Vice President Al Gore on women's issues - sofeminine.co.uk

Vice President Al Gore on women's issues
Vice President - January 20, 1993 ? January 20, 2001

In the 2000 presidential election, Democratic Vice President Al Gore had the unenviable task of trying to simultaneously run away from what his advisors saw as the unpopular aspects of the Clinton administration (the Lewinsky scandal, ?Hillary-care?), and holding on to women voters ? a key voting bloc for the Left for most of modern American history.

In the end, Gore did not succeed enough in distinguishing himself from his Republican opponent, Texas Governor George W. Bush, in part because the Green Party candidate Ralph Nader argued that they were both ineffectual middle-of-the-road politicians equally bound by corporate interests.

And come election day, Nader took enough of the liberal base to cost Gore the election.

Gore won the popular vote nation-wide, but according to the controversial Supreme Court decision Bush v. Gore, Bush won the deciding state of Florida by 537 votes.

This tug-of-war between creating distance with the Clinton legacy and not alienating loyal Democrats was most evident when it came to the issue of healthcare.

In 1994, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was charged with coming up with a plan for universal healthcare.

Her Task Force on National Health Care Reform came under enormous fire from conservatives, libertarians, and the health insurance industry, who successfully demonized ?Hillary-care? as a massive onus on the average American (most famously with the ?Harry and Louise? ad).

?Hillary-care? was a black eye for the Clinton Administration, and Gore?s campaign advisors were all too aware of this by the time of the 2000 election.

Gore remained a supporter of universal healthcare, but shied away from the notion of a government-run healthcare, a position which opened him up to flanking on his left by Ralph Nader.

Vice President Al Gore also was vulnerable to flanking on his left because of his Congressional history as a Southern Democrat.

While pro-choice, he had supported the Hyde Amendment, which banned federally funded abortions, and which critics argued was disproportionately punitive to low-income women (because it effectively banned Medicaid-funded abortions).

In addition, Gore had supported the nomination of Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court, where he would eventually develop a reputation as one of the staunchest conservative justices.

Source: http://www.sofeminine.co.uk/key-debates/al-gore-womens-issues-n109394.html

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