This day in WND History: Dec. 5

Why Gore lost the presidency

Dec. 5, 2000: WND revealed how Vice President Al Gore was tortured by the fact he lost Tennessee, according to friends. After all, had he won his home state – the state he represented all his years in Congress – he would have been President-elect Gore, with or without Florida.

“I know that’s one thing bothering him the most, that he lost Tennessee,” said close friend Steve Armistead, who spent his summers with Gore while growing up in Tennessee. “The other night he asked me, ‘What happened in Tennessee?'”

Although the media accurately reported that Tennessee’s 11 electoral votes would have put Gore at 271 and thereby made him the next president of the United States, most have missed the reason Gore suffered his first-ever defeat in Tennessee: a series of WND articles profiling Gore’s seamy political dealings in Tennessee.

“It was the character issue,” said popular Nashville radio talk host Phil Valentine. “Thanks to talk radio and sources like WorldNetDaily getting out the truth, I believe it tipped the state to Bush. They (the stories) stayed under the radar nationally, but around here they were on everyone’s lips.”

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