As by now you know, the Supreme Court has halted the recount process. As I write, Bushwhackers are gloating outside the VP’s house (and I thought I was partisan! Sheeeeesh!)
Thought I would start the thread, on the presumption that my fellow Post Toasties will have an opinion. A fairly safe bet, I warrant.
“Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a thousand schools of thought contend”
This has gone on long enough. I think we ought to throw the election into the House of Representatives. That’ll piss off everybody.
Curiouser and curiouser…
I fully agree with the dissent to the stay written by Stevens (and joined in by Souter, Breyer, and Ginsburg): to issue a stay, at this point, is tantamount to deciding the case. Heads, Bush wins; tails, Gore loses. The fix is in.
Scalia’s argument that the Supremes needed to rule on the question of whether the varying local standards re chads is a 14th Amendment ‘equal protection’ issue makes no sense whatsoever, IMNSHO.
If (A) the difference between accepting hanging chads and dimpled chads is potentially ‘unequal protection of the laws’ now, why wasn’t (B) the difference between getting hand-counted (by whatever standard) and not getting hand-counted - a much bigger difference - such an issue two weeks ago? Or (same thing, bigger scale) why isn’t © the difference between voting systems with widely different error rates an equal-protection issue?
Or, more deeply embedded in our system, (D) the electoral college’s effect of making the vote of a small-state resident several times as great as a large-state resident, in terms of their effect on electoral votes? Scalia could claim that the Fourteenth Amendment did away with the small-state bias of the EC; it’s just that nobody recognized that fact until now.
In terms of equal-protection issues, it seems to me that A < B < C < D; these aren’t apples and oranges. How can you possibly go after A and ignore B and C, at least? “Straining at gnats while swallowing a camel” comes to mind. “The law is an ass” is also sneaking in there.
Finally, I’m tired of the manual recounts being stopped so many times. By Katherine Harris and other FL officials even before the week-after-the-election deadline, by Harris again after the deadline (despite no legal authority), by Bush’s paid (according to Time, 12/4/00) thugs the day before Thanksgiving, by the pending of various Bush-initiated legal actions, and now finally by the Supreme Court stay. It’s time to count the friggin’ votes; then we can argue about what they mean.
But we’d hate to cast a cloud over the legitimacy of the Dubya Presidency. That would be wrong. So we’re not going to count the votes that might show he didn’t really get elected.
Putzes.
Oh yeah: a link to the stay and Stevens’ dissent. It’s PDF, so you’ll need your Acrobat reader.
What’s up with this “let’s count all the votes” b.s.? Every vote in FL was counted at least twice, once on election day, and again on the 8th under the mandatory recount due to the margin being under 1%. In some places like Palm Beach, Broward, Miami, etc. the votes have been counted 3, 4, 5 times. All of the votes have been counted, twice. Bush won, twice. (well, more than twice). Get over it!
I’m glad to see that nobody has disagreed with RT’s cogent analysis. (Although somebody named milroyj did make a post, but its logic was flawed, so I’ve thrown it out, and don’t consider it a valid post.)
Does that make the point? 
Cogent analysis?
How can the electoral college be unconstitutional, when it’s part of the constitution, pray tell?
And the unequal protection under the law comes from scrutinizing certain ballots in certain ways, and not doing it elsewhere.
i.e., voters in Miami-Dade get their ballots counted under more liberal criteria than those in Palm Beach and other counties. (Forgetting for the moment how different the standards are for voters in Michigan, Wyoming, New Hampshire and everywhere else.)
“Every vote counts,” if it happens to give Gore the presidency? Any urgency over the millions of other “undervotes” out there in the USA?
I thought conservatives didn’t like the “activist court.” I guess that’s only when they don’t rule in your favor 
Amen, brother. But this is not news. “Bambi” Bush was going to be installed as President. That was going to happen, period. The bushwhackers have too many trump cards, and no compunction whatsoever about “will do or say anything to get elected”. If not the Florida Legislature, then the Supremes, not them, then submitted the cogent, impartial deliberations of Tom Delay and Dick Armey. As for myself, I only wanted to be sure that they did it right out in front of all of us. They have surrendered even the merest shred of legitimacy. Like virginity, it doesn’t come back.
What’s the dead giveaway? Please note, they did not say, “go ahead and count, we’re going to think it over, we may decide against allowing the votes to count, it may be irrelevent.”
What “irreperable harm” do they contemplate? That Gore would gain enough votes to sway public opinion his way, clearly. Other than that, what is there to fear from the count? Two bits says some kind of move to do an end run around any Freedom of Info count is next. They’ll think of a reason. They have to.
Now, they can even give Gore a legal, technical victory, knowing the the Fla. Leg will jump on the time limit and select the slate of electors. Its like a football umpire saying you’ve got thirty seconds left to play, but you can’t hike the ball. Stinks. Just plain stinks!
But take heart! There will be enormous public pressue to ensure that the next elections will be done with error proof technology. All the votes will be counted. The poor, the black, the outsiders will not be disenfranchised by clumsy machinery again. Two years ain’t that long, and it is written “whatsoever shall go around, therefore shall it come around”.
They’ve stuck a time bomb in thier pants, and it is set for one year, eleven months, and then today’s pig is tomorrow’s bacon. Remember Newt Gingrich? Nobody else does. The extreme right has shot thier wad, and they know it.
A final note: there are persons of conservative opinion who are worthy of respect and attention. They, too, have been betrayed.
Tick, tick, tick…
Does the fact that some counties use punch card technology, while others use image scanning, and others use ___? violate the unequal protection you’re quoting.
Besides, isn’t all this beside the point. Given the GOP control of the Florida State Legislature, the House of Representatives, and the Florida governor, it doesn’t matter what the recount is. The numbers available can’t possibly be large enough to make it impossible for the GOP to vote along party lines to install the Shrub.
You bet. And that is the only reason this is tolerable. They are going to pay for this one.
What blows me away is the fact that they were willing to be this blatant * even with all the counties included!! * Doesnt’ that say * everything * that needs to be said? They have been whining endlessly for a month about “it’s no fair to cherry pick heavily Democratic counties! Of course you’ll win then! Wah!”. Well, guess what? More counties went for Bush than for Gore and they STILL don’t want the count? You suppose they have the same informaiton that the Dems have…that Gore * ** really won the election? ** * The balls are amazing.
And it’s already coming back on them. Poll I heard today had it swinging back in favor of a count. Instead of 60% wanting Gore to concede, it was down to 49%.
Of course. And I was going to say that they can’t because of Florida’s Sunshine laws… then I remembered who the Governor is.
The other thing that some people seem willing to blind themselves to is this:
Gore is trying like hell to win this election. The only tool he has, the only tool he wants, is merely counting votes. He’s happy to count the votes everywhere, all the counties. People who have a problem with this have absolutely no argument to offer except one: the count COULD be wrong because of subjectivity. It COULD be wrong because some people MIGHT find a way to cheat. They are completely ready to believe, or at least say, that it’s not legit because people might make mistakes counting. (although this is weak…you don’t see Dems freaking out at the idea of Bush supporters cheating for him in the Bush counties.)
Well, that is an understandable position to have. I disagree with it, but I can accept that it might be a concern.
On the OTHER hand, the BUSH hand…he’s trying to win the election * by any means necessary *, most of which involve being jawdroppingly hypocritical. Starting with his willingness to display and laughably attempt to defend the gross hypocrisy of signing a handcount law in his own state, then spending millions trying to discredit it in his brother’s. Then the gross hypocrisy of the already covered issue of cherry picking vs. all the counties. Then there’s the hypocrisy of believing “in the people” but being the first to run to courts…of believing in “states rights” but being the first to run to the Feds. And then of course, his willingness to have it handed to him on a silver platter by the legislature and have his bro sign off on it.
How can anyone look at these two men and say that their behavior is equivalent? Yes, they are both scrambling like hell to win. Yes, neither of them is bahaving in a manner that will put them on Mount Rushmore. But the means employed by each, the underlying philosophy driving each, is vastly different.
Gore made one really stupid, hypocritical move (The military ballots) . When it was pointed out to him, he immediately backed off, realizing how wrong it was, how hypocritical he looked. He was chagrined, and changed his behavior. Bush, when caught in hypocrisy after hypocrisy, continues to lie and slither and spin…because to behave in a manner consistent with what he supposedly believes would mean he might lose, so screw priniciples!
One is a little whiny, a little desperate.
The other one is a slimeball, and he will * ** never ** * be my president.
stoid
elucidator (and keno) - I was certainly hoping that, if the fix took place, it would be a blatant usurpation of voters’ rights by the FL or US legislatures, so that there would be no mistaking it. The Supreme Court still has enough of a lofty reputation in most people’s minds that most will think they were paragons of fairness, whichever way they rule next week - even though whichever way they rule, they killed Gore’s chances today.
Milossarian:
That’s the “A” of my A < B < C. So what about B and C?
This was hyperbole with a point; sorry if it was unclear. I don’t really expect anyone to suddenly say the EC was superseded. But here was my semi-facetious logic:
Amendments to the Constitution frequently render earlier parts of the Constitution invalid. (For instance, the really long paragraph in Article II, Section 1 was superseded by the 12th Amendment.) So in theory, at least, the Fourteenth Amendment could have superseded the EC. If the 14th invalidates the fairly minor voting inequalities you mentioned above, it should drop-kick the much greater voting inequalities of the EC right out of the Constitution for sure, right? But, working backward, if the 14th can tolerate the voting inequalities of the EC, it can’t possibly have anything to say about more trivial instances. (There’s probably a way the lawyers deal with such inconsistencies. Since I don’t have the secret decoder ring, I don’t know these things.)
Yes - in New Mexico. The GOP asked for a hand recount in one locality there; IIRC, it got it.
Obviously, nobody’s going to be asking about undervotes in states where they’re not going to affect the outcome. In FL, they could do so, hence the interest.
milroy - to supplement brother Polycarp’s explanation, let me just say that every ballot, not every vote was counted. Each physical ballot was run through a machine at least twice, but many ballots went through the machine without the machine recording a vote. Even the makers of the punch-card voting systems acknowledge that it’s fairly easy for a voter to give the ballot a pretty decent punch, yet the machine still doesn’t observe a hole, for a variety of reasons. Frequently such a ballot will contain marks that, to the naked eye, clearly represent an attempt by a voter to punch the card to vote for a particular candidate, but they’re invisible to the machine. This is why, with punch card systems, hand counts are considered more thorough than machine counts.
Wish to hell someone would organize a demonstration, or march, or something. We need to march on the Supreme Court building, set up loudspeakers, and tell them what assholes they are, putting all the nitpicky stuff (like 7-day deadlines) ahead of fundamental rights, like the franchise.
Yeah, the GOP knows Gore won, and they’re doing their best to muddy the waters with all the legal stuff, and run out the clock. Their PR has been better throughout - with Bush being nearly invisible these days, it’s almost like the legal actions for the non-Gore side are a force of nature, not attributable to a particular person. They just kind of happen, so there’s nobody on that side to demand responsibility of. Bush? Who’s he? He’s not doing anything. 
If Bush is inaugurated, the ceremony should take place in the Dean Dome at UNC, with Dean Smith holding the Bible. This is the Four Corners Offense all over again. Can’t anyone put a 45-second shot clock on these guys?
This is as good a place to make this observation as any…
Do you realize that no matter who winds up in the Whitehouse once the dust settles (if it ever does) that just about all of us will one day be sitting in our rockers alienating our grandkids (or greatgrandkids, for that matter) with:[ul]“Did I ever tell you about the great election crisis of 2000?”
“Yeah, grampa. Gotta go.”[/ul]This election will be a hot topic for many years to come. Despite the possibility that the candidate I favor may or may not “make it”, I think it’s been a thrilling ride.
There’s always next election. Whoever gets the executive office will have to be a fabulous fence-mender, and that’s a fact. I fear that neither contender is quite up to the job.
~~Baloo
That’s right. Because he got the most votes in Florida. To be sure, they counted again. He STILL had the most. Now we are going to go back and count “undervotes”, without counting them in any other state? Sorry. Not fair. Disenfranchisement. That stinks.
Yeah, they have a bunch of trump cards. The Constitution, for example.
They fear partisan officials “counting” the ballots and giving Gore a majority he just doesn’t have. Is the process of voting flawed? Definitely. Sadly, it’s too late to fix it this election. Try to throw your energy into getting it fixed the next time around.
They won’t stop any Freedom of Information recount. And I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that the count shows Gore has the most votes in Florida. Wanna know why? Because, invariably, the people who will be doing the counting will be doing it to see if Gore had the most votes. They will be going in with the thought of “Gore had the most votes! I just know he does! And I’m going to prove it! Even if I have to LIE.”
It may stink to you, but it’s the law. Hard to argue with it. Here’s another sports analogy for you: It’s like the team who is ahead by two points with 10 seconds to go in the basketball game just dribbling the ball and passing it so the other team can’t grab it and score. In fact, the only way the other team CAN get the ball is to STEAL it or break the rules and foul the other player! Hey, my analogy is MUCH more apt than yours!
I can’t think of any disenfranchised voters this time. I know Gore didn’t want the military ballots counted for awhile, along with some other absentee ballots. I’m sure just as many rich and white were disenfranchised by “clumsy machinery” as poor and black. Machines aren’t biased, that’s why we use them to count the votes. BTW, error proof technology? BWAH-HA-HA-HA!!!
(Sigh) So much rhetoric, so little logic (and almost no understanding of the law).
Let me start out by saying the following: I DON’T AGREE WITH THE ISSUANCE OF THE STAY.
(Was that clear enough? )
This doesn’t mean I agree or disagree with the merits of the presumed-to-exist-in-fact Petition for Writ of Certiorari. I haven’t LOOKED closely enough at the case law under the Fourteenth Amendment to know whether the election procedures envisioned by the Supreme Court of Florida violate the equal protection clause or not. But I am willing to bet neither has any of the people who have so far posted on this thread, on either side of the issue! Shame on you to take to task the court simply because you don’t like the result of what it did, without at least educating yourself enough to have a valid opinion. Similar shame on those who are willing to agree with it under the same conditions. At least the opponents have the benefit of skepticism on their side, always a useful commodity.
Let’s look at the stay, and the opinions attached to it, and start to form some cogent analyisis.
First of all, let’s point out that Chief Justice Wells was highly prophetic in pointing out that the issue the Supreme Court would grab ahold of was the lack of consistent standards for counting punch card ballots. So this isn’t exactly some sort of wildly unforseen idea that we are presented with.
Petitioner (Mr. Bush), to get a stay, has to show to the court two things: a) a substantial probability he will succede and b) irreparable harm should the activity to be stayed continue in the interim. First things first, the substantial probability question.
Justice Scalia asserts that, “It suffices to say that the issuance of the stay suggests that a majority of the Court, while not de-ciding the issues presented, believe that the petitioner has a substantial probability of success.” In short, based on the pleadings to date, which are certainly sufficient to give the Court ample understanding of what the parties will argue, five justices are currently minded that one or more of the issues presented will be won by Mr. Bush; most likely since he names it specifically in his opinion, Mr. Justice Scalia thinks it will be the equal protection arguement. At this time I am not going to undergo a rigorous assessment of equal protection law, other than to note that voting has often been considered a ‘fundamental’ right, and thus attempts to treat voters differently often fail to meet the rigorous scrutiny such classifications receive. I’d be happy to hear someone analyze the equal protection issue through application of relevant case law, rather than through sloppy analogies and/or uneducated guesses.
Much more troubling (to me anyway; it’s the reason I don’t agree with the issuance of the stay) is the assertion that there will be ‘irreparable harm’ caused by allowing the review of the undervoted ballots to continue. Actually, Justice Scalia in his opinion fails to advance the strongest arguement of such harm: that if the review is completed by December 12, the slate of electors ‘appointed’ under the procedures established by the legislature prior to Nov. 7 would not be challengable in Congress (3 U.S.C. §5). To this my response would be that a successful appeal in the Supreme Court of the United States would be part of the procedures contemplated by the legislature (surely if review by Florida courts is contemplated, so is review by the US Supreme Court), and there would NOT have been a final determination prior to Dec. 12. But Justice Scalia asserts that, should the canvass of undervoted ballots change the result of the election, and then the decision of the Supreme Court forces a further retally or a recission of the review of undervoted ballots, then Mr. Bush would be irreparably harmed, in that public opinion would always be swayed by the non-legal result established by the ‘invalid’ review. “Count first, and rule upon legality afterwards, is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires.” But this ignores the most important fact that we ALWAYS count first, and review in court afterwards; it’s inherent in the concept of a vote. Only if you are NEVER going to allow a judicial review of election results would this statement have any validity; and that would be an assinine interpretation of Florida’s law, or the law of any other state, for that matter.
On the other hand, the dissent engages in equally bad reasoning. Justice Stevens asserts that the stay will irreparably harm respondents. Let us assume that Petitioner eventually loses, and the stay is lifted. What harm will occur? The count can continue, the result will be known, and the state court will issue orders as needed. The ONLY harm will be that the Dec. 12 date will have been passed without the state court being allowed to rule, and frankly, that isn’t a very strong arguement for the Democrats, not only for the reason I mentioned above, but also because it says in essence that the Republicans shouldn’t be allowed THEIR review of the result by the Florida courts in time to have finality by Dec. 12.
Now, of course, Justice Stevens procedes to assert that the decision of the Florida Supreme Court may not violate federal law. This after he chastises the majority for addressing the likelihood of success in its opinion, an opinion Justice Scalia notes is issued solely to rebut the statements the dissent would have issued anyway. Further, his analysis of the decision fails to address any federal issue at all; it simply shows that the decision can be interpreted as consistent with prior Florida law. None of this appears to address the concept of violation of the equal protection clause. And, of course, it is hard to argue that reasonable probability of success is absent when you are already on the minority side of the issue…
In short, the stay is at best characterized as a strong warning that, absent some significantly mezmerizing arguementation from Professor Tribe, there will be a 5-4 decision invalidating the result of the Florida Supreme Court on the basis of a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. But it seems weak to assert that there would be irreparable harm letting the count continue while the matter is argued and determined, it seems quite unfair to let everyone know on such an important case that five justices seem to have their minds made up already, and unfortunately, Justice Stevens doesn’t seem to be able to argue against the concept effectively.
One final note: don’t take out your hatred of the result on Justice Scalia. Justice Scalia is NOT politically motivated; he really believes what he says. If you liberals want to target someone for political motivations, look no further than Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who is consistently willing to ignore law in her attempt to get a result consistent with the political leanings of the party which appointed her, unless she has some strong feeling to the contrary, in which case she will ignore precedent to go the other way.
So THAT’s the new “explanation” for why counting votes is a bad thing. I was wondering what they were going to come up with once it was no longer about just counting Democratic counties. (by the way, Bush could have called for recounts in at least one, perhaps a couple of other states. He chose not to. Therefore, if anyone is feeling disenfranchised, they should take it up with Mr. Bush This argument is no argument at all, sorry.)
Funny how the Bush supporters are so completely convinced that the vote will go against them, even if they are counting the many counties that went for Bush, of which there are considerably more than went for Gore. Why would this be, do you suppose? It has to be one of two reasons:
All the slimy activity coming from Bush side is coming straight from Bush himself.
stoid
Hi folks. I was referred here by a liberal friend that apparently things you aren’t aggravated enough:).
I must say upfront that I voted for George Bush and know the man personally (as well as his father). As a result, I don’t hold the same beliefs about him being a “lightweight”. I’ve seen him work with people from both sides of the aisle, and I was especially impressed that ALL of the governors that stumped for George Bush had at least one Democrat from his home State assisting. If an unabashed Liberal like Cohen can admit that he probably has the best chance of bringing this country together, it deserves consideration, eh?
I’d like to discuss some items point-by-point that I haven’t seen addressed on this thread, o.k.? (well, o.k. or not…)
SENDING IN THE LAWYERS/OPERATIVES:
Guys, Gore’s team sent in operatives and lawyers BEFORE voting ended. They began making phone calls to people in Palm Beach County the AFTERNOON of the election trying to find “confused voters”. Isn’t it odd that not a single Republican has come forward as “confused”? It may be that we’re less inclined to admit we’re idiots…or? Let’s get rational, o.k.? The distance from a Gore/Buchanan punch is EXACTLY equal to a Bush/Buchanan punch…but no complaints from Republicans?
The word was out on “K” Street on the EVENING of the election (this is where the lawyers hang out in DC) trying to drum up at least THREE MILLION DOLLARS for legal battles in Florida. This was done, folks, BEFORE the election even ended.
Since I’m ex-military, I have a personal opinion about the THREE HUNDRED lawyers that descended upon the independent counties ON THE SAME DAY with a FIVE-PAGE legal memo of instructions on how to disqualify absentee ballots. Since this happened AFTER the majority of stateside “absentee” ballots were in, this smells funny to me. Can you liberal folks understand that? This…from the man who wanted to “count every vote”?
Of the 44 lawsuits I was aware of near the end of this thing, I was only aware of NINE that were initiated by the Republicans…think about it.
TURN-DOWN OF ‘COUNT WHOLE STATE’ OFFER
If there is ONE thing that has NOT changed from the day this foolishness started, it’s the position that PE Bush did not want ANY recount done that was not done to a standard. This hasn’t changed in any way. Gore made nothing more than lip-noise with his offer–at the same time he was making that offer on television, his lawyers were telling the Republicans “too bad–the deadline for requesting recounts is over”.
WELL, THEY HAND-RECOUNT IN TEXAS…
Folks…I’m from Texas. We have 14 out of 254 counties that use punch cards. They have a VERY DETAILED standard as to what constitutes an “intent to vote” on hand recounts. Hell, the fact that George Bush didn’t want Democratic Party-dominated canvassing boards with NO STANDARDS determining if a ‘booger’ equalled a vote or not is proof enough for me that he’s not as dumb as people say…
Let’s be honest, Democrats…can you HONESTLY say that you think this method seemed fair after watching it being done?
GORE WOULDA WUN…
Even after the recounts Gore failed to catch-up. I believe there’s more than being told about Miami-Dade stopping. They stopped after counting DEMOCRATIC precincts…Harvard Statistical studies are indicating that given the remaining precinct’s demographics, there’s a reasonable possibility that George would have GAINED votes in Miami-Dade. Further, the counts stopped when questions began to get raised and demands were made to inspect the voting stubs for illegal voters. It’s been estimated that 400+ votes (illegal felons) and 5,000+ votes (Haitians) were subject to removal. These groups voted overwhelmingly for Gore.
(Dems)WE WUZ ROBBED…
I went to bed the night of the election when I calculated mathematically that even though the networks were calling Florida for Gore, he would have had to pick up more than 80% of the remaining counties to actually win. It wasn’t until the next day that I made the correlation between the late calls in Florida with the corresponding late calls in OTHER states that Republicans were winning. If there was a “fix” in, I think it was the media driving the bus.
I did a statistical analysis of the machine-recount. WHY? Well, to tell you the truth, I thought that something smelled fishy and it originally looked like (to me) the Republicans might be at fault, because I couldn’t see any reasonable cause for Gore showing these disproportionate gains (I was thinking he might have been ‘robbed’ in the original tally). For those folks that are unaware, there’s a concept known as “random distribution of numbers”. All things being equal, there should have been an equal number of “Gore Net Gains”, “Bush Net Gains”, and “No Change” results in the recount…Guess what I found?
There were 50 counties that leaned Republican. In those counties, the results were Net-Bush-Gain 37%, Net-Gore-Gain 33%, No-Change 30%…leaning a little towards Bush, but not a GLARING discrepancy. In the DEMOCRATIC counties, however, the results were Net-Bush-Gain 7%, Net-Gore Gain 70%, No-Change 22%. (Numbers may not equal 100% due to rounding).
I don’t care how you call it, folks. If someone was doing the “robbing” it sure didn’t look like Republicans were doing it…in their counties, what should have happened, happened.
There’s a VERY good analysis that was done at
Original Sources.
THEY BOTH WOULDA DONE THE SAME THING
Again, I know Mr. Bush personally, so I’m biased, but I don’t believe the same thing would have happened. Hell, the Republicans didn’t start scrambling for lawyers until the afternoon AFTER the election. It didn’t start asking for money for THREE days. Finally, I don’t think George Bush is as fixated on the presidency as Gore is.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Gore should have ripped Bush a new asshole. As far as I’m concerned, the fact that he couldn’t carry HIS HOME STATE or the STATE OF THE SITTING PRESIDENT during a time when we’ve got a good economy, few problems, and a rather “happy” population is a DAMNING indication of how poorly Gore did. Can any of you tell me honestly that Gore seems SINCERE to you when you see him on television? If so, please publish your names so I don’t ask your advice about buying used cars, o.k.? Gore had to pull himself FAR to the right to make himself acceptable to the number of people that voted for him. With Bush, “what you see is what you got”. He never flipped, he never changed.
I’m GLAD the Republicans reached down and realized that there was actually a pair of gonads down there. I applaud the fact that Republicans finally got the nerve to FIGHT for what they believed in. I was PROUD of the race that Bush ran…as opposed to the negative, slimy crap that was pulled by the Democrats.
I’ll be proud of our new President, because I’m assuming it will be George W. Bush. You’ll learn he’s not the idiot and he’s not the “booga-man” the Democrats made him out to be. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
re: Stoid
Actually, from what I’ve been hearing, if anyone’s MICROMANAGING the lawyers, it’s GORE. He has each of the lawyers on a VERY short leash and is actually e-mailing them notes during the cases.
Personally, I would LOVE to see a “fair and accurate count”, but that has never been offered…what was offered was to allow each county to “count as they wish”.
I’ll ask you a reasonable question. Would you have felt comfortable if THREE REPUBLICANS were counting all of the “undervotes” looking for ‘booger-marks’ and ‘finger presses’ and it was THEIR choice as to who to award it to? I suspect, as most Democrats, that you will refuse to answer that question honestly…even to yourself.