One of only a few states that allow voters to begin going to the polls in advance of Election Day, Tennessee provided for 15 days of early voting, which ended five days before Nov. 7.
Ballots cast during that period were not counted in advance, but along with the regular Election Day ballots.
In this year's presidential contest, a record number of Tennesseans – 750,000 of them, nearly a fourth of the Volunteer State's 3.1 million registered voters – went to the voting booths early.
Registration of new voters soared to an unprecedented level. Long lines stretched in front of the polling sites on even the first day of early voting.
Republicans began recognizing this was a tip-off of a strong sentiment for GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush and disaffection with Tennessee's own Democratic candidate.
They moved quickly to capitalize on it.
"I think that's where the Republicans got the edge on Gore," said Tennessee's former-Gov. Ned McWherter.
"They smelled an opportunity for victory in Tennessee and put resources in here to do it with."
A longtime Gore family friend, McWherter is a popular two-term governor and Tennessee Democrats' elder statesman.
In an interview with the Union City, Tenn., Daily Messenger, he had several criticisms to make of the way the Democratic vice president mishandled his presidential campaign in the state where he had never before lost an election in his 24-year political career and had won all 95 Tennessee counties during his 1990 senatorial re-election:
• Republicans got a big jump on Democrats in focusing on early voters, placing television, radio and print ads and blanketing the state with yard signs during the critical 15 days.
Democrats, McWherter complained, waited until the final two days of early voting to run broadcast and telephone commercials featuring him and Tennessee Titans star running back Eddie George.
• He said he had warned the vice president he needed to spend more time in Tennessee, especially at political hot spots like Mule Day in Columbia and the World's Biggest Fish Fry in Paris.
In traditionally Republican East Tennessee, McWherter said, voters were telling him, "Ned, we're glad to see you. You're always welcome here. You're our friend and always will be.
"But we haven't seen or heard from Al Gore since 1992."
• Gore could have learned something from the way his mentor, Bill Clinton, kept in touch with his roots.
"With all of Bill Clinton's problems," McWherter said, "you'll see his picture in the Memphis paper and the Little Rock paper where he'll be coming out of a duck blind. He's stayed in contact with Arkansas, and that was important."
• Gore's campaign simply didn't understand Tennessee, where no Democrat or Republican gets elected statewide without independent voters' support.
"It just failed to recognize that Tennessee is a basic middle-of-the-road, moderate, independent, majority-control state," said McWherter, who was governor from 1987 to 1995 and, before that, speaker of the state House of Representatives.
• Gore blew it also in Florida.
McWherter said the vice president should have ended the contest for Florida's key 25 electoral votes far sooner.
"I thought Gore should have made a concession speech before it went to the Supreme Court," he said, "but I understand his feelings."
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