AL GORE returned to the scene of the crime yesterday, campaigning for Barack Obama in Florida's Palm Beach County, where Democrats believe that butterfly ballots and hanging chads allowed George Bush to steal the 2000 presidential election.
"So, where were we? It's been a long eight years," the former vice-president told a crowd of a couple of hundred at a West Palm Beach ballroom.
"Eight years later, here we are. And you know the story. The economy started to go downhill when the policies changed. It started on 20 January 2001. I know. I was the first one laid off."
It was Mr Gore's first campaign visit to Florida since 2000 but the memory of the disputed election remains fresh among local Democrats. They believe that Palm Beach County's confusing butterfly ballot caused thousands of Gore supporters to accidentally vote for Independent conservative Pat Buchanan.
By the time the US supreme court halted the Florida recount, Mr Bush was only a few hundred votes ahead so confused Palm Beach voters could have swung the election.
"I had one of those butterfly ballots," recalled local firefighter Barkley Garnsey, who took his two- year-old daughter along to see Mr Gore. "I was confused looking at that ballot myself. So I knew that the election was lost right here in Palm Beach County."
Mr Gore came to Florida to urge Democrats to vote early. The former vice-president suggested that they should not take a chance by waiting until Tuesday. "Don't let anyone take your vote away or talk you into throwing it away. Take it from me, elections matter. And every vote matters.
"There are times when the hinges of history are creaking. This is such a moment . . . This is the classic choice between change and more of the same, between hope and fear, between the future and the past."
Mr Gore remains a leaden speaker and his ponderous delivery has not improved, but he excited in the West Palm Beach crowd a sense of nostalgia and wistful thoughts of what might have been.
"I was thinking about that today, how much different it would be," said Mr Garnsey. "We would have been looked at by the world much differently. We wouldn't have gotten into this war. I just can't imagine but I'm sure we'd be a lot better off than we are today."