>>Ya, you're probably right. But there is always the notion that a candidate
>>will 'inherit' the former presidents legacy.
>>
>>If it wasn't for 'Monica-gate', Gore might well have sat down in the Oval Office.
>
>I don't know if I agree with that. I think that is a popular opinion, but Clinton still left office with a very high approval rating. I think people just liked Bush better than they liked Gore.

The media has made a huge difference everywhere in who gets elected. Gore looked to robot-like on the idiot box. That made him relatively unlikeable. Bush did not come across, to say the least, as an intellectual, but he seemed far more natural and down-home. Seventy years ago, those things might not have had much of an impact because newspapers and radio simply didn't create the same sort of imagery as does TV. The person who comes across better on the box is likely to win an election. And certainly this is not merely a U.S. phenomenon.

The major difference between Canada and the U.S. in this area is that the US problems are compounded by having 10 times the population that Canada has, and far fewer areas of sheer isolation. Fadism spreads far faster and to far greater heights in the U.S.