I think there was plenty of 'mischief' done all around, and especially including the runup to the election (voter purges by high-priced Republican consulting firm... with criteria supplied by the Governor's office that even the consulting firm objected was going to produce a lot of 'false positives', e.g. the '80% match' of partial names, illegally denying the vote to persons with out-of-state misdemeanors/felonies in direct violation of two standing Florida Supreme Court orders, etc.), but also a 'fair amount' of mischief was done post election out in the panhandle... possibly enough to balance out any 'down state' mischief.
I believe that a full airing of charges/counter charges would have demonstrated that BOTH parties could claim prejudice and 'mischief', and I don't at all believe that Bush - as the complaining party - could ever demonstrate sole possession of the 'mischief is being done to me' crown.
Please read the Greg Palast articles in the Observer, on BBC, and in "The Best Democracy Money can Buy' for background on this.
Still, in an election this razzor-close, there is no getting around the fact that wooden old Gore ran a miserable boring , indecisive campaign. ...In fact, public distaste was widespread for both ticket-heads.
I believe that, in the grand old American tradition, the Republicans "stole this one fair and square", I'm only sorry that the US Supreme court was damaged by taking up this totally unnecessary case. It was better off left to the Electoral College, and then the House, for resolution.
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