Hard to avoid conventional wisdom that Gore's back to severe longshot status, but still seems more like a gamble than a trade to go long on the expectation of a clear and immediate Bush victory. Among other things, it remains less than an absolute certainty that the US SC has already shown its hand. FWIW, from the Washington Post, written before the US SC ruling:
Supreme Court precedent provides that a justice will vote for a stay if he or she believes not only that Bush would suffer "irreparable harm" without a stay, but also that there is a "reasonable probability" that the court would accept Bush's appeal, which takes at least four votes, and that there is a "fair prospect" he would win, which takes five.
In short, if the court grants Bush's stay, it could mean that a majority of the court believes there's at least a shot that the Florida court would ultimately be reversed. Alternatively, it could be that only four justices believed that, but a fifth justice agreed to go along with the stay out of respect for the views of his or her colleagues--a "courtesy fifth."
In short, Gore's in trouble, but the issue may not have been decided. If a single Justice from the majority leans in its direction, but is still persuadable, he or she might still have voted for the stay either on the basis of arguments that are not everyone's main focus (Scalia's statement about violation of integrity of the evidence; his demand that counting proceed, if at all, only after a standard has been fixed), or merely out of courtesy. |
