A year later, election seems like ancient history
By Jill Lawrence and Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY
< Thanks for the article, I wanted to post the text...... -josh >
WASHINGTON — It seemed like history that could not be topped in our lifetimes: a presidential election so close, it took 5 weeks and a legal odyssey to figure out who won. But a year later, that election has shrunk to a footnote, eclipsed by terrorist strikes that have shocked the country into a new frame of mind and a more vigilant way of life.
The political landscape is unrecognizable compared with 12 months ago. Most Americans no longer view the 2000 presidential election as a constitutional crisis or major problem, as most did last December. If the election were held today, President Bush would not have to worry about a few hundred votes in Florida — he'd be the flat-out winner over Democrat Al Gore, by 61%-35%, according to a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll of 1,012 adults.
The job of the presidency has undergone a transformation, reinforcing the view of scholars that a candidate's character and competence matter at least as much as specific proposals. Consider: Life-and-death global concerns now preoccupy a president who ran almost entirely on domestic issues such as education. The economy, so robust through the election, is probably in a recession. "Policy positions often turn out to be not that relevant because the world hands you a new assignment," says Bruce Buchanan, a presidential scholar at the University of Texas-Austin.
What hasn't happened are the changes one would expect after the mechanics of democracy, such as voting equipment and ballot design, failed in spectacular fashion. In today's off-year elections and contests next year for governors, senators and House members, most people will be using the same voting machines and procedures as last time.
Does it matter? In the traumatic aftermath of Sept. 11, the hanging chads that plagued Florida voters and election officials seem like artifacts of a more trivial time. Public confidence in the voting system has climbed in the past 11 months. In December, 67% said the system needed a complete overhaul or major reforms. Now, 43% say so.
But some signs of division remain. The poll shows nearly half the country still thinks Bush "stole the election" or won on a technicality. A quarter of respondents say Gore would do a better job than Bush on the economy.
Political scientists say the 2000 stalemate, with its Supreme Court climax and focus on the minutiae of voting, should not be relegated to the dustbin of obsessions that in retrospect seem overblown. "Did people poke the wrong hole in Palm Beach County? Sounds pretty low-level," says Susan Herbst, chairwoman of the Northwestern University political science department in Evanston, Ill. "But it adds up to electing the leaders who will form our foreign policy and fight wars for us."
Bush's official margin in Florida was 537 votes. If Gore had won 269 of them, he would be running the war in Afghanistan — or maybe he wouldn't be running a war at all. "If Al Gore were president, at the very least he'd have a whole different set of people around him," says Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster and strategist. "Elections have consequences."
United or divided?
One of the most striking aspects of the election was the map that showed Gore winning the East and West Coasts and inland industrial cities, while Bush won the heartland and the South. Gore piled up a half-million more votes than Bush, but he lost the Electoral College when he lost Florida.
In the new unity born of terrorism, Gore calls his former opponent "my commander in chief," and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani says, "New Yorkers feel very much part of America. We're being supported in ways that we're not even used to."
The most conspicuous sign of national unity is Bush's job approval rating, near 90% for nearly 2 months. But polling analysts view the rally as temporary. No president has sustained approval ratings at a war-inflated level for more than 46 weeks — that was Franklin Roosevelt's record after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Bush's own father suffered a dramatic falloff from 89% in March 1991, the end of the Persian Gulf War, to 29%, his lowest point, in July 1992.
McInturff says Bush's approval rating could drift downward into the 50s by June 2002. "That would be the most normal thing to happen," he says. "But it depends on no more terrorist attacks at home, and no dramatic failures or successes abroad."
Some analysts say the election proved a president can enact a campaign agenda without a ringing vote of confidence at the polls. They point to Bush's first 8 months, during which he pushed through a huge tax cut and confirmations of some markedly conservative Cabinet members.
Yale political scientist Stephen Skowronek, author of The Politics Presidents Make, says Bush acted as if he'd won in a landslide: "The dubiousness of the results seemed to have no bearing on his governing strategy or his agenda. If we thought for a minute that the modern presidency operates on the basis of a mandate, that was thrown out the window."
Geoffrey Garin, a Democratic strategist, says the election standoff and Gore's popular-vote majority offered Bush a chance to "seize the high ground" and work with both parties. "Quite remarkably, he totally let the moment pass," Garin says. "The irony is that Sept. 11 recreated that moment, and Bush embraced it when he had a second chance."
The recurring nightmare for state election officials everywhere is that next time, they'll be the ones coping with a chaotic counting mess that could determine who becomes president, or governor, or senator. Traditionally, they pray on Election Eve for landslides to minimize the chances of recounts or court challenges. In the aftermath of Florida, there's been a burst of more practical activity.
At least a dozen national task forces launched inquiries into what went wrong in Florida, and 27 states issued reports recommending changes in election equipment and procedures. Nearly 1,800 bills were introduced in state legislatures, a half-dozen congressional committees held hearings and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission undertook an inquest.
Yet the changes so far are minimal. Florida has been the only state to order a complete overhaul of its voting process and provide the money to pay for it. A few others, notably Georgia and Maryland, approved significant reforms but didn't fully finance them.
New York City uses 40-year-old lever machines. A decade-long push to get computerized touch-screen machines ended last year when the city decided the machine design was fatally flawed. "We're starting over" to find a new system, says Joseph Gentili, deputy executive director of the New York City Board of Elections. "There's no conceivable way it would be ready in a year or two. It's highly unlikely in 2004."
Many states looked to Washington for help, but congressional Democrats and Republicans have been stymied by fears that any change will give the other side an edge. Election experts say congressional action — that is, money — is needed by March at the latest to get new equipment in place by the 2004 presidential election. Among the obstacles:
Republicans aren't eager to make registration and voting easier for large numbers of new voters, says Alex Keyssar, a historian at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "They look out and they see the social composition of those who might be brought into the electorate, and it doesn't look like their voters," he says. People who aren't registered are more likely to be lower-income, less educated and part of an ethnic minority — all groups that tend to favor Democrats. Lawmakers in both parties are not inclined to tinker with the system that elected them. "The foxes guarding the chicken coop don't have a lot of interest in changing the rules of access for the chickens," Keyssar says. The feds aren't flush anymore. Doug Lewis of The Election Center, a non-profit group that trains election administrators, says it will take at least $2 billion to repair pressing election problems. The nation was looking at projections of endless surpluses when debate over fixes began. But the attacks of Sept. 11 accelerated an economic slowdown and magnified military and security needs, catapulting them to top priority.
Could it happen again?
Even without fancy new equipment, the nation is unlikely to endure another election like the one in 2000. People are expected to be more deliberate and ask for more help as they vote. The parties plan more intensive voter education and poll monitoring.
And local election officials, after seeing Palm Beach County election supervisor Theresa LePore pilloried for designing the confusing "butterfly ballot," will be far more careful about how they do their own jobs, says Richard Smolka, publisher of Election Administration Reports, a newsletter for election officials: "There is a heightened awareness of the need for voter education. You also have heightened poll-worker training at the local level, and there is a greater sensitivity to ballot design."
Political scientists say the United States should hold exemplary elections so it can function as a model of democracy for other nations. But they also say the country needs a fair and reliable voting system for its own sake: to make sure the rightful winners take office and voters trust the process.
That's especially important in a time of national crisis. Citizens feeling helpless or distracted by terrorism and war can help the country, says Herbst, by voting, keeping up with the news, volunteering at polling places and running for local office.
"It seems very far from foreign policy and Afghanistan, but these activities are the heart of democracy," she says. "Let's channel our patriotism toward protection of these institutions that are vital."
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