No. Silly Florida SCt. for not fashioning a manual recount to comport with equal protection and substantive due process of law. This was within their role as a judicial arbiter of Florida election law where that law may be found unconstitutional when applied to recounts in a statewide election.
20-20 hindsight, IMHO, says Gore own political campaign the local Florida canvassing boards, and last but not least, the Florida SCt. together form the basis for his unsuccessful attempt to have a manual recount of ALL the ballots in Florida.
Don't blame Bush; don't blame the US Supreme Court. The latter had a tough plate handed to them, and had to dish out a ruling based upon what was handed to them. Gore's campaign botched their own effort by asking for the wrong remedy (extension of the protest period) of the Florida Supreme Court, that was too partisan, and as a result, too misinformed as to the proper remedy it could have fashioned for the Gore campaign at the outset. That Court should have allowed the election results to be certified as provided by Florida statute; allow the contest period to commence on time, as provided by statute; and finally fashion a remedy in the contest proceeding by ordering a manual recount statewide with a set of definable standards that would ensure that all similar situated votes would be treated equally. The Florida SCt failed the Gore campaign miserably.
Now is the time to fix the system. Hopefully election law in every state will be reviewed and amended to prevent these issues from occurring in the future.
Gore can run again in four years. But will the Democrats stand behind him. This is the larger issue that remains to be seen. I cannot envision an Al Gore that would like to see a Bush administration succeed, not to mention heal the wounds that Gore has caused this country. OTOH, many Democrats will think otherwise, as Al may very well NOT be their man in 2004. Its all up to Al Gore and how he handled himself in the next year. JMO. |
