Any outcome to the 2000 recount election that wouldn't have one side crying foul?

[handsomeharry]

@Happy_Fun_Ball

I also think the SCOTUS made a mistake in jumping into the fray and tarnishing their reputation…

Coffee on monitor report. Nasal Delivery System engaged.

[handsomeharry]

@adaher

It’s sad, because there are SO many single things Gore could have done to win that he failed to do. GWB’s election was a perfect storm of suck. Of course, Nader could probably have helped too by staying out. And Clinton could have helped by being less of a mental case. We talk about politicians being crazy a lot, and we overuse the term, but it’s strange that few have ever applied it to a pretty clear example of uncontrollable, pathological behavior that Clinton engaged in, and by many accounts, still engages in today. We can blame Gore all we want for trying to distance himself from Clinton, but it’s Clinton’s fault that Gore was faced with that choice. Clinton stays loyal to his wife and Gore wins in a landslide in 2000.

I’ve seen a few references to Clinton being a nutjob on this thread, and, I’m too tired to go back and look for them, so, I have to ask: is this in re his Monica Lewinsky stunt, or about some goofiness that he pulled in 2000 that I don’t remember?

[adaher]

It’s in the Monica thing. His inability to stay away from women he isn’t married to no matter how much it endangers his Presidency and his party is pathological. And it resulted in GWB as President.

[2sense]

It’s a stretch to say that Bill Clinton’s sex scandals resulted in Gore losing. To say the least. Al Gore isn’t Bill Clinton, for one thing. Nor did he fail to condemn President Clinton’s actions. This became an issue in the 2000 campaign only because the mainstream media abrogated their duty to honestly report the news. Gore was comfortably ahead until mainstream outlets started acting like an arm of GOP opposition research. Things would have gone differently if they had done their job in helping potential voters separate the wheat from the chaff. “Bush’s supporters claim that Gore says he invented the internet. That’s not true.” “Bush’s supporters claim Gore hasn’t condemned Clinton’s behavior. That’s not true.” “Gore’s supporters claim that Bush is misrepresenting the GOP platform. That is true.” Basic stuff.

In any case, I don’t think anyone would say that Gore ran the best possible campaign. If he had done better it would have prevented the deliberate Republican plot to steal the election. The plot could only work if the election was very close. He failed to do so. That’s on him. But that doesn’t change the fact that there was a deliberate Republican plot to steal the election. That’s on the GOP.

[SlackerInc]

@Chronos

Given the votes we actually had, though, I think that not only would either side have complained about it being “stolen”, I think that either side would actually have been somewhat justified in that complaint. The vote in Florida, and hence also in the electoral college, was for all practical purposes a tie, and so the fair result (if it were possible, which of course it isn’t) would be for both candidates to half-win. But with the system we have, we instead got one candidate who won completely, and one candidate who didn’t win at all.

One aspect of this I rarely see noted, though, is that Bush needed 23 of Florida’s 25 electoral votes to win (or, I guess, 22 at a bare minimum as that would have tied them at 269-269 and the House was in GOP hands). There is no federal requirement that electoral votes be winner-take-all (in fact, there are a couple states that do not award them that way), so this IMO should have given Gore, in conjunction with his national popular vote win, at least a social-psychological edge. But Democrats foolishly didn’t seem to point to this fact.

ETA: It was also frustrating that Lieberman gave up on the absentee ballot issue, which was a clear question of law. The GOP was just more ruthless in general, including busing in their people to use brownshirt tactics to suppress recount efforts.

I used to be really disgruntled about this election, but now in retrospect I don’t think we would have gotten two years of Democratic control of the Oval Office, House, and Senate, and all we were able to accomplish with that, had Bush never become president.

[adaher]

Gore distanced himself from Clinton when he should have been able to run on the President’s record given how good it was. Gore was put into a tough position because the man just can’t control himself. Inability to control your urges is a mental illness.

[2sense]

I don’t dispute that Clinton’s infidelities were a problem for Al Gore to overcome. On the road to the White House there are innumerable such obstacles. I don’t see the point in bringing up this particular hurdle in a discussion of the 2000 Florida recount other than as a distraction from Republican malfeasance.

[handsomeharry]

@adaher

It’s in the Monica thing. His inability to stay away from women he isn’t married to no matter how much it endangers his Presidency and his party is pathological. And it resulted in GWB as President.

Thanks.

[Superdude]

@2sense

I don’t dispute that Clinton’s infidelities were a problem for Al Gore to overcome. On the road to the White House there are innumerable such obstacles. I don’t see the point in bringing up this particular hurdle in a discussion of the 2000 Florida recount other than as a distraction from Republican malfeasance.

adaher has, you should pardon the pun, a massive hard-on about Bill cheating on Hillary. He injects it into every conversation, until the “truth” just erupts in a massive flood of hyperbole. Then adaher, spent, has to wait about 20 minutes before he can go again.

[adaher]

Actually, just two threads, both of which are germane to the discussion. Yes, it was one obstacle for Gore, but since other posters wondered why Gore didn’t want to tie himself too closely to Clinton, that’s why. And it cost him. Gore should never have been placed in that position and I’m sure there’s a lot of other Democrats that felt that way.

[2sense]

We all have our axes to grind. adaher is one of my favorite posters. He is one of the few denizens of this internet willing to acknowledge inconvenient facts and still continue a conversation. We don’t agree on a lot but we do agree on the facts and he’s taught me a few along the way. What more could you want from a conflict partner?