Apparently, the news service that provides raw voting data for the networks to interpret had been too hasty in extrapolating the results. To complicate matters, a truck on its way to deliver ballots for counting had gotten lost.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ed Rendell said on the air that the party could not have been more disappointed.

And they had reason to be. If Gore carries Florida in the end, he will win the election.

Bush's decision to spend 24 of the last 48 hours of the campaign in Florida, then, in retrospect, seems a wise one.

Less wise, perhaps, was Gore's failure to enlist President Clinton to bring out the Democratic vote in Arkansas. Clinton ended up only spending one day stumping for Gore in his home state.

Gore paid for it, losing Arkansas by the slimmest of margins.

If Gore loses, the blame for his loss fall more directly on votes taken away by Green Party candidate Ralph Nader than on votes Clinton might have won.

Nader came up well short of the five percent mark nationally that would have brought the Green Party matching funds in future elections.