从很多方面来看，21世纪之交都是在美国生活的美好时光。经济飞速发展，美国用盈余偿还债务，全球相对和平。2000年1月，69%的美国人告诉盖洛普，他们对国家的现状感到满意，这是有史以来最高的收视率之一。
随着比尔·克林顿总统的第二个任期接近尾声，他的副总统兼民主党总统候选人阿尔·戈尔完全有机会将这些良好氛围归功于自己。事实上，一些选举预测模型表明戈尔可能会得到高达60%的民众投票在2000年的选举中。
当然，这并没有发生。戈尔仅获得48.4%的选票，比共和党候选人乔治·w·布什高出半个百分点，但不足以赢得选举人团。对于那些认为和平和良好的经济是选举成功的关键因素的观察人士来说，这是一个难题。
对戈尔失败的一种解释是，选民只是觉得他不可爱或不可理解。2000年代，一个在专家和民意调查者中流行的话题总结了这一点:“啤酒问题。”当时的想法是选民可能会根据他们更愿意与谁一起喝啤酒或与谁有更好的个人关系来选择总统候选人，而不是像经济这样的事情。事实上，布什在2000年的民意调查中赢得了“啤酒问题”。
这是538政治播客迷你系列“竞选回归”的第三部分在三集中，我们回顾了过去选举中的竞选比喻，并评估了这些比喻的来源，它们在当时是否真实，以及它们今天是否仍然成立。在过去的剧集中，我们重新评估了传统智慧“是经济问题，笨蛋”并问是否“足球妈妈”真的是典型的摇摆选民。在我们的第三部分中，我们来看看“啤酒问题”
美国人真的是根据个人关系选择总统的吗?如果是这样的话，这对我们的民主有什么影响?如果不是，为什么选举观察员如此痴迷于将其作为一种解释?请收听下面的播客，或者在您获得播客的任何地方收听:
It doesn’t matter which candidate you’d rather have a beer with
By many measures, the turn of the 21st century was a fantastic time to live in the United States. The economy was roaring, the U.S. was paying down its debt with its surpluses and there was relative global peace. In January 2000,69 percent of Americanstold Gallup they were satisfied with the way things were going in the country, one of the highest ratings ever.
As President Bill Clinton's second term wound down, there was every opportunity for his vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore to take credit for those good vibes. In fact, some election forecast models suggested Gore may getup to 60 percent of the popular votein the 2000 election.
That, of course, didn't happen. Gore won just 48.4 percent of the vote, which was half a percentage point better than Republican candidate George W. Bush, but not enough to win the Electoral College. For observers who believed peace and a good economy were the key ingredients for electoral success, it was something of a conundrum.
One explanation for Gore's loss was that voters simply didn't find him likable or relatable. It was summed up by a talking point that grew popular among pundits and pollsters in the 2000s: "the beer question." The idea was that voters might choose presidential candidates based on who they would rather have a beer with, or who they could better relate to personally, instead of on things like the economy. And Bush did in fact win the "beer question" in polling from 2000.
This is the third installment of the 538 Politics podcast mini-series, "Campaign Throwback." Across three episodes, we take a look back at campaign tropes from past elections and assess where those tropes came from, whether they were actually true at the time and if they still hold up today. In past episodes we reevaluated the conventional wisdom of"it's the economy, stupid"and asked whether"soccer moms"really are the quintessential swing voter. In our third installment, we look at the "beer question."
Are Americans really choosing their presidents based on personal relatability? If so, what implications does that have for our democracy? And if not, why did election watchers become so obsessed with it as an explanation? Listen to the podcast below, or wherever you get your podcasts:
