They ended up losing the Rose Bowl, and thus the National Championship, to Ohio State.

* Number 2 Ohio State beat Number 4 Michigan, 50-14 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus. It was said that Buckeye coach Woody Hayes purposely ran up the score. The Wolverines did not forget, and the next year's game between the rivals was an epic win for Michigan.

* Number 3 Penn State beat the University of Pittsburgh, 65-9 at Pitt Stadium.

* Number 5 Georgia were idle, between wins over rivals Auburn and Georgia Tech.

* Number 6 Arkansas beat Texas Tech, 42-7 at Jones Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. Okay, that's not a rivalry game.

* Number 7 Kansas beat Number 13 Missouri, 21-19 at Memorial Stadium (now Faurot Field) in Columbia, Missouri, to clinch the Big Eight Conference title.

* Number 8 Tennessee beat Kentucky, 24-7 at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee.

* Number 9 Louisiana State beat Tulane, 34-10 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans.

* Number 10 Texas were idle, between wins over Texas Christian and Texas A&M.

* Number 11 Notre Dame were idle, between a win over Georgia Tech and a tie against USC.

* Number 12 Purdue beat Indiana, 38-35 at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana.

* Number 14 Oklahoma beat Nebraska, 47-0 at Owen Field in Norman, Oklahoma.

* Number 15 Alabama were idle, between wins over Miami and arch-rival Auburn.

* Number 16 Oregon State beat Oregon, 41-19 at Parker Stadium (now Reser Stadium) in Corvallis, Oregon.

* Number 17 Auburn were idle, between losses to rivals Georgia and Alabama.

* Number 18 California was upset by Stanford, 20-0 at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, California.

* Virginia beat Maryland, 28-23 at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia.

* North Carolina beat Duke, 23-14 at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. If Yale felt bad, think of how Duke felt: That was the only Atlantic Coast Conference game Carolina won all season, and it was against their greatest rival.

* South Carolina beat Clemson, 7-3 at Memorial Stadium in Clemson, South Carolina.

* Minnesota beat Wisconsin, 23-15 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin.

* Washington State beat Washington, 24-0 at Joe Albi Stadium in Spokane, Washington. "Wazzu" used Albi Stadium for games too big for their 23,500-seat Rogers Stadium, before building Martin Stadium in 1972.

* Army were idle, between wins over Pittsburgh and Navy.

* Navy were idle, between losses to Syracuse and Army.

* In New York City, Columbia beat Brown, 46-20 at Baker Field.

* In New Jersey, Princeton beat Cornell, 41-13 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

* And Rutgers beat Colgate, 55-34 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway.

In high school football, my alma mater, East Brunswick, beat Sayreville, 41-0 at War Memorial Stadium in Sayreville, clinching a Conference Championship.

There were 6 games played in the NBA that day:

* The New York Knicks beat the Boston Celtics, 111-100 at the new Madison Square Garden.

* The Baltimore Bullets beat the Detroit Pistons, 128-127 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena). Dave Bing scored 39 in a losing effort for the Pistons.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Cincinnati Royals, 120-105 at the Cincinnati Gardens.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Chicago Bulls, 114-96 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns, 115-112 at the Milwaukee Arena. In 1974, it was renamed the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

* And the San Francisco Warriors beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 132-119 at the Cow Palace outside San Francisco in Daly City, California.

There were 2 games played in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets beat the Minnesota Muskies, 110-105 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* And the Miami Floridians beat the Indiana Pacers, 126-107 at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

And the entire NHL was in action that day:

* The New York Rangers lost to the team that would then have been considered their arch-rivals, the Boston Bruins, 5-1 at the Boston Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Minnesota North Stars, 4-3 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Oakland Seals beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 2-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins and the Los Angeles Kings played to a tie, 2-2 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The St. Louis Blues beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Black Hawks, 1-0 at the St. Louis Arena.

Also, Arsenal lost to Chelsea, 1-0 at Highbury in North London.

November 22, 2000: The Brooks Brothers Riot

November 22, 2000: An election that began to be stolen on Election Day itself, November 7, takes a big step closer to being stolen, with "The Brooks Brothers Riot."

The Republican nominee for President, Governor George W. Bush of Texas, lost the national popular vote to the Democratic nominee, Vice President Al Gore. But he appeared to have won enough Statewide popular votes to win 271 Electoral Votes to Gore's 269.

In dispute was the State of Florida, where Bush was originally certified to have won by 1,784 votes. It's important to note that the Governor of Florida was his brother, John Ellis "Jeb" Bush. Through his Secretary of State -- and, it was rumored, his mistress -- Katharine Harris, Jeb had the Florida vote fixed for his brother, including the deletion of the names of 55,000 people, nearly all black men, from the voter rolls.

In other words, if those 55,000 people were permitted to vote, even if less than half of them ended up voting at all, there was no way Gore wouldn't have gotten enough of those 55,000 votes to offset a 1,784-vote lead for "Dubya."

A clause in Florida's State Constitution mandated that, since the election was so close, a Statewide recount had to be done. The recount for Dade County, including the City of Miami, was done at the Stephen P. Clark Government Center, at 111 Northwest 1st Street in downtown Miami. (Clark was Mayor of Miami from 1967 to 1972, and again from 1993 to 1996.)

The Stephen P. Clark Government Center

The recount began, but Representative John E. Sweeney, then a freshman Congressman from New York's Capital Region, including the State capital of Albany, told an aide to "Shut it down." And so dozens of people, many of them wearing sharp suits typical of Republican staffers at the time -- hence the name of the demonstration, as Brooks Brothers is a popular store chain with them -- found their way into the building, and pounded on the doors of the room where the recount was being done, making it unsafe for the counters.

They got what they wanted. Bush's lead got down to 537 votes, when a local court ordered that the recount be stopped. In other words, some votes were never counted, not even once. The State Supreme Court ruled that the recount had to resume.

But on December 12, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the recount had to stop. And so, Bush's 537-vote win in Florida was certified by the State of Florida, and later by Congress.

Strange: For decades, conservatives -- first in the Democratic Party, then in the 1960s they began to shift to the Republican Party -- were in favor of States' rights over civil rights. But when States' rights and civil rights came together in Florida in 2000, the conservatives wanted the State of Florida to have no rights.

Did Democratic protestors try to stop Congress from certifying this apparently stolen election, as Republican ones tried 20 years later? No. Every Democratic demonstration, including outside Bush's Inauguration as the 43rd President of the United States on January 20, 2001, was peaceful.

But the Republicans have now tried this sort of thing twice in the 21st Century. Indeed, the Brooks Brothers Riot has been called a "dress rehearsal" for the Capitol Insurrection of January 6, 2021.

Many of the Miami demonstrators later took jobs in the Bush Administration. One of them was Roger Stone, a self-described "GOP Hitman," with a history of Republican dirty tricks going back to his work for Richard Nixon's Committee for the Re-Election of the President, the group behind the Watergate burglary of 1972.

Nobody was ever charged with a crime in connection with the Brooks Brothers Riot -- not with election fraud, not with property damage, not with assault, not even with trespassing, of which they were all guilty.

*

November 22, 2000 was a Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. As was tradition in my family, I spent Thanksgiving weekend at my grandmother's house, including the Thursday night with my parents and sister, and we sat transfixed at the TV, watching not football games -- the Detroit Lions beat the New England Patriots 34-9 at the Silverdome in suburban Pontiac, Michigan; while the Dallas Cowboys lost to the Minnesota Vikings, 27-15 at Texas Stadium in suburban Irving, Texas -- but footage of the Brooks Brothers Riot, on a seemingly endless loop, as talking heads on CNN and MSNBC tried to make sense of the most blatant election theft in American history.

Other Presidential elections have had accusations of fraud. But this was on television. Even the alleged theft of Illinois' votes by Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago in 1960 -- the overturning of which wouldn't have swung the election from John F. Kennedy to Nixon anyway -- wasn't caught by TV or film cameras. The Brooks Brothers Riot was, and the news networks were all too happy to show it over and over again, refusing to say that it was wrong.

The fact that Al Gore's rightly-won Presidency was being assassinated on November 22, the anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, seemed not to have occurred to most people. Certainly, I didn't think of it at the time. With the chaos of the election, the JFK anniversary may have been mentioned less than on any November 22 since 1963.

As I said, it was a Wednesday in November, midweek for the NFL, and the off-season for baseball. There were 11 games played in the NBA that night:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Atlanta Hawks, 78-74 at the Philips Arena in Atlanta. It's now named the State Farm Arena. Allan Houston led the Knicks with 21 points, but it wasn't enough.

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Phoenix Suns, 97-85 at the AmericaWest Arena (now the Mortgage Matchup Center) in Phoenix. Stephon Marbury scored 30 for the Meadowlands team, and Jason Kidd 8 for the Suns.

At the end of the 2000-01 season, they would be traded for each other, a classic "My headache for your headache" trade. Marbury did little for the Suns, while Kidd singlehandedly turned the Nets from a terrible team to back-to-back NBA Finalists.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Houston Rockets, 96-81 at the FleetCenter in Boston. (It's now the TD Garden.)

* The Charlotte Hornets beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 88-73 at the Charlotte Coliseum.

* Elsewhere in Miami that day, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Miami Heat, 86-67 at the American Airlines Arena. (It's now the Kaseya Center.) Eighty-six to sixty-seven? I know this was a defensive era in the NBA, especially with a post-Lakers Pat Riley coaching the Heat, but it looks like votes weren't the only thing being undercounted in Miami!

* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 93-84 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.

* The Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Vancouver Grizzlies, 101-100 at the Target Center in Minneapolis. This would be the Grizzlies' 6th and last season in Vancouver, as they moved to Memphis for 2001-02.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 112-85 at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

* The Utah Jazz beat their arch-rivals, the Denver Nuggets, 116-78 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors, 111-91 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. At the time, the Warriors thought of the Lakers as their arch-rivals, but the feeling was not reciprocated. Despite the Warriors' success of the 2010s, it still isn't.

* And the Sacramento Kings beat the Chicago Bulls, 100-71 at the ARCO Arena in Sacramento. (It's now the Sleep Train Arena.)

There were 12 NHL games that night. All 3 New York Tri-State Area teams were in action, including 2 of them against each other:

* The New Jersey Devils, defending Stanley Cup Champions (and also my team, so it's my prerogative to list them first if I want to), beat the team then known as "The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim," 5-2 at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim. (The team is now the Anaheim Ducks, and the arena is the Honda Center.) The Devils got goals from Patrik Elias in the 1st period, Jay Pandolfo and Scott Gomez in the 2nd, and Jason Arnott and Pandolfo again in the 3rd.

* In an arch-rivalry game, the New York Rangers beat the New York Islanders, 4-3 at the Nassau Coliseum. Theoren Fleury got the winner for the Broadway Blueshirts, with 35 seconds left in overtime.

* The Washington Capitals beat the Vancouver Canucks, 3-2 at the MCI Center in Washington. (It's now the Capital One Arena.) Andrei Nikolishin scored the winner in overtime.

* The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Atlanta Thrashers, 8-2 at the Ice Palace in Tampa. (It's now the Amalie Arena.)

* In an All-Canadian matchup, the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-3 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. (It's now the Scotiabank Arena.)

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Buffalo Sabres, 3-1 at the HSBC Arena in Buffalo. (It's now the KeyBank Center.)

* The Carolina Hurricanes beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-1 at the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh. (It had previously been known as the Civic Arena.)

* In an Original Six matchup, the Boston Bruins beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-4 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

* The Calgary Flames and the Minnesota Wild played to a tie, 1-1 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

* The Dallas Stars beat the Nashville Predators, 1-0 at the Gaylord Entertainment Center in Nashville. (It's now the Bridgestone Arena.)

* The Colorado Rockies beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 5-2 at the Pepsi Center in Denver. (It's now the Ball Arena.)

* And the San Jose Sharks beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 4-1 at the San Jose Arena. (It's now the SAP Center.)

Also, Arsenal played a UEFA Champions League Group Stage match, losing to Spartak Moscow, 4-1 at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.

November 17, 1993: The North American Free Trade Agreement

President Bill Clinton signs NAFTA into law. Behind him, left to right:

Vice President Al Gore, House Minority Leader Bob Michel,

House Speaker Tom Foley.

November 17, 1993: The North American Free Trade Agreement is ratified by the U.S. House of Representatives. Its ratification by the U.S. Senate was a foregone conclusion, and President Bill Clinton had already indicated that he would sign it. It took effect on January 1, 1994.

NAFTA had been negotiated by his predecessor, George H.W. Bush; Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada; and President Carlos Salinas de Gortari of Mexico. But, by the time it became law, Bush and Mulroney were already out of office.

Oddly, both of America's major parties were split on the issue. Some Democrats opposed it because they thought it was anti-union. Some Republicans opposed it because it wasn't protectionist and they thought it affected American sovereignty.

Three living former Presidents lobbied for it: Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, both still alive and in active public life, if not active politics, also supported it, but took no action. Carter was a Democrat, the rest were Republicans.

Both parties' House leaders, Tom Foley of Washington and Bob Michel of Illinois, wanted it. So did both parties' Senate leaders, George Mitchell of Maine and Bob Dole of Kansas. This was significant, because Dole was considered the front-runner to be the next Republican nominee for President. Indeed, he was nominated, and so free trade was hardly an issue in the 1996 election.

Not that Ross Perot, the independent candidate from 1992 who got 19 percent of the popular vote, didn't try. He was opposed to it, and used his regular appearances on CNN's Live with Larry King to talk about how bad he thought it would be. With Clinton's permission, Vice President Al Gore challenged to Perot to a debate on the issue, on King's show. The consensus was that this was a huge mistake: Gore was often mocked as "stiff," while Perot would practically be on his home turf.

It was a mismatch -- the other way. Knowing that Perot was famous for bringing charts with graphs on them, Gore brought his own, and explained his cause very well. Perot was caught off-guard, realizing that someone knew this issue better than he did, and got, to use a word Gore would later use on Bush's son, snippy. Public opinion began to turn in favor of the agreement.

NAFTA created millions of jobs, so, like welfare reform, it worked very well while the economy was good. But, also like welfare reform, it worked very poorly when the economy has been bad.

In 2018, the countries involved reached an agreement to replace NAFTA with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), and ratified it 2 years later, so that it took effect on July 1, 2020, replacing NAFTA. The new law involved only small changes. My guess is, Donald Trump wanted to pander to American workers and claim a law he had nothing to do with, but still listed America first.

*

November 17, 1993 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 7 games in the NBA that night:

* The New York Knicks lost to the San Antonio Spurs, 95-90 at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Boston Celtics, 105-100 at the Boston Garden.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 92-90 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Washington Bullets beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 117-104 at the USAir Arena (formerly the Capital Centre) in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland. Don McLean of the Bullets led all scorers on the night with 38 points.

* The Charlotte Hornets beat the Sacramento Kings, 130-113 at the Charlotte Coliseum.

* The Utah Jazz beat the Miami Heat, 115-111 at the Miami Arena.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Orlando Magic, 98-92 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan.

And there were 7 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders beat the Ottawa Senators, 8-1 at the Ottawa Civic Center (now TD Place Arena).

* The New Jersey Devils beat the Buffalo Sabres, 4-0 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Edmonton Oilers, 3-1 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Boston Bruins beat their New England neighbors, the Hartford Whalers, 4-2 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena).

* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Detroit Red Wings, 2-1 at the Winnipeg Arena.

* The Dallas Stars beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-3 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, 4-3 at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim (now the Honda Center).

* And the New York Rangers, the Calgary Flames, the Chicago Blackhawks, the Florida Panthers, the Los Angeles Kings, the Philadelphia Flyers, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Quebec Nordiques, the St. Louis Blues, the San Jose Sharks, the Vancouver Canucks and the Washington Capitals were not scheduled.

November 7, 2000: No One Is Elected President

November 7, 2000: Election Day. The Democratic Party's nominee for President, Vice President of the United States, Albert Arnold Gore Jr., gets more votes than the Republican Party's nominee, the Governor of Texas, George Walker Bush: Gore 51.0 million, Bush 50.4 million. Gore gets 48.4 percent of the popular vote, Bush 47.9 percent.

Ralph Nader, famous as a consumer advocate since the 1960s, runs as the nominee of the Green Party. He gets 2.9 million votes, or 2.7 percent.

Bush's brother, Governor John E. "Jeb" Bush of Florida, sees how close the vote is in his State, and tampers with the voting process, and that one State holds everything up for 5 weeks.

The following Sunday, November 12, among the guests on NBC's Meet the Press is William Safire, longtime political columnist for The New York Times; before that, a speechwriter for President Richard Nixon. Host Tim Russert asks him, "What do we have here, Bill?" And Safire says, "We have a tie."

For all intents and purposes, he was correct. Both Bush and Gore had a base that thought their man would make a good President. Both of them had party regulars who might not have been happy that the party as a whole nominated the candidate that it did, but would vote for that party's nominee anyway, because that's what they always did. And then there were people who weren't members of either party, and didn't especially like either one, but decided one was worse, and voted for the other one.

It would have been so simple for Gore to win. All he had to do was ask the outgoing President, Bill Clinton, to do one rally for him in downtown Miami. It would, literally, have made all the difference in the world, because, in spite of his personal mistakes, Clinton was a very successful President, and still popular nationwide -- more so than Gore or Bush.

But Gore was terrified that Clinton's personal scandal, which led to his impeachment by a Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, and then his acquittal by a Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, would attach itself to him. So, in his speech at the Democratic Convention at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, he tried to run on the Clinton economic record without the Clinton personal-conduct record, and said, "I stand here today as my own man."

Bush couldn't say that. Well, he could, but, like so many other things he said, it would have been a lie. The son of a President, he was a dimwitted hothead who had faked his way through life. Every time he failed -- in keeping out of military service, in business, and in a 1978 run for Congress -- his father's friends bailed him out.

But Texas evangelicals got him nominated for that State's Governor, an office where the only real requirement is make it easier for businessmen to make money. He got elected in 1994 and 1998. Jeb, considered the smart, level-headed one in the family -- often compared to Michael Corleone, to George's Sonny and father George's Don Vito -- lost in his 1st race for Governor, also in 1994, but won in 1998.

The media gave Bush the benefit of every doubt, and Gore the doubt of every benefit. Case in point: The 1st debate, on October 3, at the Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts. Bush, as he usually did, made himself look like he was not smart enough to be President. Gore was caught on camera sighing over some of Bush's dumb answers. The reaction of most of the American media was not that Bush was too dumb to be President, but that Gore was too rude to be President.

This was the problem: Bush, a known recovering alcoholic, was seen as "the kind of guy you'd like to have a beer with," while Gore was "stiff," "uptight," and "a know-it-all." As comedian Bill Maher put it, "God forbid, the President of the United States should be smarter than we are." But Maher also addressed Gore's image: "People like what he stands for. They just don't like him." And people did like Bush, even if they thought he was dumb.

And enough people didn't like Gore to throw Florida into doubt. Jeb Bush's Secretary of State, in charge of running elections, was Katherine Harris: Young (33 in 2000), attractive, every bit as committed to the conservative movement as the Bush brothers were, and, it was rumored at the time, Jeb's mistress. He put her in charge of ensuring that "Dubya" won in Florida.

Court-ordered recounts were undertaken, and "the Brooks Brothers Riot" in downtown Miami the day before Thanksgiving stopped the one in Dade County. When the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled on December 12 that the recounts must stop, and Bush be accepted as the winner, it was the ghastliest decision in the Court's history, aside from the Dred Scott decision that said black people weren't citizens (a decision remedied by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution).

Nader, appealing to leftists who felt betrayed by Gore and President Bill Clinton over the last 8 years, won 97,488 votes in Florida. Bush's final lead in Florida was 537 votes. But Nader's voters wanted their "pure" candidate, and the result was the most un-Nader-like (and the most un-Gore-like) Administration anyone could have imagined.

Needless to say, New York's 2 major tabloid newspapers had differing opinions. The Daily News cared about journalism, and their headline was "TOO CLOSE." The Post cared about promoting the conservative candidate, and their headline was "BUSH WINS!"

The election of sitting First Lady Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. Senator from New York was almost unnoticed outside that State. More attention was paid in Missouri, where Governor Mel Carnahan was killed in a plane crash, too close to the election to be replaced on the ballot, and still won the election for Senator over the incumbent, former Governor John Ashcroft. His widow, Jean Carnahan, was appointed to replace him. Bush appointed Ashcroft to be his Attorney General.

Indeed, in connection with the Democratic nominee for President getting the most popular votes, the Democrats gained 4 seats in the Senate, forging a 50-50 tie, which went 51-49 in their favor the following June, when Jim Jeffords of Vermont switched to become an Independent caucusing with the Democrats. The Democrats only gained 1 seat in the House, not nearly enough to take control.

*

November 7, 2000, like all modern U.S. Election Days, was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 6 games played in the NBA that night:

* The New York Knicks beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 103-89 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.

* The Toronto Raptors beat the Boston Celtics, 105-75 at the SkyDome in Toronto. (It's now named the Rogers Centre.)

* The Washington Wizards beat the Chicago Bulls, 88-83 at the United Center in Chicago.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 84-74 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.")

* The Phoenix Suns beat the San Antonio Spurs, 100-81 at the AmericaWest Arena in Phoenix. (It's now named the Mortgage Matchup Center.)

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Atlanta Hawks, 97-88 at the Rose Garden in Portland. (It's now named the Moda Center.)

And there were 4 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-3 at Madison Square Garden. The Broadway Blueshirts came from 2-0 down on 2 goals by Brian Leetch and 1 by Mike York. Then they blew the 3-2 lead, before Radek Dvorak won it with 5:15 left in regulation.

* The New York Islanders beat the Nashville Predators, 2-1 at the Nassau Coliseum. The Isles came from 1-0 down on 2 goals by Brad Isbister.

* The Colorado Avalanche beat the expansion Minnesota Wild, 2-0 at the Pepsi Center in Denver. (It's now named the Ball Arena.)

* And the Phoenix Coyotes and the Los Angeles Kings played to a tie, 3-3 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Also, Arsenal played a UEFA Champions League Group Stage match, losing 3-0 to Shakhtar Donetsk at Shakhtar Stadium in Donetsk, Ukraine.

November 5, 1996: President Bill Clinton Is Re-Elected

November 5, 1996: President Bill Clinton is re-elected, winning 379 Electoral Votes to Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole's 159. Clinton wins 49.2 percent of the popular vote, while Dole wins 40.7, and Reform Party candidate Ross Perot wins 8.4 percent but no Electoral Votes.

Clinton went over the necessary 270 Electoral Votes with the States that closed at 9:00 PM, Eastern Time.

After the failure of his health care initiative in 1994, Clinton saw his Democratic Party battered in the midterm elections, with the Republicans taking both houses of Congress. Dole, from Russell, Kansas -- always mentioning his hometown, not just his State -- had first been elected to Congress in 1960, and to the U.S. Senate in 1968. He was nominated for Vice President under Gerald Ford in 1976. He ran for President in 1980, but didn't get far. He became Senate Majority Leader after the election of 1984, but the Democrats regained the Senate in 1986, making him the Minority Leader.

He ran for President again in 1988, and finished 2nd in delegates to Vice President George H.W. Bush, who was elected. In 1992, Clinton beat Bush to become President-elect. The next morning, mere hours after Clinton clinched victory in a 3-man race in which Perot got 19 percent of the popular vote (but no Electoral Votes), Dole pointed out, "57 percent of Americans did not vote for Bill Clinton, and I intend to represent that majority on the floor of the U.S. Senate. If Bill Clinton has a mandate, then so do I."

Clinton was now 1-0 in Presidential elections. Dole was 0-2, 0-3 if you count 1976. Clinton got just under 45 million votes for President. Dole got 2.3 million votes in the 1988 Republican Primaries. Dole himself had just been re-elected to the Senate in 1992, with 244,000 votes. And he then represented a caucus of 43 Senators. He was in no position to claim any majority, especially against a man who had just gotten almost 45 million votes. The 57 percent of American voters who chose someone other than Clinton? As far as I know, not one of them voted for Bob Dole for President, not even as a write-in candidate.

But the '94 election restored Dole to the post of Majority Leader. And Newt Gingrich, a Pennsylvania native who moved to Georgia to teach at a college, and was first elected to Congress in 1978 and used fiery rhetoric to get into the Republican Party's leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1989, became the Speaker of the House.

Dole was considered mean, a reputation he got in his 1976 Vice Presidential debate with Walter Mondale, and deepened in his 1988 Presidential run. But, politically speaking, he was still a center-right candidate, willing to compromise for the greater good of the country. Gingrich was not: He was frequently called a "firebrand" and a "bombthrower."

Like most politicians, especially Republicans, he wanted to balance the federal budget. But his plan severely cut social services -- and also seriously cut taxes, especially on the wealthy. This didn't work when Ronald Reagan was President in the 1980s, and actually created the conditions that led to Clinton's election in 1992. As we have since seen, it didn't work in 2001, and it didn't work in 2017. It would not have worked in 1995.

Every year, the federal budget takes effect on October 1. That is, "Fiscal Year 1996" ran from October 1, 1995 to September 30, 1996. If no deal between Congress and the President is in place by October 1, they can pass a "continuing resolution": For the length of the resolution, the proportions of the previous fiscal year continue.

But Clinton and the Republicans controlling Congress couldn't reach a deal by September 30. So they passed a continuing resolution that ran until November 13. But the Republicans refused to pass a new one by November 14. So, at midnight on November 13, the government shut down.

And the Republicans went before the media and said it was Clinton's fault. Except Clinton also went before the media, and pointed out that he was still willing to make a deal, and the Republicans weren't. Finally, he called Dole and Gingrich into the Oval Office. So often willing to compromise on things, seemingly desperate to get re-elected, but angering many in his own party, Clinton told them, "I don't care if I go down to 5 percent in the polls. If you want that budget signed into law, you're going to have to get somebody else behind this desk."

For once, Clinton held his ground. And polls showed that more people supported his stance than the Republicans' stance. Their approval rating plummeted. Finally, on November 19, they caved. And when the general election campaign got underway, the Democrats aired commercials showing Dole and Gingrich together so many times, it began to look like Gingrich was Dole's running mate.

Having been the Republican nominee for Vice President in 1976, and having run for the Republican nomination for President in 1980 and 1988, Dole had practically been running for President in the 1996 election since the day after the 1992 election ended. Politically-themed comedian Mark Russell, who was 10 years younger than Dole, and specialized in rewriting pre-rock-and-roll songs for political issues of the time, wrote for one of his periodic TV specials on PBS:

This old man, Robert Dole

has the White House as his goal.

For 20 years, there in his eye, a glint.

This old man can't take a hint.

And yet, Russell followed this song by saying, "I'm thinking of voting for Bob Dole. I figure it'll be the last chance to have a President who's older than I am!" (UPDATE: He turned out to be right, living to see the Presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, all younger.)

Dole officially announced his candidacy on April 10, 1995. Despite losing the New Hampshire Primary to Pat Buchanan, an archconservative journalist who had previously worked for Presidents, Nixon, Ford and Reagan, he won enough Delegates to secure the nomination on March 19, 1996.

He traveled the country on a plane he named, after his position in the Senate, Leader Ship. Then he rolled the dice, and resigned from the Senate on June 11, to show the American people he was focused only on the election: "I have nowhere to go, except the White House, or home." He changed his plane's name to Citizen Ship.

(Dole was succeeded as Majority Leader by his Majority Whip, Trent Lott of Mississippi. He remains the highest-ranking native of that State in American politics.)

At the Republican Convention, at the San Diego Convention Center, Dole chose a real running mate: Jack Kemp, former pro quarterback, former Congressman from Buffalo, New York, a 1988 Presidential candidate like Dole, and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Bush. Kemp had long been the darling of the conservative tax-cut movement, and boosted Dole in the polls.

In his acceptance speech, on August 15, Dole said, "Let me be the bridge to an America that only the unknowing call myth. Let me be the bridge to a time of tranquility, faith, and confidence in action." This was a blunder: In his acceptance speech, at the United Center in Chicago, Clinton said, "We do not need to build a bridge to the past. We need to build a bridge to the future, all the way to the 21st Century!"

After that, Clinton and his running mate, Vice President Al Gore, solidified their lead, and Dole and Kemp never really got close to them. Near the end of the campaign, Dole tried to make a big deal about Clinton's "scandals," but nobody could pin anything on him. And Clinton seemed to be handling his role as Commander-in-Chief well. And, just as in 1992, the issue of "the economy, stupid" helped him: This time, he was in charge, and it was doing well.

Dole didn't run a bad campaign, but once Clinton won the battle over the budget, Dole never had a chance.

Comedian Mort Sahl, closing in on half of century of joking about politicians of both parties, said, "There were 4 million people in the American colonies, and we had Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Franklin. Now, we have over 200 million, and the top 2 guys are Clinton and Dole. What can you draw from this? Darwin was wrong!"

What no one yet knew was that the government shutdown, at the same time that it was securing Clinton's win, was also setting the stage for the biggest crisis of his Presidency: Among the volunteers working in the White House during the government shutdown, and was among the young staffers welcoming him back to the White House with a hug the day after the election, was a young woman named Monica Lewinsky.

The Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics was established at the University of Kansas in 2003, on the occasion of Dole's 80th birthday. It performs some of the same functions as a Presidential Library, but it is not the same thing. Dole died in 2021, at the age of 98.

*

November 5, 1996, like all modern U.S. Election Days, was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. But there were 10 games played in the NBA that day:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Los Angeles Lakers, 98-92 at Madison Square Garden. Shaquille O'Neal scored 26 points.

 

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 83-81 at the new CoreStates Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.

* The Toronto Raptors beat the Dallas Mavericks, 100-96 at the SkyDome in Toronto. (It's now named the Rogers Centre.) Walt Williams scored 34 for the Raptors.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 74-68 at the Gund Arena in Cleveland. (It's now named the Rocket Arena.)

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Vancouver Grizzlies, 96-73 at the United Center in Chicago. Michael Jordan led the scoring with 22 points.

* The Los Angeles Clippers beat the Denver Nuggets, 82-78 at the McNichols Arena in Denver.

* The Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Phoenix Suns, 98-95 at the AmericaWest Arena (now the Mortgage Matchup Center) in Phoenix.

* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Golden State Warriors, 111-93 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* The Houston Rockets beats the Sacramento Kings, 102-80 at the Arco Arena in Sacramento. (It's now named the Sleep Train Arena.) Hakeem Olajuwon matched his uniform number by scoring 34 points.

* And the Atlanta Hawks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 117-95 at the KeyArena in Seattle.

Only 1 NHL game was played, and it wasn't in the country holding the election: The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the St. Louis Blues, 6-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. 

November 3, 1992: Bill Clinton Is Elected President

November 3, 1992: Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas is elected President of the United States, defeating incumbent President George H.W. Bush and computer billionaire H. Ross Perot, who ran an independent campaign.

The popular vote: Clinton, 44.9 million, Bush 39.1 million, Perot 19.7 million. This was the 1st time that over 100 million people voted in a Presidential election. Clinton won 43.0 percent of the vote, Bush 37.4, Perot 18.9. States: Clinton 32, Bush 18, Perot none. Electoral Votes: Clinton 370, Bush 168, Perot none.

At 10:47 PM, Eastern Time, CBS called Ohio for Clinton. That put him over 270 Electoral Votes giving him the win.

It had once been a longshot that things would reach this point. In April 1991, after winning the Persian Gulf War, Bush had an approval rating of 91 percent. And some of the biggest names in the Democratic Party got scared out of running: Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Senator and former Governor Bob Graham of Florida, Representative Pat Schroeder of Colorado; 1988 candidates like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Representative Dick Gephardt of Missouri, and former Gov. Bruce Babbitt of Arizona; even the 1988 Vice Presidential nominee, Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas. Certainly, the defeated 1988 Presidential nominee, former Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, wasn't going to try again.

Others had good excuses for not running. Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts found his personal life in a mess at that point; Senator Al Gore of Tennessee (a candidate in '88) had to deal with a family emergency at the time his candidacy would have had to start; and Governor Mario Cuomo of New York was facing a budget crisis in his home State, interfering with his ability to file as a candidate, as the deadlines coincided.

That left a comparatively weak field. Senator and former Governor Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, a wounded veteran of the Vietnam War, seemed like a great candidate. But he won only the Primary in neighboring South Dakota, and ran out of money. Doug Wilder of Virginia, the 1st black Governor of a Southern State, didn't get anywhere. Senator Tom Harkin won the Caucuses in his home State of Iowa, but since he had them locked up anyway, nobody else ran there, and so that victory, so meaningful to Jimmy Carter in 1976, may have ended up hurting him.

The Governor of California was a Republican, Pete Wilson, who ended up running in 1996. One of the State's former Governors, Jerry Brown ran, but his image as a flake -- his nickname was "Governor Moonbeam" -- hurt him. By the time campaigning in the New Hampshire Primary got serious, there were only 2 candidates with any traction.

And one of them was Paul Tsongas, a former Congressman from a neighboring State, Massachusetts. Anything he got in New Hampshire could be attributed to proximity. And his location and his Greek ancestry, and his "face made for radio" all evoked Dukakis' failed campaign. At least Dukakis didn't have a speech impediment: Tsongas did.

That left Clinton, who'd been elected Governor of Arkansas in 1978, lost in 1980, regained the office in 1982, and was re-elected in 1984, 1986 (then it became a 4-year term) and 1990. He was young (45), and a good-looking guy whose Southern accent seemed charming. He certainly wasn't a "dumb Southerner": He was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, with degrees from Georgetown and Yale Law. He seemed like just the guy to break the Republicans' hammerlock on the South, and like just the guy to appeal to young people.

But his youth led to problems. He was the 1st Presidential candidate from the "Baby Boom" generation to be taken this seriously. (Gore tried to be, 4 years earlier, but he didn't get very far, through little fault of his own.) Every President going back to Franklin Roosevelt had some sort of role in World War II. Clinton wasn't even born until after that war. He was the 1st serious candidate where serving in Vietnam, or not, would be a serious issue. And he didn't serve. The way he avoided it was legal, but it was sketchy, and a lot of people who served, or loved someone who served, held that against him.

He was also the 1st Presidential candidate taken this seriously for whom the use of marijuana and other drugs associated with 1960s youth culture were an issue. By his own admission, he handled it badly. But what really threatened to derail him was his lack of marital fidelity. His wife, the former Hillary Rodham, whom he'd met at Yale Law, defended him a joint interview on 60 Minutes, broadcast on CBS after that network broadcast the Super Bowl, so millions were still watching. Her angry defense of him ended up polarizing more people than he did.

But it worked: He finished 2nd to Tsongas in New Hampshire, and the nickname "The Comeback Kid," first used on him when he regained the Governorship 10 years earlier, was revived. The questions about his lovelife, drug use and war avoidance didn't go away, though: It took until June 2, when he won the California Primary, before he clinched the Democratic nomination. (It didn't help that Brown made a big effort to win his home State, but failed.)

But Bush wasn't running away with the race, either. The American economy was in tatters. And a race riot had broken out in Los Angeles on April 29. There was little confidence in him. The conservative wing of the Republican Party had never fully trusted him. When, in June 1990, he saw the recession deepening and the federal budget deficit skyrocketing, he broke his 1988 Republican Convention promise of "Read my lips: No new taxes." Reasonable people realized that he had to do it. But conservatives, as has usually been the case since the Barry Goldwater campaign of 1964, were not interested in being reasonable people.

Pat Buchanan, a journalist who had worked in the Administrations of Richard Nixon (as a speechwriter, with a brief holdover under Gerald Ford) and Ronald Reagan (as White House Director of Communications), had some credibility with the hard right wing, and challenged Bush in the Primaries, gaining 38 percent of the vote in New Hampshire. This pushed Bush to the right for the rest of the campaign: Buchanan "lost the nomination, but won the nominee."

But that pushed moderates, and independents, people who didn't belong to any party, away. So Perot, a Dallas businessman who became a billionaire through early investing in the computer industry, and, years earlier, a household name when he worked to bring prisoners of war back from Vietnam, ran as an independent candidate.

For a while, he was ahead of Clinton in the polls, and not that far behind Bush. People were actually willing to trust a struggling economy, and a quickly-changing "world chessboard," to a completely unqualified, and apparently "nutty" (to use one of Bush's favorite words), businessman, because they no longer trusted the establishments of either major party. Oh yes: Perot also had odd hair.

Sound familiar? Not quite: Unlike Donald Trump, Ross Perot was (as far as we know) faithful to his wife, wasn't obsessed with golf, never acted like he had to be the center of attention, and had never expressed appreciation for foreign dictators. (He did seem to be obsessed with Fidel Castro of Cuba, but in a negative way, which helped feed his paranoia.)

So there it was: Three major candidates for President, and it didn't look like any of them could win -- or should win. Had a more qualified candidate than Buchanan -- say, 1988 Republican candidates Bob Dole or Jack Kemp -- challenged Bush from the right, that candidate might have won the whole thing.

But the night after the California Primary, Clinton stuck around in the Golden State, and appeared as a guest on The Arsenio Hall Show. Hall was the 1st black person to succeed as a late-night talk show host, and had more credibility with young people than did the retiring Johnny Carson, Carson's replacement Jay Leno, or even David Letterman. It is hard to explain to today's kids just how big Arsenio was at that point. After all, he did something neither Carson, nor Leno, nor Letterman ever did: He made a man President. (As much as any man, including the candidate himself, did.)

The show began with Clinton, wearing sunglasses, jamming with The Posse, Arsenio's band, playing "Heartbreak Hotel" by Elvis Presley on the saxophone he'd played since he was a kid. This was considerably hipper than the classical piano playing that Presidents Harry Truman and Nixon had done: This was a President who appreciated rock and roll, which Jimmy Carter and Bush had accepted, but that was about it.

After a careful examination of what Hall called "the smokin' the joint thing," in which Clinton admitted he should've just answered the original question, "Yes," they got serious, talking about job creation and educational opportunities, especially in the inner cities. Hall's Hollywood studio was just a short bus ride from the epicenter of the riot, and Clinton's comments really resonated with his studio audience. Hall brought Hillary on as well, and the appearance helped to humanize her as much as it did him.

At the Democratic Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York, Clinton took Gore, whose family emergency had been resolved, as his Vice Presidential nominee. It was a very inclusive Convention, with Cuomo, Kennedy and Jackson all giving good speeches for Clinton. And then, the morning of the last day of the Convention, Perot dropped out of the race. Suddenly, Clinton had all of the energy, and all of the momentum -- or, as Bush called it in a previous campaign, "The Big Mo."

So the Republican Convention, at the Astrodome in Houston, Bush's adopted hometown, became the nastiest major-party convention ever. (At least, until 2016.) Buchanan gave a speech with the most reluctant of endorsements of Bush, and saying, "There is a religious war going on in our country, for the soul of America." Speaker after speaker ripped the Democrats for favoring civil rights, gay rights, single mothers and public schools -- to the detriment of, respectively, white people, straight people, "traditional families" and religious schools.

It seemed like a Nuremberg rally in 1930s Germany. The Texas-based newspaper columnist Molly Ivins said of Buchanan's speech, and could have said it of others, "It probably sounded better in the original German."

The Republican attacks on Clinton got worse. They even attacked him for a trip he took to the Soviet Union -- in 1969, when he was 23 and a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, 5 years before he ran his 1st campaign for public office. And things got more complicated when Perot got back in the race, resulting in the 1st-ever 3-way Presidential debate.

That happened on October 11, which just happened to be the Clintons' 17th wedding anniversary, at Washington University in St. Louis. In the debate, citing his experience, Bush mentioned the '69 Soviet trip. But, remembering how Bush had done similar things to Dukakis 4 years earlier, Clinton was ready, and he ended Bush's campaign, right there:

When Joe McCarthy went around this country, questioning people's patriotism, he was wrong. He was wrong. And a Senator from Connecticut stood up to him, named Prescott Bush. Your father was right to stand up to Joe McCarthy. You were wrong to attack my patriotism.

If Clinton could stand up to Bush, people realized, he could stand up to nations and terrorist groups that would attack America. 

The 2nd Presidential debate, at Robbins Field House, at the University of Richmond in Virginia, deepened Bush's problems. As moderator Carole Simpson of ABC News solicited a question from the audience in the "town hall" format used for this debate, Bush stood up and looked at his watch. By doing this, he made it look like the debate, facing those undecided voters, wasn’t worth his time.

The question that Simpson received, to be fair, was poorly worded. She had to clarify that the questioner, asking, “How has the national debt personally affected each of your lives?” probably meant, “How has the recession affected you?” Perot answered by saying it made him interrupt what he said was a pretty good life to take on the campaign.

Bush fumbled with his answer, saying, "I think the national debt affects everybody. Obviously, it has a lot to do with interest rates," and then asked, "Are you saying that if a person has means, he can't understand hardship?" When Simpson clarified that the question was really about the recession, Bush went off on a tangent about a visit to a black church, seeming to find his bearings, but still not convincing anyone.

In contrast, when it was his turn, Clinton stood up, and said to the questioner, "Tell me again how it's affected you?" She said she knew people who had lost their jobs. He said that, as Governor, when a business in Arkansas went under, chances were he knew the people who ran it. All the Republican mockery of him being "Governor of a small State" -- according to the 1990 Census, Arkansas was home to 2.35 million people -- paid off at that moment. It was another example of a line Clinton had used in other forums: "I feel your pain."

(The 3rd debate, at Michigan State University in East Lansing, was inconclusive: It was Bush's best performance, but the other two were also judged to have done well.)

The Republican campaign continued to get nastier, but it had little effect. The Republicans made slight gains in each house of Congress, but Clinton won solidly in the popular vote, and overwhelmingly in the Electoral Vote, largely because young people, who hadn't really had a candidate to back since the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968, finally had someone who seemed to understand their needs.

To this day, many conservatives blame Perot, with his big spending on October half-hour infomercials full of charts, and his overly folksy manner, for throwing the election to Clinton. This is a stupid idea, mainly because exit polls taken on Election Night showed that about half of Perot's voters wouldn't have voted at all, and the other half were pretty much evenly split between Bush and Clinton.

What's more, those very conservatives pushed Bush too far to the right, making him seem as crazy as they were, when he wasn't. Bush himself ran a bad campaign, looking in his speeches like he'd rather be anywhere else on the planet but at that podium; whereas Clinton looked like he was happy to be among the voters at his rallies. And the economy, though slightly better in the 2nd half of 1992 than it was in the 1st half, was still working against an incumbent; 

Perot finished 2nd in 2 States: Utah, ahead of Clinton; and, surprisingly, Maine, ahead of Bush, who had a family home there. It is possible that Perot siphoned off enough conservative (or, at least, non-liberal) votes to throw the following States to Clinton: Georgia, Kentucky, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, possibly New Jersey, and Ohio. That's a shift of 68 Electoral Votes, which would have turned a 370-168 Clinton win into a 302-236 Clinton win. And it could be just as easily argued that Perot siphoned enough votes to swing Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Dakota and Texas to Bush. That's 82 EVs: Clinton could have won 452-86.

Perot ran again in 1996, and in the last days, told his audiences that Clinton would have pending criminal charges against him. This turned out not to be true. Perot didn't do nearly as well, but still did well enough to deny Clinton a majority.

He never ran for office again, and endorsed Bush's son, George W. Bush in 2000. He supported Mitt Romney in 2008 (Romney didn't get the Republican nomination for President) and 2012 (he did, but lost to Barack Obama). He did not endorse anyone in 2016, and died in 2019.

George Herbert Walker Bush told his audience in his concession announcement, "I intend to get fully involved in the grandchild business." He certainly did, and kind of became America's Grandpa. Oddly, his son George W. Bush's Presidency, 2001-09, resembled Nixon's and Reagan's -- right down to the international swagger and the domestic corruption -- much more than his father's. Every mistake he made seemed to be the opposite of a decision his father got right. As Dubya's reputation tumbled, his father's rose. Clinton worked with both George Bushes on disaster relief in the 2000s and 2010s. The elder George Bush died in 2018, and was remembered fondly.

In 1990, Time magazine got creative with its Man of the Year distinction: "Men of the Year: The Two George Bushes." The idea was that Bush, working through Operation Desert Shield, the leadup to the Gulf War, which became Operation Desert Storm, was having success; but, also working through the recession, and having to raise taxes, was struggling, so it was as if 2 different men were President. Clinton ran against the "second George Bush," and won, and Time named him Man of the Year for 1992.

In spite of Clinton's win, the Democrats only broke even in the U.S. Senate, and the Republicans gained 9 seats in the House of Representatives. Following the treatment of Dr. Anita Hill in the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Democrats called 1992 "The Year of the Woman," and among the new Senators elected were Dianne Feinstein (special election) and Barbara Boxer (regularly-scheduled election) in California, Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, and Patty Murray of Washington.

Bill Clinton's 2 terms were full of controversy, but, in terms of accomplishments and leaving the country better off when he arrived, he was the most successful President since Lyndon Johnson. He fully supported his wife Hillary's political career, and seemed more hurt than she was when the 2016 election was stolen from her.

The 1992 campaign was a very nasty one, or so it seemed by the standards of the time. This built an odd friendship, to the point where both preferred Bill's wife Hillary for President in 2016 -- though that could also be due to how Donald Trump treated Jeb Bush in that year's campaign.

Clinton's Presidential Library opened on November 18, 2004 in Little Rock, Arkansas. And the city's main airport is named Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport. The headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency, in Washington, is named the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building. Clinton remains the only President born in Arkansas, or to represent it in politics.

Aside from the "Presidential City" in Rapid City, South Dakota, the only known statue of Bill Clinton is in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, a country he helped liberate.

On Saturday Night Live, he was played by Phil Hartman from 1992 to 1994, Michael McKean in the 1994-95 season, and Darrell Hammond has played him ever since. Dennis Quaid played him in The Special Relationship in 2010 -- not about Bill's relationship with Hillary, or with Monica Lewinsky, but about America's relationship with Britain, with Michael Sheen playing Prime Minister Tony Blair.

*

November 3, 1992 was, like all modern Election Days in U.S. history, a Tuesday. This was also the day that the New York Yankees traded Roberto Kelly to the Cincinnati Reds for Paul O'Neill, a major transaction in the Yankees' 1990s restoration. I have a separate entry for that event.

The baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. And there were no NBA games played that day. But there were 5 NHL games:

* The only team from the New York Tri-State Area in action was the New York Islanders, and they lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins, 2-0 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Quebec Nordiques and the Hartford Whalers played to a tie, 3-3 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena).

* The Washington Capitals beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 4-1. This was one of the NHL's early-1990s experiments with neutral-site games. It was played at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, formerly home to the World Hockey Association's Indianapolis Racers. This made it a lot closer to a home game for the Hawks than it was for the Caps, but the Caps won.

* The expansion Tampa Bay Lightning beat the St. Louis Blues, 6-4 at the Florida State Fairgrounds Expo Hall in Tampa.

* And the Edmonton Oilers beat the expansion Ottawa Senators, 5-2 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.

October 22, 1969: ARPANET: The Original Internet

October 22, 1969: The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) goes online, through the U.S. Department of Defense. It is an early packet-switching network, designed for resource sharing between remote computers, and the first network to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. The first connections were made between major universities, and the very first was in California, between UCLA and Stanford.

It was designed by Leonard Kleinrock, Paul Baran, Donald Davies, Lawrence Roberts (who worked on the packet-switching methodology), Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf (who developed the protocols).

Although ARPANET was taken offline in 1989, due to successor networks having gone online, it is, essentially, the beginning of the Internet.

In 2000, Vice President Al Gore was running for President, and the Republican Party mocked him for claiming to have invented the Internet. What he actually said, in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN on March 9, 1999, was, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Which is not the same thing as claiming to have invented it.

On October 2, 2000, Kahn and Cerf released a statement saying the following:

Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development.

No one person or even small group of persons exclusively "invented" the Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration among people in government and the university community. But as the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.

In other words, two of the guys who were part of the invention of the Internet said that Gore was vital as far as its development was concerned. But the American media, in the tank for Gore's opponent, Governor George W. Bush of Texas, never told the truth about it, sticking with the myth that Gore "lied when he said he invented the Internet," when he never said he'd invented it.

Davies died in 2000, Baran in 2011, Roberts in 2018. As of October 22, 2022, Kleinrock, Kahn and Cerf are still alive.

*

October 22, 1969 was a Wednesday. Adam Spiegel, a.k.a. the film director Spike Jonze, and Belgian singer Helmut Lotti were born.

Baseball season ended 6 days earlier, when the New York Mets beat the Baltimore Orioles in Game 5 to win the World Series. Football was in midweek. There were 4 games in the NBA:

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Phoenix Suns, 122-119 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The San Francisco Warriors beat the Atlanta Hawks, 94-93 at the Alexander Memorial Coliseum (now the McCamish Pavilion) in Atlanta.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Cincinnati Royals, 116-109 at the Cincinnati Gardens. Just another day at the office for Wilt Chamberlain: 43 points and 20 rebounds.

* And the Milwaukee Bucks beat the San Diego Rockets, 115-102 at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena). Lew Alcindor, the man who would become Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in only his 3rd professional game, scored 36 points and grabbed 19 rebounds.

There were 3 games in the American Basketball Association:

* The Carolina Cougars beat the Washington Capitols, 122-91 at the original Charlotte Coliseum (now the Bojangles Coliseum). These Capitols moved the next season, becoming the Virginia Squires, and have no connection to either the Washington Capitols who played in the NBA from 1946 to 1951, or to the Washington Capitals who began play in the NHL in 1974. Of course, all 3 teams were nicknamed the Caps for short.

* The Miami Floridians beat the Los Angeles Stars, 119-98 at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami. This was about 8 months after Jim Morrison of The Doors was arrested for some alleged naughtiness at a concert there.

* And the Indiana Pacers beat the Denver Nuggets, 117-107 at the Indians State Fairgrounds Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis.

There were 5 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a tie, 1-1 at the new Madison Square Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens and the St. Louis Blues played to a tie, 3-3 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Minnesota North Stars, 3-2 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 2-0 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the Detroit Red Wings and the Oakland Seals were not scheduled.