Gore's 2000 campaign was organized around winning Florida. Earlier in 2000 he made what seemed like a surprising statement in favor of keeping Elian Gonzales in the US (he was the young boy whose mother took him across the Florida Strait in a raft and who became a cause celebre among the Miami Cuban community). The choice of Lieberman also struck me as being calculated to win Florida by locking up the votes of Jewish residents who retired there from New York.

That's one reason why the two campaigns fought so hard over Florida in the weeks after the election - both sides had seen it as the key to victory.

Which of course makes all the more ironic Lieberman's role in undercutting the Gore campaign by arguing against challenging the questionable overseas military votes.

And the world will live as one