Election year that ended in 'chadmania' actually began as usual

By Randy Lilleston
CNN.com/AllPolitics Editor

Bush wins! Oops. No, it's too close to call. Thirty-six days and two U.S. Supreme Court decisions later, Bush finally gets to make his victory speech.

(CNN) -- This year in politics began with a familiar image: presidential candidates tramping through the snow of Iowa and New Hampshire. It ended in the U.S. Supreme Court, as lawyers and judges argued over the constitutionality of recounting ballots in Florida.

In between, it has been just plain odd.

There were "insurgent" presidential campaigns that got lots of early year publicity but not many votes. There was congressional gridlock and political conventions and a Changing of the Clintons: The president is wrapping up his term as his wife prepares to become a senator from New York. There was a lingering national hangover from the 1999 political year, in which a standing president faced a Senate impeachment trial.

But, at the end, the image that is most powerful is the one that continues: The debate over the presidential election. Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote, but Texas Gov. George W. Bush won the electoral vote and the presidency.

America learned all about the Electoral College and the "butterfly ballot," and about what might best be described as "chadmania." The nation was treated to weeks of watching lawyers in Florida courtrooms, and although people complained, TV ratings and Web site readership numbers didn't lie: The public deeply cared about what was happening, which has become an arguable rarity in modern politics.

IN-DEPTH   •  Reviewing the Vote   •  Republican Convention 2000   •  Democratic Convention 2000   •  Democracy in America

John McCain and Bill Bradley got some early year publicity boomlets, although Bradley's inability to win a single primary quickly doomed him. McCain beat Bush in New Hampshire and Michigan early, but a Bush win in hotly contested South Carolina was the first sign that his huge financial and party support advantage would wipe out McCain.

The "front-loading" of the election calendar created a huge gap between the end of the contested part of the primary season in early March, and the party conventions in late July and August. In between, Americans seemed to tune out, and there was little evidence that they paid much more attention to the Democratic and Republican conventions.

But things seemed to change in the fall, as it became clear the presidential election was tight. While Gore and Bush fought, there was a sort of changing of the guard for the third choice: The Reform Party battled with itself and split over two candidates, and the strongest third party choice turned out to be Ralph Nader, the Green Party nominee.

In Congress, it was another year of gridlock on some major issues, as the body proved itself unable to approve even routine appropriations bills and a rare "lame duck" session had to be held. The November election, which narrowed the Republican House majority and produced a 50-50 split in the Senate, made it likely that such division will continue next year.

President Clinton became a globetrotter at a record pace, and his world travels led to some grumblings among congressional Republicans. And the original Whitewater investigation -- the Arkansas land deal inquiry that subsequently bloomed into an investigation of all sorts of related issues, including the affair that led to Clinton's impeachment -- came to an end. An independent counsel announced the president and first lady would not face criminal charges for the land deal.