Same. I'd argue the 2000 election was far more important especially given the creation of the PATRIOT act and the decision to invade Iraq, both of which were coincidentally voted for by one of the current candidates.
But not knowing what is going to happen is part of being President. You have to choose the candidate that you think will best represent you in the best of times, the worst of times, and every possibility in between.
> The PATRIOT Act itself was written by Sen Joe Biden ffs.
This is pretty misleading. The Patriot Act was written by Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican from Wisconsin (which makes sense since the R's had majority control of the House in 2001).
Joe Biden wrote an anti-terrorism bill in 1995 in the wake of the Oklahoma City Bombing that had many similar provisions regarding Federal jurisdiction over acts of terrorism, financial controls, etc. In one of Joe's wonderful bits of rhetorical flourish while debating the Patriot Act in 2001, he said that Ashcroft basically sent up his bill. So you could say that he wrote a precursor to the Patriot Act, but he's also voted against expanded wiretaps and the Habeas violations at Guantanamo so it's not like he's a neocon.
The same course of action? War with Afghanistan was certainly inevitable after 9/11 (assuming Gore, like Bush didn't follow up on the warnings, and the attacks still happened). The Iraq War, on the other hand, would not have happened.
Regime change in Iraq was the official policy of the Clinton administration, President Clinton initiated frequent air strikes and other military action against Saddam, Vice President Gore criticized George HW Bush for not removing Saddam in 1991 when he had the chance, and Sen Hillary Clinton voted to authorize the war in 2003 (while she is certainly an independent person, they have been very closely aligned in policy, both Hillary and Gore were/are self-styled continuations of Bill Clinton's Presidency), and there was broad support for removing Saddam from power even before 9/11.
