history major here as well. this is about the only time i got to talk about the 1876 vote and previous electorial votes and not have peoples eyes glaze over.
what i am really enjoying is nixon being held up as an ikon of election correctness!! one word comes to mind there: watergate. i guess that was so far back only we history majors remember it.
i am enjoying the fact that people are actually finding copies of the constitution and reading them.
i am a carl hiassen fan as well and many times i just have to laugh at the major corruption there is down in florida. it is the only sane response. this is something even he could not have imagined. i have been saying that the only other state that would generate this much intrigue (okay, tons more intrigue) would be louisiana. (la and fl were 2 out of the 3 states that gave the 1876 vote it’s wild flavour.)
Perhaps rather than assume you should inform yourself.
Bush had the same opportunity that Gore did to request hand recounts. He chose not to do so. He has now filed suit in federal court to have the Florida law providing for hand recounts declared unconstitutional.
I have heard of none in Florida. I assume that you can provide a cite for this assertion.
You have this backwards. Some heavily Democratic precincts are currently in the limelight because Gore chose to request recounts there. In one case, PBC, attention was already focused on teh area due to citizen complaints about ballot structure, bias, etc.
Had Bush chosen to exercise his rights under Florida election law, some of teh precints now in the limelight would now be heavily Republican. The facts as I have seen them related, however, do not support the idea that the number of ballots disallowed in any Republican voting county aproach the raw numbers in Palm Beach County.
You have asserted otherwise. If you are correct, it makes Bush’s decision to not seek the recourse available to him under the law seem even more foolish.
Yes. And that place is codified in Florida law. Those laws were in place when both candidates sought a place on the ballot. Trying to change the rules now in order to gain or maintain an advantage is dishonest. Had Gore gone to court, or should he, in order to change the way ballots can be legally tallied I would decry the effort. Bush has already done so and deserves condemnation for his action.
Or, in language not stilted toward your particular bias: The Bush camp is saying the process should stop while they are ahead despite laws to the contrary, while the Gore camp is saying that all measures allowed for under Florida law should be used to determine the winner.
A good scientist would not accept biased instruments to generate some results but not others. A good scientist would not declare an experiment over when he had the results he wanted if the original plan of the experiment called for an additional level of analysis. A good scientist would not pretend that an identified bias in one area of a system must necessarily be balanced by unidentified bias in other areas.
The real question, of course, is what a good politician would do. Unfortunately, we don’t have an adequate subject to test.
re the OP: Half of me is having a blast. The other half is thoroughly disgusted. And the third half is absurdly optimistic that the public will actually care enough, for long enough, to correct some of the mistakes we are living through.
Spiritus:And the third half is absurdly optimistic that the public will actually care enough, for long enough, to correct some of the mistakes we are living through.
Well, if we do, I hope somebody will remember to thank Ralph Nader.
I like to say that I got my degree in criminal law from the OJ trial, and that I’m getting my degree in Constitutional law now.
I am happy that we are having such a vigorous and worthwhile debate, but I must admit I get a squidgy feeling way down deep in my stomach when I think about what might happen if we can’t resolve this.
Mainly, I wish that either or both of the candidates would act a little more Presidential and a lot less whiny.
Well, you are certainly helping some of us also enjoy this more, helping prevent us from getting too disgusted, and basically helping keep us better informed…Keep up the good work!
I am looking for the cite, but I saw Fox News do a rather lengthy story on this yesterday. There is a highly Republican county in (I think) N. Florida that had even more rejected ballots than in Palm Beach. Substantially more, if I remember correctly. Apparently Bush’s camp dropped the ball and didn’t ask for a hand recount.
I have heard several references to this county’s high error rate since I saw that story. I just gotta find a cite!
Hee hee! Me too. Never would I have thought that people would listen rapt while I go on and on about Tilden and Hayes and their creepy back-room dealmaking.
I am absolutely loving this! I saw that ol’ windbag James Baker on the teevee saying “oh we need closure…” That’s a load of hooey! We’re gonna get closure, just not right away. It will be all decided soon enough. We have the time and the resources, so why not do it right? Stoidela is right that it is only the Bushies who want this “settled” right away.
Sure I’d like to know how its all gonna come out, but I am enjoying the process far more than I will enjoy knowing the end of the story. Ever read The Twenty-One Balloons? It’s a book about a guy who figured that the journey is more important than the destination, and I tend to agree with him.
I agree that it is really neat to see all of these obscure laws and procedures actually being dusted off and used. You know, sometimes we look at things like the Order of Succession, and we can’t believe that it will ever be important to know who will be president in the event that the entire executive branch is wiped out, because it has never happened and it probably never will. What we are seeing now is that it is not a bad idea to have these contingency plans. And it is great to see them work.
I am really more pleased with our government than I have been for a good long while. Sure people are being “whiny,” but that’s the First Amendment in action. The real issue is that our government and society and economy are (for the most part) so stable and so reasonable that we can go through something like this and not have the country explode. It is a testament to our Constitution and the people who created it that they could set up a system that is so amazingly sensible that it still works 209 years later, with only a couple-dozen modifications.
And I am going to say this here, not that it is really relevant, but I have been waiting to say it for a while: Why are people calling Gore a “sore loser?” He is leading in electoral votes and the popular vote too, (not that that matters). The vote in Florida is so close, and there are so many reasons to think that the election results were skewed, that it seems to me to be irrational to say that Bush definitely won Florida.
I’m with Persephone: I would prefer if “my” candidate won, but I would prefer more that we figure out what really happened and who really won the election.
–Bean, who really is a great patriot at heart.
p.s. I know that this screwey election has been accused of being “hyped” by the media, but this situation is the only thing that has happened since the concept of “media hype” was born that actually deserves saturation coverage.
I find this fun to watch when each state or individual county totals swing back and forth. I don’t enjoy this when partisans get on TV and start whining.
Overall, this is fascinating. I always thought that things like this only happened in the 19th century. But now we’ve had a presidential impeachment and a disputed presidential election to close out the 20th century.
Perhaps Bush or Gore will end up serving two nonconsecutive terms. That would make everything complete for me.
I worry that we will go past Jan 21st and not have a president. When someone mentioned “lawsuit” in relationship to this, I groaned in disgust.
Granted I saw an opinion on CNN (I think) that said the electoral college doesn’t need florida’s electors. If they aren’t certified by then, the college can go on without them. Heck, since they aren’t obliged to vote for their canadate, we could still end up with Nader.
Since I happen to possess a nugget of information on this subject, I’ll include it here (I’ve already posted this in a couple of other threads, but bis repetita placent).
From the commentary piece “It’s a Myth That Nixon Acquiesced in 1960”, by David Greenberg, Los Angeles Times, Friday 10 November 2000 (I won’t provide a link since LA Times links disappear after a few days), I learned the following:
After the extremely close 1960 election, on 11 November, three days after the election, Thruston B. Morton, Kentucky senator and Replublican Party national chairman, launched bids for recounts or investigations in not just Illinois and Texas (where there had been allegations of state ballot fixing) but also Delaware, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. Robert H. Finch and Leonard W. Hall (close friends of Richard Nixon) sent agents to conduct “field checks” in eight of those 11 battleground states.
In some states (such as New Jersey or Illinois) the GOP obtained recounts without changing the final vote, in other states (Texas) the bid for recounts was rejected by a judge.
(The author of the article goes on to conclude that in his opinion Richard Nixon was behind these efforts but did not advocate them openly).
Well, it certainly is bringing SOMETHING out in everyone.
Hey, ** Persephone** Did ya catch the news report about a woman from **Owasso ** MI?? (for non Michiganders, Owasso is a realtively small town south west of Flint, it’s the county seat for the relatively small rural county of Shiawassi, of which I am a proud resident).
She’s mounting a “petitioin” drive against the recount in Florida.
Ok, do ya have the picture? Some person in rural Michigan is collecting signatures about what WE think some folks in FLORIDA ought to do. Love it.
It has been interesting, to say the least. Makes me think of the ancient curse “May you live in interesting times”
I actually find this whole glorious mess fascinating, and I couldn’t be more tickled with the whole thing. Considering I was voting against Bush far more than I was voting for Gore, I like the way things are shaping up. Bush will probably get the oval office, but it looks like it will be a fairly hamstrung administration even if he does.
green bean and other history fans, have y’all started in on the weird similarities of the john quicy adams and andrew jackson race to the white house? okay, jackson was a bit more interesting than gore, and adams smarter than bush. still very weird, prez. son vs the guy from tn. the more they change the more they stay the same. i always hoped i could use my history knowledge for more than just jeopardy.
I’m enjoying the hell out of all this. So much that I actually started a thread about it, which I don’t often do. Whoever wins, they’re going to enter the office crippled, as the other party will most likely be so bitter about their loss that they’ll boldy explore heretofore unguessed-at realms of partisanship. I am really looking forward to politics for the next four years. Plus, with the federal government gridlocked, I don’t have to worry about 'em screwing anything up.
Constitutional crisis, my ass. Crisis in a few people’s political careers, maybe.
Oh the whole thing is just too delicious for words. I especially like to see how passionately people like Barbra Streisand, Rush Limbaugh, and (cough) some dopers react to developments. Truly, it’s better comedy than “Meet the Parents.”
And then to see the Bush and Gore camps spinning their wheels and trying to convince the American people that they don’t really care who wins just as long as it was FAIR and reflects the will of the people.