Mods - this board has been overloaded lately with election related threads. I haven’t gone over them all, not because I don’t have the time (work has been slow lately) but because trying to follow them all is an exercise in circular futility. So if what I am about to write has already been touched upon, please feel free to close this thread.
I have a little hypothetical situation for you. Say that by the end of the month all absantee ballots have arrived, all legal maneuverings have drawn to a halt, and George W. Bush wins Florida by 300 votes. Gore concedes (gracefully or not) and on January 17th Bush is inaugrated as President of the United States. All seems well and good.
Cut to summer 2001. Two ambitious Miami Herald reporters (I shall refer to them as W and B, a misguided attemt at wit) stumble upon evidence of masive voter fraud in the 2000 elections. Ballots misplaced and miscounted, voters intimidated, paperwork intentionally bungled. With visions of Pulitzers racing in their heads, W and B trace it first to senior Republican activists, then to the Secretary of State, and then - perhaps - to the governer, and by implication, the President.
You know how it goes from here. A huge media blow-out. A Special Prosecuter. Partisan catfighting. Resignation of chief aides. Damning testimony from said aides. The Vice President implicated and forced to resign. Impeachment. W and B win their Pulitzers.
Cut to summer 2002. Colin Powell is the President of the United States.
A disclaimer - While I did vote for Al Gore, I do not see a second Bush presidency as a “National Disaster”. I do not want to see the events postulated above come to pass, but I consider them possible, even likely; I would like to know what opinion you might have of them.
but unfortunately, I disagree that it’s at all likely. Even if I think it were true, which I really don’t, I can’t imagine what kind of evidence could turn up in two years that wouldn’t have turned up already, given the spotlight on the situation.
I think it will be satisfying enough if Dubya takes office under these circumstances, in that he will do so with a storm cloud over his head, nothing important will happen, the congress will flip to the Democrats in '02, we’ll take back the White House in '04, and all will be right with the world.
I have to agree with Stoidela in that you’ve written a fun scenario. But where is the debate premise?
*(totally biased opinion coming) *
BTW, I don’t agree with the assesment that “questionable actions” haven’t taken place. I think it’s possible it may have, but tracing it to a single source seems to me to be highly unlikely.
Stoidela, the reason no damning evidence has come out during the last week is that the Republicans (and the Democrats) have closed their ranks very, very tightly. One of the reasons that James Baker and the rest of the Bush Praetorian Guard are down in Floriada is to make sure that nobody says a work without their OK. Six months from now, things will probably loosen up a bit. All you really need to get this kind of scandal rolling is the testimony of one disgruntled secretary from Tallahassee, and perhaps a couple of letters the governer forgot to shred.
As for a debate premise, I’m not quite sure. It doesn’t take much for a thread with the word “elections” in it to turn into a debate these days. Do you see this scenario as beeing likely? Do you think that Bush or Gore should take it into consideration? Do you think that we’re two years away from a Constitutional Crisis that will dwarf Watergate?
As a hypothetical, it can apply equally to both candidates/parties, IMO.
Are you trying to prejudice the waters, so to speak, by limiting your scenario strictly to the Republican candidate?
Or is your bias just slanting things towards the Republicans as your boogeymen of choice?
I have confidence in W. He’ll do allright.
I have confidence that if VP Gore becomes Pres. Gore, his true colors will become readily apparent and voter backlash will hand us another Republican-majority Congress and we’ll have at least four more years of the same-old we’ve had since '94.
ExTank, I presented the scenario the way I did for three reasons:
As of now, it seems as though Bush will take Florida and by extension, the elections.
Jeb Bush and the Republican party are the dominant force in Florida politicsm and would be far more capable of falsifying voting returns. Please not that to this date, there have been no allegations of fraud towards the Democrats in this state (an inconclusive piece of evidence, I’ll admit). If this whole mess had taken place in California, the situation would be different.
I am a Gore supporter, and may be slightly biased in my opinions. For that I apologize.
So yes, I admit - there is a chance of a reverced scenario. If such a case would come to pass, what do you suggest doing?
There’s a precedent for this in a way. After Hayes won the disputed election of 1876, Congress held an investigation of the whole process in 1877-78. However, before it started the investigation, it passed a resolution stating that no matter what the results of the investigation were, the election result would not be changed.
And this was passed even though the Democrats had taken a majority in the House and the Senate was closely tied.