The “winner” of this election dispute will almost certainly be considered illegitimate by a huge portion of the American population. If Bush wins by having the manual recounts thrown out the Gorebots will say that the “will of the people” has been thwarted. If Gore wins by shrewd legal maneuvering that includes “manufacturing votes” in certain Democratic-controlled counties the Bushies will claim he “stole” the election through some sort of implied fraud. I’m not saying that either of these positions are correct, it just seems clear to me that those are the arguments that will be made. In either case I see little hope for reconciliation between the two sides - ever. In today’s political paradigm of “vast conspiracies” and “oppressed victims” (thank you Bill Clinton) the losers will be able to claim the moral high ground. From this perch they no doubt will constantly hurl furious charges intented to block the next president at every oppurtunity. Couple this with the very real signs of a slowing economy and a Congress as evenly split across partisan lines as it is, and you have the recipe for disaster.
Of course, it has already been stated that the aggrieved loser automatically becomes his party’s favorite in 2004 with a real good chance to win because he’ll have broad-based sympathy as the “victim”.
With all that said, however, is it worth it to the loser’s side to give up the power that accrues even to a tainted president? The power to run the EPA, military, appoint Supremes, grab more land out west for the treehuggers, or open up more land for oil drilling?
That’s the question I’ve been wrestling with as I watch this circus unfold in Florida. With no clear end in sight at what point do you say “Screw this, just take it you fraudulent bastard - and good damn luck!”
Well, here’s the thing. I’m no tremendous fan of Gore’s, but I sincerely think that George W. Bush would be a bad president. I think he’d be a worse president than he was a governor (which is saying something), because the stakes are higher and his office is vested with more power. I just don’t think Bush would do a good job…at all.
But I’m no knee-jerk partisan. Hell, I voted for Nader, so “my guy” is already out of the running. I don’t necessarily have a problem with the prospect of a Republican president–not least because it energizes the liberal opposition, as alluded to in the OP. I’d be okay, say, with a Dole presidency. I’d probably enjoy a McCain presidency, especially if it got the money out of campaigns. But the more I read about Bush, the less competent I think he is. The less capable I think he is. And I really, really don’t want another Reagan in the White House.
So, to address the question posed in this thread–it’s not so much that I “still” want Gore to win. It’s just that I’ll always want Bush to lose. He could prove me wrong–and, if he becomes president, I supremely hope he does–but my studied opinion is that a Bush presidency would be bad for the bulk of the country, bad for our international reputation, and bad for me personally. I don’t envision that position changing.
Three days ago I came to the conclusion that I really want Bush to win the race this time out, as things now stand anyway. It looks like there is every indication that he will do such a poor job of it on the international front, that the economy will begin to turn around, and that his chances of any substantive legislation are so poor that the country will pull back to the Dems strongly in '04. To my mind, that is a better end result at this point than the do-nothing Democratic presidency that nudges the country rightward in 4 years that would likely result if Al gets the big chair.
I voted for Gore, but my opinion was, shall we say, unsettled as the week went on. By Wednesday night, I came a a conclusion that whoever went to court didn’t deserve to be President. Friday looked very bad, as it appeared that Gore would be filing suit. Imagine my surprise when I woke up Saturday to find Bush had pulled the trigger first.
So, at this point, I do really want my guy to win. Bush panicked first.
I’m with Gadarene: it isn’t that I want ‘my guy’ to win - I find a wide range of people acceptable for the Presidency, including John McCain - but I’d hate to see the Shrubbery, who’s basically Dan Quayle with better PR, become President.
Mandate, schmandate, who’s president still makes a difference. In 1998, the GOP turned the election into a referendum on impeachment. Clearly absent any mandate, they pursued it to the bitter end anyway. With the Shrubbery, and the GOP Congress, it’s tax cuts: they’ll pass a big one (broken up into little pieces - a trick they figured out this year), spending the surplus that isn’t really all that big in the first place, and if the economy tanks, it’s back to $300 billion deficits each year.
I’m not an economic conservative, but I’m damned sure a fiscal conservative. So my opposition to the little turd from Texas is unremitting.
And that’s just one issue. On at least a half dozen fronts (the Supreme Court, the environment, etc.), I feel just as strongly that, in the two years before the Dems retake Congress, he can do scads of damage.
The only thing the little dip had to run on, really, was a claim to greater moral character than Clinton. Considering the character he and his henchmen have exhibited in the last week, that sure goes out the window. I never understood the depth of the revulsion that a number of different kinds of conservatives had for Clinton, but that’s what I feel for the GOP nominee.
My preferred outcome would be for all lawsuits by all sides to be rejected by the courts, for a large overseas absentee ballot majority to overcome the effect of the manual recount, for the Secretary of State to accept the manual results, and Bush win anyway.
I read an article in todays SF Chron, that the GOP hopes for significant help from overseas military ballots may be over rated. Has anyone seen this yet? Here’s a quote:
If the final outcome is 271-269 in favor of Bush, but then two of Bush’s electors actually vote for McCain, the election would be thrown into the House of Representatives, to choose between the top three vote getters, and McCain could be elected as a compromise candidate.
I dislike Bush, so I voted for Gore. I’m not a great fan of Gore, either. The butterfly ballots convince me that Gore should have won, which would have made me slightly happy.
At the moment, though, I don’t like anyone’s methods. Gore looks like a sore loser by threatening lawsuits. Bush and the Republicans look paranoid and dictatorish by trying to bypass the state-required recount process. I wish they’d just stop. The presidency needs a better image than this.
It seems to me that Bush won on the initial vote and on recount, so we should stick with that. The butterfly ballot is unfortunate, and there are probably incidences of
misconduct on both sides which more or less cancel each other out. One could argue “yes, but…” forever, and it just isn’t worth it.
Myron, your argument is tempting, but I still say I want my guy to win. The one thing I know about what the issues and crises will be over the next 4 years is that we don’t know what they will be. The political landscape of the next election cycle (starts less than 3 years from now, anyway) is fun to guess about, but let’s not kid ourselves. The next President will have some accomplishments along with some failures, that’s something else I know.
Meanwhile, let’s not underestimate the power of incumbency. The winner will be the winner, whether by 1 vote or 10 million. The loser will be figuratively branded with a big L on his forehead. The next time, you’ll have a candidate with incredible institutional power and some record of accomplishment running for re-election against a proven loser who ran a weak campaign the last time and won’t have had much opportunity to fix those problems. The incumbent is likely to be re-elected, unless his opponent is somebody else who will be new to the national scene but has charisma and good political instincts.
Quite true. But if NY or CA do likewise, it’s easily Bush’s win. Extend the concept to ALL the states and with such a close election, the winner of the most states likely wins.
Back to the OP. Hell yes I want my guy to win. And that is GWB.
Gore is a loser. Plain and simple. As the incumbent VP with the economy, relative peace, etc all going for him he ran such an inept campaign that he couldn’t/didn’t win outright. That speaks volumes for his inability to lead. He’s acted the role of loser to the max. While the election was in progress the Dems hired Telequest for last minute telemarketing aimed at the Palm Beach voters. The entire voter call-in complaints deal in PB were orchestrated by the Dems. Prior to the Florida SOS ruling on the Tuesday deadline the Dems undertook a smear campaign up her.
Do I want the inept Gore crybaby machine running things for the next four years to that the Republicans can win it next time? Not only no, but hell no. I’ll take GW now!!
Or maybe it is. I’ve just seen several analyses of the overseas ballots by the NYT, WP and LA Times which claim that Bush can expect to pick up at least 300 votes from the overseas ballots. That would give him a 600 vote lead, which may be too much to overcome. (It is an error to extrapolate from the amount of votes in the 1% sample simply by multiplying by 100. The 1% samples are taken from the precints that have the most errors in their ballots. Broward County is reportedly about 20,000 ballots done, with a gain of 8 votes for Gore).
With regard to the proportional allocation issue, I would second the point made by Southern Style, and add that the two states that split their electoral vote do not have true proportionate allocation. They give two votes to the winner of the state, and 1 apiece to the winner of each congressional district (they happen to both have two). This system would still benefit a Republican, because many congressional disctricts are carved out of minority areas where the Democrats have overwhelming majorities. These would be offset by the more numerous districts where the Republicans have slighter majorities.
