Pity Poor Paul, Still Peeved At The Polls
Decision '08
It must be tough being a Paul Krugman or a Frank Rich, people who, despite their wealth and coddled lifestyles, see hate-filled conspiracies around every corner and bile rising every time they contemplate their President. For example, Paul Krugman still hasn’t reconciled himself to the election of George W. Bush in 2000:
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There was at least as much electoral malfeasance in 2004 as there was in 2000, even if it didn’t change the outcome. And the next election may be worse.
In his recent book “Steal This Vote” - a very judicious work, despite its title - Andrew Gumbel, a U.S. correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, provides the best overview I’ve seen of the 2000 Florida vote. And he documents the simple truth: “Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election.”
Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida’s ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore. This was true despite a host of efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes, most notably Ms. Harris’s “felon purge,” which disenfranchised large numbers of valid voters.
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Krugman then rehashes every unproven liberal urban legend related to the two Bush victories, in the manner of the most strident Kossack, before concluding:
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We aren’t going to rerun the last three elections. But what about the future?
Our current political leaders would suffer greatly if either house of Congress changed hands in 2006, or if the presidency changed hands in 2008. The lids would come off all the simmering scandals, from the selling of the Iraq war to profiteering by politically connected companies. The Republicans will be strongly tempted to make sure that they win those elections by any means necessary. And everything we’ve seen suggests that they will give in to that temptation.
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You’ve got to hand it to Kruggie, he’s got some nerve, rerunning the last elections and then saying he won’t. That’s not what the media consortiums found, anyway; Krugman is just flat lying.
What are the facts?
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(1). In the first full study of Florida’s ballots [after the 2000 election] ended, The Miami Herald and USA Today reported George W. Bush would have widened his 537-vote victory to a 1,665-vote margin if the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court would have been allowed to continue, using standards that would have allowed even faintly dimpled “undervotes” — ballots the voter has noticeably indented but had not punched all the way through — to be counted.
(2). A comprehensive study of the 2000 presidential election in Florida suggests that if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a statewide vote recount to proceed, Republican candidate George W. Bush would still have been elected president.
The National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the
University of Chicago conducted the six-month study for a
consortium of eight news media companies, including CNN.
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So when Krugman tells you a new book says Gore won, keep the above FACTS in mind (and note my citations are from PBS and CNN, not exactly the most friendly venues for Republicans). It’s an academic debate, anyway: the Supreme Court ruled as it did, Gore conceded, and the Electoral College, as always, determined the victor: George W. Bush.
What about Election 2004? We’ve heard stories and rumors from both sides, but here’s a fact from a legal proceeding:
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The suspects in an Election Day tire slashing will stand trial.
The five Democratic Party campaign staffers are accused of vandalizing several vans the Republicans rented to bring voters to the polls.
A Milwaukee judge rejected motions Thursday to throw out the charges.
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What have you got, when you strip it all away? Another Paul Krugman column devoid of facts, full of specious reasoning and speculation, all storm and fury, signifying nothing.
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cnn.com
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