If SCOTUS decides this case contrary to your view of it, it will be interesting to see what your reaction will be.
One half the public holds Bush and Baker in every bit as much contempt as you hold Gore. In our view, Bush has been stealing Florida since about a month before the election, with the help of his brother, the GOP dominated legislature, Katherine Harris (his campaign co-chair and chief agent of mischief), a GOP vendor who wiped several thousand black voters off of the registration lists for no reason (something they have already admitted and apologized for), a voting tabulation system that has led ballots submitted by blacks to be DQ'd at 5 to 10 times the rate of ballots submitted by non-black voters, numerous other irregularities relating to the manner in which absentee ballots were sent out under the direction of GOP operatives by GOP-affiliated election officials (including, in yet another county, without ever having been requested by the voters, an even clearer violation of the law than the irregularities in Seminole and Martin counties and one far more likely to lead to vote fraud), and a cynical and divisive legal strategy aimed at aborting a manual recount expressly permitted under state law and requested in a timely fashion before it could be properly conducted, and running out the clock on any legitimate challenges to the final count.
We are filled with contempt for Bush and his supporters. I am quite certain that if SCOTUS affirms the FSC and dissolves the stay, and Gore wins the court ordered recount, the GOP will never accept that result, but will complete its theft of the election through political means. This has been the point from day one, including the campaign the GOP was prepared to mount for an electoral victory gerrymandered by the Congress if they had won the popular vote and lost the electoral college narrowly.
But it's OK - if it happens, and it appears likely that it will, it will galvanize what has heretofore been a pretty loosely organized democratic party. Which will almost make it worth putting up with four years of this second rate son of a second rate President. |
