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Help Stop a 2000 Disaster From Happening Again [1]

['View Profile', 'Thom Hartmann', 'Chitown Kev', 'Nanny Ogg']

Date: 2026-05-07  

Attribution: ny1/ZUMA Press September 23 2009, New York City Politician Al Gore at the Clinton Global Initiative on September 23 2009 in New York City

There have been endless debates about why Al Gore “lost” to George W. Bush in 2000: The corrupt Bush V. Gore decision; media failure; disenfranchisement; third party involvement. But you don’t hear much about the one based on these facts:

Gore “lost” Florida by 537 votes.

Out of 23 Congressional Districts in Florida, Democrats had no candidate in seven Districts.

There were no Democrats on the ballot in 21 state legislative districts

That’s 28 elections in which there was no Democratic candidate on the ballot.*

J.C. Bruce’s Tropic Press reminds of this today:

Theoretically, Gore might have won in 2000 if Democrats had simply fielded candidates in those unopposed races. It would have been enough even if the difference was only one additional vote for every 10 precincts in the state (there are about 5,600 precincts statewide).

There are competitive statewide races for Governor and Senator this year in Florida, so the same idea applies — local candidates will increase the statewide totals.

J.C. Bruce brought this up to show the stakes of efforts by Margie Stein to recruit candidates for every state legislative race in Florida, which I wrote about in A Run Everywhere Story Born out of the Ashes of the Holocaust. Efforts by Margie and Fergie Reid Jr. of 90 for 90 have brought the number down from 60 to 25 to now just 17.

Here’s where you come in. These candidates need $1,800 for a filing fee and another $5,000 for a basic campaign. They are getting zero from the state or national Democratic party.

Last year, Kossacks stepped up and helped raise about $5,000 each for 27 candidates in Virginia. We went from $500 to $70,000 in three weeks. After I did 21 stories here, we raised over $146,000. And the votes in those districts helped add to the totals for the successful three statewide VA races.

Consider contributing to 140 Blue Florida here:



* More info on 2000:



Of course, a candidate would likely get much more than 20 votes. Even one Congressional or State Legislative candidate might have made the 537 vote difference. How do we know? Because in 2000, Democrats received tens of thousands of votes for Congress and the State Legislature in the reddest Florida districts.

On the other hand, our current MSNBC “star,” Morning Joe Scarborough, ran unopposed. He received 226,473 votes — 99.5%. The .5% went to write-in candidates who received 1,066 votes — or just about twice the 537 margin.

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