# Should Bush Concede? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 10, 2000, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682 "2000-11-10T18:50:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![John\_Doughboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e36b37/32.png) [@John\_Doughboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Doughboy)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/1 "2000-11-10T18:50:31Z")
Of course we all know he won’t, and I don’t think Gore would either (though I think he’d be more likely to). But the popular vote is in Gore’s favor, obviously he’s the person the majority of the people want. So, do you think that Bush should concede, based on what could be viewed as a moral obligation to the people? Keep in mind that my question isn’t whether or not he will, but whether or not he **should.** ---
**Author:** ![Tretiak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a88e57/32.png) [@Tretiak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tretiak)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/2 "2000-11-10T18:56:18Z")
Gore won the popular vote **only as it relates to the Electoral College** and not relative to an actual popular vote. The candidtaes did not campaign based on popular vote and the people did not vote with that in mind. There fore popular vote arguments are meaningless, especially when it is this close. ---
**Author:** ![Amok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f17d59/32.png) [@Amok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amok)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/3 "2000-11-10T18:57:04Z")
What exactly would conceding do? Conceding is simply a courtisey that carries no legal weight. Unless I’m mistaken, Bush can’t just say “Oh, I don’t want the job, give it to Gore”, because it doesn’t work that way. Assuming that Bush wins the popular vote in Florida, and the legal challenges fail, he will have won the election under our current laws. Now, if for some reason he decided he didn’t want the job because he lost the popular election, he could refuse to take office, I suppose, but that would not give the job to Gore, but rather to Cheney. If people want to reform the system so that the popular vote winner will always become the president, fine, go ahead and do so. But that’s not the way the laws currently are, and no concession is going to change that. ---
**Author:** ![Drew\_Blade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/958977/32.png) [@Drew\_Blade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drew_Blade)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/4 "2000-11-10T19:01:40Z")
The popular vote is a long way from all counted yet–and doesn’t matter as far as the EC vote goes. But if the ultimate EC vote goes against Bush, I expect he will concede. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Corrado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a88e4f/32.png) [@John\_Corrado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Corrado)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/5 "2000-11-10T19:04:00Z")
Bush **should** concede if Al Gore and his staff show a full willingness to push lawsuits and PR battles well beyond the November 17th return deadline (that is, the point when _all_ Florida ballots will have been received and counted). If by Early December there are still lawsuits crying for an overturn of the Florida election, with every denied lawsuit being followed by a new lawsuit, and should Bill Daley and others still be coming out at daily press conferences claiming that “the will of the people is being subverted”, then Bush should concede. He should hold a press conference stating that he _does_ feel he was the legal winner, but that he is not willing to break the system in order to hold his victory, and that he is asking his brother Jeb to tell the Florida electors to vote for Gore. And end to the long national nightmare and all that. Basically, Bush takes one for the party, and Al Gore looks like a smeghead (not that he doesn’t already). ---
**Author:** ![Dumbguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dumbguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dumbguy)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/6 "2000-11-10T19:18:15Z")
I’m hoping that both sides carry on the legal shenanigans for another four years, and neither guy gets to be president. Then we all win. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Doughboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e36b37/32.png) [@John\_Doughboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Doughboy)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/7 "2000-11-10T19:22:30Z")
I can see now from the responses that this was a pretty dumb question. Oops. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/8 "2000-11-10T19:23:27Z")
Bush concede? Concede what? Until there’s any proof that Gore got more electoral votes than he did, it wouldn’t be a **concession** …it would be an **abdication**. Now, maybe there are some Gore supporters who think he should abdicate and claim it will be “good for the country,” but let’s not call it a concession when so far, all the evidence says he’s the winner. ---
**Author:** ![SouthernStyle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@SouthernStyle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SouthernStyle)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/9 "2000-11-10T19:50:43Z")
One hates to vehemently disagree with one of the mods, but John, I have to ask if you’re serious. Are you really advocating that a legally elected representative decline to take office and allow the losing candidate to occupy the office just to promote peace and harmony? I hope that you’re being facetious. Please so that you are. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Corrado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a88e4f/32.png) [@John\_Corrado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Corrado)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/10 "2000-11-10T20:12:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SouthernStyle \* > One hates to vehemently disagree with one of the mods, but John, I have to ask if you’re serious. No one should fear disagreeing with me just because I’m a mod. If you do worry that you’ll see vengeance taken upon you because of my position, feel free to merely send a summary of my positions to David B. He’s _guaranteed_ to disagree with anything I say, and as a fellow mod, my powers over life and death are useless upon him. > [@](#): > > Are you really advocating that a legally elected representative decline to take office and allow the losing candidate to occupy the office just to promote peace and harmony? > > I hope that you’re being facetious. Please so that you are. I’m not really being facetious. However, I think that if- and this is a really big if- Al Gore and/or partisan Democrats are willing to tear apart the system rather than admit defeat, then it falls to the party’s advantage to simply let them have it. They won’t get much done (through the Republican Congress, after all), and I expect that their whininess and snippiness will be held against them come '02 and '04. Besides, the alternative in that scenario is to join in and pull apart the system just as much. Is that really what we want? ---
**Author:** ![Zumba\_The\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/779978/32.png) [@Zumba\_The\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zumba_The_Cat)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/11 "2000-11-10T20:13:02Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by John Doughboy \* > **… But the popular vote is in Gore’s favor, obviously he’s the person the majority of the people want** should._\* I agree that the popular vote doesn’t and shouldn’t matter. But, it should be noted that the popular vote isn’t complete yet and Gore is not obviously anything. Gore’s margin of victory in the popular vote is less then 1%. A total recount of votes might change the margin completely. You saw what happened to the margin in FL when they recounted. If we ran the election on popular vote we would have FL times 50 right now. The only thing that is obvious is that there is no clear majority. ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/12 "2000-11-10T20:38:29Z")
John said: > [@](#): > > If you do worry that you’ll see vengeance taken upon you because of my position, feel free to merely send a summary of my positions to David B. He’s guaranteed to disagree with anything I say I disagree. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/13 "2000-11-10T20:45:37Z")
Conceding is for wussies. Fight to the bitter end, I say!!! Really, would it hurt anyone to wait until all votes are counted before declaring a winner? ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/14 "2000-11-10T20:54:03Z")
I thought I’d calculate the most recent popular vote count so we’d have some common ground to work with. As of November 10 at 3:48p.m.(ET): Al Gore: 49,158,499. George W. Bush: 48,953,441 The difference is 200,058. This is slightly under 4/10 of one percent(.0037 if you must know). I add that this only counts the votes that went to these two candidates. Nader got 2,695,482 and Buchanan 437,843. Essentially, we don’t know who won the popular vote because we’d have to recount, several times probably, ever single precint in the United States to come up with the number. ---
**Author:** ![SouthernStyle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@SouthernStyle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SouthernStyle)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/15 "2000-11-10T20:55:49Z")
John, If the entire mess were being played in a low key fashion I might agree with you. But seeing as how we have a dozen “major” sources continuously spouting their rhetoric and espousing their views ON TOP of the statements of the candidates, I think that the country would be much better served if the legal winner did NOT bow to the tactics of the losing candidate. The prescedent of the media siding with the losing candidate to bully him/her out of accepting the office would reduce our political system to that of other so-called banana republics. Anyone that follows world politics should have fresh in their mind the circumstances regarding the Serbian elections. Milosevic lost the election and was using every tactic available to invalidate the election. The U.S. was considering military intervention to remove Milosevic. During the current administration’s tenure, the U.S. did send its military might to Haiti to install the person we supported under the claim that he was the rightful ruler due to his winning the election. So I’ll ask again, given that the U.S. is willing to send its military around the world to enforce elections in other countries do you really think that the U.S. should allow Mr. Gore to become president despite the fact that he is NOT duly elected? You’re scaring me John… ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/16 "2000-11-10T20:56:00Z")
Mahaloth: Yeah, but Bush says we shouldn’t do recounts like that, so I guess we have to give it to Gore (presuming the absentee ballots don’t switch it the other way). ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/17 "2000-11-10T21:00:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by cmkeller \* > \*\* > .it would be an **abdication**. > > \*\* Now THERE is an attractive idea! ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/18 "2000-11-10T21:09:33Z")
OK, after reading yet another comment that the Democrats «are willing to tear apart the system rather than admit defeat,» I feel compelled to throw in some historical perspective. From the commentary piece “It’s a Myth That Nixon Acquiesced in 1960”, by David Greenberg, Los Angeles Times, Friday 10 November 2000 (I won’t provide a link since LA Times links disappear after a few days), I learned the following: After the extremely close 1960 election, on 11 November, three days after the election, Thruston B. Morton, Kentucky senator and Replublican Party national chairman, launched bids for recounts or investigations in not just Illinois and Texas (where there had been allegations of state ballot fixing) but also Delaware, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. Robert H. Finch and Leonard W. Hall (close friends of Richard Nixon) sent agents to conduct “field checks” in eight of those 11 battleground states. In some states (such as New Jersey or Illinois) the GOP obtained recounts without changing the final vote, in other states (Texas) the bid for recounds was rejected by a judge. (The author of the article goes on to conclude that in his opinion Richard Nixon was behind these efforts but did not advocate them openly). If the present-day situation were reversed, there is no doubt in my mind that the Republican party would be disputing votes just as acrimoniously, and I would not blame them, because after all the time, money and efforts spent on a political campaign it would be foolish not to want to ensure that the vote counts are correct. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Corrado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a88e4f/32.png) [@John\_Corrado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Corrado)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/19 "2000-11-10T21:25:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Arnold Winkelried \* > OK, after reading yet another comment that the Democrats «are willing to tear apart the system rather than admit defeat,» I feel compelled to throw in some historical perspective. Arnold, if your comment was in regards to mine (and given the wording, it looks like it was), I’d point out that my actual sentence was “However, I think that if- and this is a really big if- Al Gore and/or partisan Democrats are willing to tear apart the system rather than admit defeat”. I make no accusations towards the Democrats at this point. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by SouthernStyle_ > If the entire mess were being played in a low key fashion I might agree with you. But seeing as how we have a dozen “major” sources continuously spouting their rhetoric and espousing their views ON TOP of the statements of the candidates, I think that the country would be much better served if the legal winner did NOT bow to the tactics of the losing candidate. But I also think the country would be much better served if the legal winner did not also take the tactics of the losing candidate. And I think the country would be far better served in the long run if the legal winner chooses the high road and asquiesces rather than take the low road to (deserved) victory. Because that would just fuel the “both the parties and the entire system is tainted” feeling that exists, whereas the former course would likely result in a “reform the system so that a shmuck like (the victor) can’t do that again”. ---
**Author:** ![SouthernStyle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@SouthernStyle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SouthernStyle)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2000, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682/20 "2000-11-10T21:31:15Z")
So far the apparent winner IS taking the high road. I’m hearing very little out of the Republican camp that is anything other than what I’d expect from a winning candidate and his anticipated transition. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-bush-concede/40682.md?page=2)