Or was it just a recap of what all good dopers already know?
As an FYI, the show was a dramatization of what happened during the days that followed the 2000 presidential election. Specifically in Florida. Gore and Bush were only marginally in it, using the back of stand-ins’ heads, and possibly actual audio of them.
While watching it I kept coming back to a quote from The West Wing:
Anyone else have any reactions?
I watched it.
It was good enough – mainly because of the cast.
I really don’t get the point of making it. They didn’t make the case that Gore should have won. . .just that the “good guys” were fighting for him, and the “bad guys” were fighting against him.
Some of it was ham-handed (like the original jump cuts between James Baker and Christopher). John Hurt was an awesome choice for “Chris”.
There wasn’t really a dramatic “arc” to it; it was just a sequence of events.
But, like I said. . .all the actors were great. It did a good job of summing up what a clusterfuck it all was.
Yeah they do. They mentioned the elimination of voters from the rolls almost in passing. That alone removed thousands of potential democratic voters . It was planned and carried out by repubs in charge. It was done by a private company with repub ties. To win they need to eliminate as many poor voters as possible. They know that and that is the crux of the new rules on ID.
I thought it was pretty good.
The Katherine Harris performance was very entertaining. I’m sure it was somewhat over-the-top, but there was probably more truth there than exaggeration. It makes me wonder how many other unqualified people hold positions of significant power in state governments.
It stayed mostly focused on the topic of the recount with only a couple of tagent items discussed. As stated above, it briefly touched on the removal of “felons” from the voter registration lists. Similarly, it also briefly mentioned the issue of the networks calling Florida for Gore before polling had closed in the state and the possible effect it had.
I thought there was some bias in the storyline towards Gore. There was more focus on the Gore side’s arguments. I felt like they were going out of there way to say that Gore’s arguments were more morally correct when I personally believe that both teams arguing specific points that they felt would help them win.
The key item that I came away with was that election procedures need to be clearly written and understood prior to an election so that partisanship can be avoided as much as possible. Additionally, I came away with the thought that the problems were complicated and did not have easy solutions.
Not as long as they have state and local voting rules. It needs a national rule.
In the Washington Post review, Tom Shales said that the Katherine Harris part had to be toned down because the real thing is so over the top.
Casting Hurt as a rock would be an awesome choice. The man is an acting god IMO.
It would be hard to go over the top portraying Katherine Harris. The woman’s a living caricature.
I thought they did an excellent job of laying out the whole sequence of events. They also showed the many, many ways the electoral process in Florida was (and is) simply effed-up, from the well-meant but disastrously designed “Butterfly Ballot”, to the simple mechanical reasons why the paper ballots ended up with so many hanging or dimpled chad (causing ballots to register as “No Vote”) to the fact that the Secretary of State (the state’s chief election official) is allowed to work for one of the campaigns (also the case in Ohio).
Why? States form the federal government, not the other way around.
Anyway, I saw it and liked it very much. It astutely characterized what has become the standard difference between Republicans and Democrats over the years — one viewing everything as a street fight that’s settled by battle tactics, and the other viewing everything as a matter of ethics that some impartial observer will help settle. It was like the Bullies versus the Weenies.
I didn’t watch because I don’t have HBO (and because it’s just too damn depressing), but I have some geeky trivia to offer: Recount’s screenplay was written by Danny Strong, who is best known for playing supernerd Jonathan on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Because national elections should logically have the same standards for voting. You can argue local voting could have local laws but even that can be questioned How do you safeguard elections if there are so many local controls.?
That’s pretty the only reason I even thought about watching it (Laura Linney was the other reason) before remembering that my parents don’t get HBO on their cable and I’m at their house. I was only 12 during the recount, and it was frustrating and depressing enough then that I don’t really want to see it again, even if Danny did write it.
The only nation election we have is for president, and it has a national standard in which Congress collects and counts votes from the states. It’s called the “electoral college”. Since each state decides what electors it will empower, it stands to reason that each state will decide how they are chosen. At one time, there was no popular election in any state. All electors were chosen by state legislatures.
If you can’t hold a local agent accountable, how on earth will you handle a federal agent? At least the local guy is accessible. With the federal guy, you’ll die of starvation before you wend your way through the bureaucratic labyrinth to reach him.
Especially if he works for a sitting President running for re-election.
I don’t believe there’s ever been a presidential election in which all electors were chosen entirely by state legislatures.
I believe this is a true statement. Even in the first Presidential election of 1789, fully 6 of the 10 states casting electoral votes chose electors by a form of popular vote. (Three states did not participate in the vote. North Carolina and Rhode Island were not eligible because they had not yet ratified the U.S. Constitution, and New York failed to appoint its electors because of a deadlock in the state legislature.)
There has been at least one Presidential election that was decided by the U.S. House of Representatives, the 1824 election, after no candidate received a majority in the electoral college.
Even though it is still a sore wound, I watched the show and liked it. It brought a lot of information together that I was aware of back then, but this show put it in a nice little package and will make a great historical document.
Some great acting and should get quite a few Emmy nominations.
There are no national elections in the United States. If you want to reform or eliminate the Electoral College or the federal system, that’s one thing, but the fact of the matter is that every four years we run 50 elections for one office.
I would agree that there certainly is a need for consistent standards within each state – one of the main points of Recount was that each county in Florida seemed to do basically whatever the hell it wanted, from voting machine technology to counting methods, and that’s thoroughly screwy.
Tom Wilkinson’s Jim Baker was great. 
Don’t see the new Indiana Jones movie. You’ll die much happier.
Well, if you include National Treasure 2 among Helen Mirren’s best work, then maybe you’ll enjoy Hurt in IJ.