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In the 2000 Gore-Bush standoff, the economy was almost absent as an issue. First are seemingly fortuitous circumstances : the candidates' lackluster personalities, and the timing of the downturn in the context of unprecedented developments in the new economy and the federal budget. More convincingly perhaps, a second series of hypotheses takes into account slowly evolving structural factors, either institutional (FED) or political (split GOP). The lack of economic vision characterizing both candidates may be a good clue about the growing prominence of free-market ideology.