It would be safe to assume that if by chance, Bush and the other favorites had been unable to continue to the 2000 general election and the nominee had ended up being Keyes, Smith, Buchanan, or Dornan, the republican general election vote tally that year would likely have been less than 5 million with the majority of conservative republican voters just staying home or voting democrat.
Have to disagree. Poling on the issues clearly demonstrated that most Republicans were much closer to Buchanan on the actual issues that concerned them than they were to any other candidate, which explains why he was winning the early primaries handily. It was only after the Republican/Democrat/MSM machine realized the threat he was beginning to pose to the status quo that they all joined hands in forming a Pat Buchanan destruction machine. No one, not even Mother Teressa, could have survived that kind of organized and heavily (unlimited, really) funded opposition willing to sink to any low necessary to destroy a man's reputation.
