| Notes
The Fraternal Order of Police appoints a screening committee which makes a recommendation to the Executive Board. In Spring 2000, the five-person Presidential Screening Committee sent the candidates questionnaires with about 20 questions covering labor and criminal justice issues; the committee interviewed the candidates in May and provided a written report and recommendation backing Vice President Gore to the Board. However, on September 8, 2000 the FOP Board voted overwhelmingly to endorse Gov. Bush over Gore. Bush accepted the endorsement on September 20 at a rally in Media (Delaware County), Pennsylvania. endorsement process. The League of Conservation Voters has a somewhat bureaucratic endorsement process. LCV's nine-member political committee, a subset of the Board of Directors (22 voting members), met and recommended that Gore be endorsed. This recommendation was forwarded to the executive committee which concurred and sent the recommendation on to the full Board. Because the presidential endorsement is an extremely important decision, the executive committee had earlier set in place a high 70% threshhold. This was met as Board voted to confer the endorsement on Gore. While LCV considered supporting likely Green nominee Ralph Nader ("the Nader conversation did happen"), the political realities of a two-person race and Gore's legislative and governing record weighed in favor of the vice president. LCV president Deb Callahan presented the organization's endorsement to Gore in an event at the War Memorial building in Milwaukee on May 30. Callahan incidentally served as deputy political director on Gore's 1988 presidential campaign. Americans for Democratic Action did not make a presidential endorsement during the primary race for the first time in recent memory. ADA's National Board, which numbers more than 200 people, initially considered the matter in a meeting in January 2000. About 130 people attended; Rep. Albert Wynn (MD-4) spoke on behalf of Gore and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (NY-8) spoke for Bradley. During the course of three votes, neither candidate reached the required 60% threshhold. Sen. Bradley withdrew on March 9 and another meeting was called for April 29. Fifty to 60 people attended. Ralph Nader spoke on his own behalf, but the board voted to endorse Gore. NARAL voted to endorse Gore during the regularly scheduled meeting of its Board of Directors (28 members) on Feb. 11-12, 2000. The actual vote was taken by the organization's PAC board, consisting of 7 voting and 2 ex-officio members; the vote was unanimous. Recognizing the importance of the group's endorsement, the vice president personally appeared in Washington, DC to accept it on Feb. 15, 2000 in an event at the Mayflower Hotel. The endorsement was a rebuff to Sen. Bradley, who was at that point still somewhat of a viable candidate and had actively wooed the pro-choice constituency. Board members thought that Bradley was misusing or abusing the choice issue as a bludgeoning tool to get to Vice President Gore. During the Jan. 26 CNN/WMUR-TV debate for example, Bradley directly challenged Gore on the choice issue, asking him whether "consistency on fundamental issues of principle is relevant" and noting that "when you were in the Congress, you had an 84 percent right-to-life voting record." Gore responded, "I have always supported a woman's right to choose." Choice continued to be an important issue in the final month-plus of the Democratic race. Bradley had an ad "Choice" running Feb. 18 that claimed "only one candidate has been pro-choice for everyone all the time;" Gore's ad "Committed" from Feb. 19 specifically mentioned the NARAL endorsement, including use of the NARAL logo. The Human Rights Campaign's endorsement of Gore on Feb. 11, 2000 was one of the first for Gore by a national organization other than a labor union. While acknowledging Bradley's "honorable stands on gay issues," the endorsement cited Gore's "long, well-documented history of tangible actions." The decision by the Board of Directors (38 persons) was unanimous, although only a simple majority was required. HRC announced the endorsement at a West Hollywood, Calif. press conference attended by the vice president. It also featured the endorsement on cover of its magazine HRC Quarterly. The National Right to Life Committee announced its endorsement of Gov. Bush on Feb. 9, 2000 in the lead up to the South Carolina Republican primary. The vote was taken by the National Right to Life Committee Board (1 representative from each state and 3 at-large) right after the New Hampshire primary and was overwhelming. The organization had stayed neutral until that point because of the presence of several good pro-life candidates in the GOP race; on Feb. 4 strong pro-life candidate Gary Bauer dropped out and Steve Forbes was set to drop out on Feb. 10, leaving essentially a Bush-McCain race (Keyes also remained in). McCain had raised hackles among pro-lifers when he told editors of the San Francisco Chronicle in August 1999, "Certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe versus Wade." The group's antipathy towards McCain extended back further, however. For a number of years Douglas Johnson, the NRLC legislative director, has been an outspoken opponent of McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation. In January 2000 NRLC and its state affiliates ran ads in New Hampshire and South Carolina attacking McCain. NRLC announced the Bush endorsement in press conferences in Washington, DC and South Carolina. |