Bush won fair and square...quit yer bitch'n

Great Debates
141

In format only - and clearly as an attempt to wrap the honorable and necessary cloak of the Nixon removal around the Clinton removal effort. It was made quite clear by the Democrats during the rushed, lame-duck hearings that the substance was being abused. I’m surprised (or perhaps not) that you’re neglecting that.

You’re also (coinveniently?) ignoring that the Democrats refusing to back the anti-Clinton vendetta were far more roundly lambasted for their partisanship for doing so.

Now, don’t you think there might be some substantive differences in the very nature of what was being debated? Could it be that the generally-non-party-based consensus in the 1973 House that Nixon represented such a threat to the nation that his removal was required was just a little bit different from the vote-whipped, hurried, leaderless, anti-public-sentiment effort to complete a personal vendetta that marked the Clinton “hearings”? Do you in fact see any significant difference in substance between the 2 cases, despite the superficiality of format of all things? It does not appear that you do, sadly.

No cite request this time, but it would help your case substantially. As I suggested already (without effect), isn’t there a much smaller range of substantive “internal dissent” in the leadership of today’s GOP, and therefore wouldn’t there necessarily be more allowance for what little there is?

142

No, and that did not happen. There was no recount, for the simple reason that the count was never completed the first time. Bush & co. did everything they could to prevent that.

Again, it goes back to the fact that you simply do. And that, I submit, is the highest principle you understand. What a shame.

143

Thanks for the compliment, kniz - I guess. We’ll have to disagree with Gore’s refusal to accept the subversion of democracy as being “no class” and “not good for the country”, though.

144

Dude, you can keep saying this, and using unsupported hyperbole, and it still won’t make what you say true. I voted for Bush, but I honestly have no dog in this fight. If the Florida election had come out for Gore, according to the rules that governed the proceedings, he’d be my president, fair and square. I concede that a reasonable argument can be made that more people left the polls thinking they voted for Gore than those thinking they voted for Bush. The race is too close, and the opinions on how to interpret ballots too disparate, for this to be anything but a “who really knows for certain?” scenario. And I am certainly not arguing that there was not poor behavior on both sides.

But that is not the same thing as saying that any specific misbehavior led to a particular outcome that would not otherwise have occurred, and your strong desire to the contrary doesn’t change that. Or would you care to dispute a particular fact I’ve placed on the table in lieu of speculating on what phantom evidence I might find wanting?

145

I thought that was your point, not mine.

I made that statement because of the quality of your post, not to get you to agree with mine.

It takes many years for historians to be able to get a perspective on a particular event. When they do, I predict that Gore will not come out looking good. The idea of ditching the EC is pretty much dead in the water, which would have been to his credit if it had happened. On the otherhand the divisiveness his challenge has caused will not get good reviews.

146

The early returns are, you’ll concede, to the opposite. Perhaps you could help us understand that your conclusion is based on more than a simple hope for vindication.

How do you conclude that Gore’s actions were based on self-interest and that Bush’s were based on higher principles of responsibility to the nation? What facts, then or since, most strongly support that conclusion about either man? What facts do you expect to emerge in the future for historians to get the understanding you hope they do? (I’ve brought this next up already but you’ve ducked it) On what basis do you think that Gore’s actions in wanting votes counted were divisive, while Bush’s actions in trying to prevent that were in the best American democratic-republic tradition?

Can you offer any substantive support at all for why you think the future historical consensus will be the reverse of today’s?

147

Because tomorrow’s Ministry of Truth will “correct” the historical documents of today?

148

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ElvisL1ves *
The early returns are, you’ll concede, to the opposite.
Only in the eyes of Gore supporters, which is not a judgement as to which side is right or wrong.

The only vindication I see will come probably after I’m dead.

When I got up the morning after the election and saw that the winner hadn’t been determined, I thought about the story of Kennedy and Nixon. At that time I also thought “I hope the declared loser doesn’t fight it.” Then Bush was declared the winner and the next move was up to Gore. If Gore had been declared the winner then it would have been up to Bush. To be honest, I think there was just as much of a chance that Bush would have fought it, but Gore got stuck with the short straw. Call it fate or whatever, but the decision was made by Gore.

This thread is an example of what I’m talking about for one. Also any thread that has to do with Bush or politics will have a post with at least a one (usually more) snide remarks about Bush not having won the election. I’m sorry but if Gore had gracefully bowed out (like he started to) then we wouldn’t have gone through counting chads, a state supreme court or the Supreme Court. That got hopes up that were then dashed and naturally pissed off those that were pulling for Gore.

Well, I’m afraid that the devisiveness will continue and possibly get worse. It has caused people to feel that they have been disenfranchised . Part if not a lot of the opposition to the war is from people that feel Bush should not be president.

I’m sorry I didn’t mean to duck anything.

I used the story of a prior election to illustrate just that and I guess it didn’t.

If the morning after, when whoever was declared the winner then became president, there would have been some moans and groans about such a close election. Instead, there were a couple of weeks in which neither candidate distinguished himself and whatever the outcome 50% of the voters were going to feel they got screwed. Again, through no fault of his own Gore was the one faced with that decision (his moment in history) and he f**ked up.

Well, on a personal level, because two people like ourselves cannot agree on your above conclusion.
If by-gones are left to be by-gones then I’ll be wrong, if it keeps festering then I’m afraid I’ll be right. If Bush is elected again, what will happen? I don’t know, but if the resentment continues it won’t be good for our country and that is the kind of thing that historians look for in judging past events.

149

You’re overlooking, as future historians will certainly not do, who “declared” the winner on the morning you remember so fondly. Fox News. The others followed, monkey see, monkey do. Fox’s election coverage was directed by John Ellis, who made the decision to make the announcement. John Ellis is George W. Bush’s first cousin.

The rest of your argument, such as it is, falls apart after that. No, you will not have your vindication and you can quit hoping for it. Thanks for acknowledging that you have no other facts or substantive reasoning to offer, though.

150

Saying I remember it fondly is bullshit. It is a fact that George Bush was declared the winner and Al Gore conceded and then withdrew. It was a mess, period. I have not said I like what happened, only that what Al Gore did at the time has caused this problem to be overblown.

Mentioning Fox News is supposed to be a trump card? All or almost all of the media declared different winners at different times, so how about a cite on Fox being the ultimate villian on this one.

Exactly what I’d say if I was at a loss of anything else to say. Talk about ducking the issue. :o [sub]I’m nothing but a hounddog, crying all the time.[/sub]

151

Sorry, kniz, we don’t delegate the determination of winners to the television networks. You really need to do some historical research of your own on that one, if you really don’t recall what happened - it isn’t hard. It is not completely true, as you state, that different nets called different winners at different times - Voter News Service, their consortium, declared Gore the Florida winner earlier, based on exit surveys which turned out to be accurate, and the nets followed. Then they withdrew the call, and the nets followed. Then Bush’s cousin (that’s the trump, not Fox), who had been in constant communication with Bush campaign headquarters throughout, made the call for Bush himself, and the rest of the nets followed. VNS never made the Bush call. Bush was declared the winner by his own cousin - and you want that to have been final?

Now, try this - Gore was declared the winner in Florida earlier in the evening, essentially making him the President-elect at that point (using your own argument). Why would it not have been statesmanlike and unifying for Bush to have conceded at that point, instead of trying to fight on? Again, that’s your argument. If you won’t support it, then it isn’t principled, m’kay?

Future historians aren’t going to provide your rationalization for you if you can’t do it yourself now. No verbal jiu-jitsu that makes Bush the more principled actor in this drama holds up, and there’s no factual basis that you have provided for thinking that it does now or somehow will in the future.

152

Yes.

Why do you think so? I’ve thought about it for years.

I mean, here we have a painfully close election, where we’re looking at making determinations of voter intent based on dimples on cards. This is considered to be standard operating procedure.

And then we’ve got a pile of a few thousand Buchanan votes in Palm Beach County. We know, beyond any sort of reasonable doubt, that most of those votes were intended as Gore votes, but the voters were misled by the ballot format. The only thing we don’t know is which ballots were intended as Gore votes, and exactly how many were so intended.

And this is the sort of situation that statistical tools were designed for. We can’t (and won’t try to) tell you which, or exactly how many, ballots were so intended, but we can give you a 99% confidence interval for such a number, based on whatever set of assumptions is agreed on.

Clearly the reasonableness of one’s assumptions is important, but the same thing is true when we’re arguing standards of recounts involving overvotes and undervotes based on chads.

153

RTFirefly is quite correct. And he incidently makes the often heard statement “The election was a statistical tie” into a falsehood.

A statistitician would look at Florida 2000 and see a clear Gore victory, and even be able to give you confidence intervals for how large the victory.

In addition to the pool of statistically proovable gore-votes-for-bucanan in Palm Beach, you also have many thousands of Double punched Gore-and-someone-else votes in Duval county. (There are also Bush-and-someone-else votes there, but fewer).

I recall that the double punched Duvall ballots are enough for a statistician to declare a Gore victory as well. And in that case, the old argument of “if they can’t follow directions so their ballot shouldn’t count” is showing to be bullshit. Because in Duvall, those that followed directions were forced to double punch the presidential race.

RTFirefly did you ever see (or calculate your own) actual numbers for confidence intervals in Palm Beach or Duvall county? I’d love to be able to wave these numbers in my Fathers face :slight_smile:

154

It was obviously too early for Bush to concede following the first announcement that Gore had won Florida. At that point, there were other states that were yet to be decided and the vote was too close nationwide.

However, later on Gore did concede.

So it was sometime between November 8th and 9th, that Gore made the decision that I am talking about. He could have announced (even after retracting his phone call to Bush) that “In the interest of the country, I will not request a recount and ask that everyone support George Bush as our new president.” Instead, he took the gamble that he would come out the winner.

Here is an interesting article.

It is my contention, the above percentages are much higher than they would have been if Gore had not requested a recount. The outcome would have been the same and we would not be arguing over the election outcome.

155

Kniz, meet John Ellis – Fox News’ decision desk manager, and first cousin to the 2000 Presidential candidate George W. Bush.

And since you asked, here’s acite:

Or, if you want more mainstream cites:

156

So what? When Gore decided to challenge and ask for a recount he was behind in the vote or at least thought he was behind. Are you saying that he was tricked into calling for a recount? Maybe he should have waited longer to get more reliable information, which would have suited my theory perfectly. What I am saying is that: At some time Gore thought he had lost and his only hope of winning was to call for a recount.* *It was at that exact point that he made the decision that caused this whole thing to become and then linger on as a “major problem” The more you raise hell about it the more you prove my point.

157

But there was no real question that, with Florida going to Gore, the result was decided. The question you are ducking still stands, along with the other one of why the country’s will should be thwarted for its own good. The facts are there, if you’ll only face them and their consequences instead of invoking future historians to bail you out. As explained, that ain’t gonna happen and it’s therefore just another form of ducking, this time of responsibility for one’s moral decisions.

rjung, thanks for the cites; I had thought that information was common knowledge, but it seems to be unknown to those whose news sources have filtered it out.

158

After submittal: kniz, don’t you think part of the “problem” was Bush’s “only hope of winning” (your words) being the prevention of completing the vote count? Couldn’t much of the “problem” have been avoided if he had instead acted in good faith, with the will of We the People being accepted as paramount? It lingered on because of his stalling, his court challenges, his injunctions, his appeals, instead of his simply getting on with determining the will of the people in good faith.

Please articulate what principle you’re trying to defend here, and on which you expect vindication in some indefinite future - I don’t see one related to the facts. Better just to accept quietly that your guy got in, and not try to insult us and deceive yourself with the contention that there’s anything principled involved - even the Supreme Court acknowledged otherwise.

159

We do? How do we know that? Have you talked to the thousands of Buchanan voters to determine who intended to vote for whom, who screwed up their ballots, and how they screwed up their ballots? At most, we’ve got strong circumstantial evidence that some voters may have accidentally voted for Buchanan. But “thousands” and “beyond any sort of reasonable doubt?” No way.

Did you mean “A statistician could . . . see a clear Gore victory”? Because if you meant that statisticians would necessarily see a Gore the victory, then I don’t understand. Why would that be true?

I agree that the “they’re too stupid to vote” argument doesn’t hold water. We don’t strike the votes of people who intended to vote for Buchanan because of stupidity, and merely misunderstanding the ballot is a comparatively small mistake. But the double votes should be excluded, regardless of who they voted for. Nobody gets two votes. If you vote twice, there’s no way to tell which way you actually intended to vote. Thus, your vote must be excluded.

I haven’t seen evidence in support of either of these positions before. Cite please?

160

Yeah, thousands. And beyond any reasonable doubt.

I don’t know how else one explains away 3407 Buchanan votes in Palm Beach County, when his second-best showing in any other FL county was just over a thousand, or explains away the 5,310 Gore-Buchanan overvotes (where Bush/anyone had only 2600).

But I’ll try to track down my copy of Walter Mebane et al., Voting Irregularities Caused by the Butterfly Ballot in Palm Beach County, Proceedings of the Joint Statistical Meetings, 2001, which makes the statistical case. The short answer of the paper is that Buchanan’s PBC vote total was an astounding outlier, by any measure. And there’s really only one plausible explanation for it that anyone’s offered.