When you say "the selective recount caused all the legal problems", you're implying that had Gore asked for a statewide recount, the courts and Republicans would have agreed.
No way. They would have just kept up the chorus spinning the line that recounts are unAmerican, subjective, impossible, chaotic, a waste of time (this would have been emphasized in the event of a statewide recount). Then they would have skipped straight to the USSC with their equal protection clause arguments, because it still would have been a decentralized process unless the FSC wrote a new standard from the bench. (Had the FSC done that, of course, they would have asked the USSC to overturn it.)
Remember, Bush was ahead, barely, and both sides knew the recounts were likely to benefit Gore. So the Republican goal was simple: no recounts, period.
Clearly, in hindsight, it would have been better strategy for Gore to fight for a statewide recount. But the limited recount didn't create the legal problems; it merely altered their trajectory slightly. |
