Poll Position

March 7: Super Tuesday lives up to its name and proves to be Decision Day in both parties. Bush closes in on the nomination by triumphing in New York and California, as well as in key swing states, including Ohio, Missouri and Georgia. Gore wins every Super Tuesday primary and the nomination.

March 9: McCain concedes the Republican nomination to Bush but pointedly declines to endorse him. Bradley drops out and publicly supports Gore. Nationally, the bruising GOP primary campaign has weakened Bush, who has been dogged by criticism that he lacks the maturity or intelligence for the job. As a consequence, Bush has quickly lost his advantage nationally over Gore, particularly among moderate and independent voters.

Democrats hammer Bush's lack of foreign policy experience, an area where Gore is seen as stronger. But foreign policy ranks near the bottom as a voting issue, while education, protecting Social Security and health care top the list.

(In 2004 the agenda has flipped. Foreign affairs -- Iraq and the war on terrorism -- are the big worries, along with the economy. And what a difference four years and 9/11 make: Bush's handling of foreign affairs, specifically the war on terrorism, has been his strength with voters through most of the year, though the violent aftermath of the war in Iraq appears to be eroding his advantage.)

April 4: The most volatile day ever on Wall Street. Falling technology stocks at one point send the Dow Jones industrials and Nasdaq composite index down more than 500 points, and fears grow that the economic boom, which Democrats are counting on to lift Gore, may be over .

April 22: Federal immigration agents take Elian Gonzalez from his Miami relatives. Cuban American leaders denounce President Clinton, Gore and Attorney General Janet Reno. In New York City and Union City, N.J., protesters, some wrapped in Cuban flags and holding American flags upside down, carry banners proclaiming, "First Waco, Now Elian," and "Reno-Clinton-Gore, you can celebrate with your friend Castro."

(In 2004, Cuba is back in the news as Castro has repeatedly denounced the U.S. travel and trade embargo while Bush has imposed even harsher restrictions. Who cares? A big chunk of the roughly 250,000 Cuba-born and Havana-dreaming exiles living in battleground Florida.)

May 5: The Labor Department announces that the unemployment rate hits a 30-year low of 3.9 percent, good news for Gore.

(In 2004, the month of March is kind to Bush: A winter of consistently bad economic news ends with reports that the economy is beginning to bloom.)

May 9: Much to the relief of Republican strategists, McCain endorses Bush, who reclaims the lead from Gore and holds it in the runup to the Republican convention in July.

(Four years later McCain once again delivers a springtime surprise to Bush. After publicly flirting with his "good friend" Kerry, who reportedly wants to make him his running mate, McCain hugs Bush in mid-June onstage at Fort Lewis, Wash. In politics, keep your friends close and your enemies closer . . . )

May 26: A front-page story in The Washington Post showcases the forecasts of prominent political scientists whose statistical models, based on past presidential elections, predict a Gore victory in November, with 53 to 60 percent of the vote. "So how exactly did Al Gore win the election of 2000?" the article begins. "By making the clever decision to run in the midst of an economic boom, and by choosing to succeed a popular incumbent." The lesson for prognosticators and pundits: Choose only the tastiest words when making election predictions -- you may end up eating them.

June 25: In Denver, Ralph Nader accepts the presidential nomination of the Green Party.

(In 2004, Nader is a different shade of green. He selects longtime party activist Peter Miguel Camejo to be his running mate. But Nader, twice the Greens' nominee, decides not to seek the party's nomination because he does not want to be too closely associated with any party. Nader does say he would accept the Greens' endorsement, which would give him access to the party's ballot lines in 22 states and the District of Columbia. The Greens say no and nominate Texas lawyer David Cobb, complicating Nader's efforts to win a place on the ballots of enough states to appear a credible national candidate. Nader sees red and describes the party as "strange" and its nominating convention as a "cabal.")