2000 Presidential Campaigns Essay, Research Paper

The 2000 Presidential campaigns are going to be a very close according to the recent poles made by CNN with Gore in the lead with 43 percent and Bush with 42 percent. The main Presidential candidates are Vice President Al Gore representing the democrats and Governor of Texas, George W. Bush representing the Republicans. The candidates disagree on some issues including abortion, healthcare and education. However they do agree on some things but they have different methods of obtaining their goals. Abortion, for example is one issue that they have different views about, Bush is pro-life and Gore is pro-choice. Healthcare is going to be an important point because Gore is helping more of the elderly, which could really hurt Bush. The biggest issue is going to be education. Both want education to excel while they are President but have different ways of doing it.

I think abortion is going to be a big one for getting women’s votes. Gore supports abortion rights as Bush opposes them except in cases of rape, incest or to save a women’s life. The Gore administration will be better off in this one because Gore is for it and a lot of women are too. On the CBS news Bush stated, “He would support a Constitutional Amendment to ban abortion but won’t push for one.” In relation to his statement Bush said, “I don’t believe there is enough public support for it.” A major issue that Gore has over Bush is that Bush opposes the FDA approval of abortion pill Mifeprex while Gore believes the pill will be a better way to get an abortion done. Gore opposes parental consent or notification that will have many of the younger women’s votes. On the other hand Bush is for parental consent that will get many of the parents on his side.

Health Care is a major issue concerning the elderly and may be very helpful on who the swing states are going to vote for. For example Washington is a swing state and in the past ten elections five were for Republicans and the other five were for the Democrats. It could go either way but right now it looks as if it’s in favor of Gore. Many of the elderly in this state are pushing for Gore because of his prescription drug plan for the elderly. His plan is to create a new Medicare prescription drug benefit offering $1,000 a year to cover the drug costs of recipients paying $24 a month in premiums. A former teacher and counselor in Washington said, “Gore comes across as far more presidential…his responses to foreign policy and Medicare…he seems to look at the bigger picture.” Gore is for seniors 55-65 years of age to buy into the Medicare program, that would be a big plus. Bush is for a plan that would be totally new to America that is to offer medical savings accounts to all Americans no matter what age. Gore supports the creation of a “National Family Care Giving Program;” a one-stop support center for families who care for elderly relatives. Many voters are in favor for Gore because of this. Another swing state, Florida is a big one for Health Care because of all the retired people that go to live in the warm weather. This state will lean towards the candidate with the better health plan for senior citizens. A plus for Bush is that his brother is the governor of Florida but it doesn’t mean that he will get the vote.

In other health issues Gore supports expanding the federal children’s health insurance program (CHIP) to include children living within 250 percent of the federal poverty level. He also wants to allow low-income parents to buy into CHIP. Bush wants to return CHIP to its original design as a flexible block-grant program to provide states with the freedom to innovate and expand coverage of the greatest number eligible uninsured. Gore’s plan is much better and will get a lot of support from low-income families especially in the swing states.

“Education is my number one concern,” stated Gore in the second Presidential Debate. I think that education is going to be the biggest part of this election. Many people are uneducated and Gore’s plan will stop that. For example, Gore supports hiring 100,000 new teachers nation wide in order to reduce the class size will help with children getting better education. Gore had stated that at the end of the second debate. He also proposes mandatory teacher testing for all new teachers and rigorous evaluations after granting teacher licenses. This will make for education in America to be the same in every school. This is what needs to be done to make every child as well educated as the next. Bush wants to allocate $5 billion to establish the “Reading First” initiative so every child can read by the third grade. This plan is good but most kids can read before third grade and with help of parents this will improve. I don’t think Bush’s plans are going to go over as well as Gore’s.

Al Gore supports the interests of the middle class while Bush is for the wealthier. “We need help for the middle-class families to pay college tuition by making it tax deductible. I’m for a lifelong commitment to education,” Gore stated to CBS news. Middle-class families don’t make enough money to send their children to college without any help from the government. In Michigan, which is another swing state, Gore is in favor because 40 percent of voters come from union households. They like the fact that Gore’s pledge is to “fight for working families.” As for Bush’s $1.6 trillion tax cut promise: Almost half goes to the richest one percent. Bush has nothing to say about making college more affordable for the middle class except that he wants to expand educational savings accounts to $5,000 per year.

The election date is not to far away, and for many people it means making a decision on who they want to run their country. While some will make their decision after the last debate, other won’t decide until they are sitting in the voting booth. With Gore in favor of the middle and working classes, Bush has more of the wealthier in his favor. In the end it will come down to what the candidates have to say about the issues stated above. I think that Gore has the better chance of winning because he is a man of supporting the middle-class, which I am supporting.