<HTML>Hey Seth, You now need to pay up on our bet :) I'll never be able to say Rehnquist never did anything for me. So, for the rest of LBO folks who so confidently predicted a Gore win given the economy et al, how do you explain the closeness of the race in the end? - -- Nathan</BLOCKQUOTE> Wait a second, here, Nathan. What exactly was the nature of this bet? Was it who would be president on January 21? Or was it who won the election? If it was the latter, I am afraid you will have to be the one to pay up. Two things led to the closeness: 1. Residual disgust with the whole impeachment/Lewinsky affair, which Gore allowed the drunk driving, coke snorting Bush to exploit by presenting himself as more moral than Gore, who has to have been as straightlaced a Democrat candidate as any in history; 2. And following from the above, Gore was just not a very good candidate, especially coming on the heels of a master of campaigning -- Clinton. Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869) Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass -- </HTML>