[Rodeo]

Here's an interesting piece of political trivia:

Clinton’s VNS exit poll job approval ratings did vary considerably across the 50 states and the District of Columbia and tell an interesting story. They ranged from an 87% high in D.C. to a 39% low in Wyoming, home of GOP vice-presidential candidate Dick Cheney. (See table, below.)

Gore won 17 of the 18 states (including D.C.) where Clinton’s job rating was at or above the national average of 57%. Which state didn’t fit this pattern? No surprise. Florida (where Clinton’s positive rating was 58%) was the one state that Gore didn’t "carry" when the rating of Clinton’s job performance was at or above the national 57% average.

Bush won 29 of the 33 states where Clinton’s job performance was below the national average. The other four states that Gore was able to win had Clinton job performance ratings just below the national average: Iowa and Wisconsin (56%), Oregon (55%) and New Mexico (52%).

Another way to view how Clinton’s job approval ratings and the election results interplayed is that every state with Clinton ratings of 60% or more went to Gore. Every state with Clinton job ratings 51% or lower went to Bush. The election was decided in states where Clinton’s job ratings ranged from 52% to 58%. These 18 states split, with 11 going to Bush and seven going to Gore.

Had Gore called upon Clinton to campaign for the Democratic ticket in some of these states, the results might have been different. Remember that it would have taken only one of the Bush states to go for Gore to change the results of the 2000 election.