At some point every December, I dust off my copy of "A Christmas Carol" to impart some of Charles Dickens' timeless story. Almost as often, I reprise the eloquent words uttered on the floor of the U.S. Senate on this date at the dawn of the 21st century. They were spoken by an incumbent vice president who put aside a bitter election defeat to do his patriotic duty. His classy behavior that day is as relevant now as the day it happened.
Two years ago this week, the Electoral College made it official: Joseph R. Biden Jr. won 306 electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election -- the exact number Donald J. Trump earned in 2016. In both years, the results in several key battleground states were exceedingly close. Also, in both years Trump trailed significantly in the national popular vote: Hillary Clinton outpolled him by 2.87 million votes six years ago; Biden beat Trump by 7 million votes four years later. It's emotionally difficult to lose a presidential election, whether narrowly or in a landslide. But only one candidate can emerge as the winner. In 2020, it was Joe Biden.
Twenty years earlier, another close and contentious presidential election took place between Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Albert Gore Jr. It was ultimately decided at the Supreme Court, which weighed the confusing and razor-thin election results in Florida. Bush was eventually declared the winner, and so it fell to Gore to conclude the process by delivering a concession speech. Americans learned an important civics lesson that year -- at least most of us did -- and it was that the candidate concession speech is not a mere nicety. It is part of the electoral process, and without it, mistrust ensues. Or worse. It didn't come to that in 2001. On Dec. 13, 2001, Al Gore discharged his constitutional duty with a brief address noteworthy for its grace.
Until then, the anomaly of a popular vote winner losing in the Electoral College had happened only three times in U.S. history. The first, and most notorious, instance came in 1824. In a four-man race, Andrew Jackson won the popular vote and bested John Quincy Adams in the Electoral College. But Jackson lacked the required majority of electors, so the issue was thrown to the House of Representatives, which chose Adams.
For Al Gore, the 2000 election returns were triply painful. First, he lost in the Electoral College by so narrow a margin that a switch of even the smallest state from Bush to Gore would have made the difference. Second, it seems apparent that third-party candidate Ralph Nader cost him a win in New Hampshire -- and almost certainly in Florida. Third, Gore won the popular vote by some half-million ballots -- a foreshadowing of the 2016 election.
Despite all that, Gore performed his civic duty. Speaking from the vice president's office, he began with a lighthearted quip: "I promised him that I wouldn't call him back this time." This was a reference to the election-night concession to Bush that Gore had made -- and then retracted an hour later. Then Gore turned serious: "I offered to meet with him as soon as possible so that we can start to heal the divisions of the campaign and the contest through which we just passed."
Gore made it clear he disagreed with the Supreme Court's decision, but he turned rhetorically to Abraham Lincoln to make sense of it. "Almost a century and a half ago, Senator Stephen Douglas told Abraham Lincoln, who had just defeated him for the presidency, ‘Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I'm with you, Mr. President, and God bless you.'"
American politicians often quote Lincoln, but Gore didn't do it casually. He was reminding his own supporters of the "better angels" of their nature. In cadences and prose that deliberately evoked the 16th U.S. president, Gore added: "Neither he nor I anticipated this long and difficult road; certainly, neither of us wanted it to happen. Yet it came, and now it has ended -- resolved, as it must be resolved, through the honored institutions of our democracy."
For his part, down in Texas, Gov. Bush also alluded to Lincoln that day, saying in his long-delayed victory speech that the nation "must rise above a house divided."
"Americans share hopes and goals and values far more important than any political disagreements," Bush added. "Republicans want the best for our nation, and so do Democrats. Our votes may differ, but not our hopes."
Two decades later, we wonder if that is still true. But one way to rekindle those feelings is to reach across the divide in a personal way. Bush did that, too. "Vice President Gore and I put our hearts and hopes into our campaigns," said the new president-elect. "We both gave it our all. We shared similar emotions, so I understand how difficult this moment must be for Vice President Gore and his family. He has a distinguished record of service to our country as a congressman, a senator and a vice president."
Bush added a verbal "salute" to Al Gore, and wished him every success.
That wished-for success came, too, for both men. George W. Bush served two terms in office, teamed up with Bill Clinton and Bono to fight AIDS and malaria in Africa, raised money for victims of tsunamis in Asia, and taught himself to paint. He's a surprisingly able artist. Al Gore went on to become a spokesman for our planet's ecology, an Academy Award winner, and a Nobel laureate. In other words, F. Scott Fitzgerald wasn't just wrong about there being no second acts in American life, he was conspicuously wrong: There are second, third, fourth acts. But they don't come by contesting the legitimacy of democratic elections.
Take Newt Gingrich as a case in point. The once-ousted House speaker ran for president in 2012, endorsed Donald Trump in 2016, and has pursued a career as a commentator and novelist. Twenty-two years ago, Gingrich was asked by NBC's Tom Brokaw to distill the meaning of the 2000 election and its aftermath.
Gingrich noted that in 1994, Republicans believed they had earned a mandate because of their huge gains in the midterms, the implication being that it was easy for politicians to overestimate what voters are telling them. Brokaw asked the former speaker what message voters had sent in 2000, with election returns that were pretty evenly divided -- just as they were in this year's midterms. "It's a mandate to slow down," Gingrich replied, "and listen to each other."
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon.