HORSERACE BLOG - If/then scenarios on FL 2000
In the discussion of my first post of the day, there has been coversation about FL 2000. Lots of consideration of if/then scenarios. Let me just say this:
If the media had not called Florida 10 minutes before the panhandle polls were closed, and ABC/CBS had not declared the polls closed in Florida 60 minutes before, George W. Bush would have netted 4,700 votes. That would have put his margin of victory at 5,237, more than enough to account for the supposed problems with the Butterfly Ballot.
I cannot tell you how much it burns me that the Democratic Conventional Wisdom is just so patently false. Lots of different issues:
1. Republicans tried to suppress the black vote. NOT TRUE. Never proven, never a name offered. Just rumor and innuendo.
2. The Supreme Court was an activist court that voted to screw Gore on narrow partisan lines. NOT TRUE. First of all, the court sided 7-2 with Bush/Olson on the merits. They rejected Gore's call for an exclusive recount of Volusia, Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade. They agreed that there should be a statewide recount with uniform standards. Two justices -- Souter and Breyer -- thought that the remedy should be a beginning of the recount. Five justices -- Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Thomas, Scalia -- decided that there was no time to do this.
Why? Well, the Florida legislature's mandated deadline for a submission of Electors was 48 hours away. And the Constitution of the United States of America reads as follows (Article II, Section 1): "Each state shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in Congress..."
In other words, anything that the state legislature has to say about setting the manner of appointment is not, repeat, not subject to judicial review, provided that the manner does not violate any pre-existing clause in either the state's or the nation's constitution. The legislature's deadline contained no such violation. It was actually those five justices who were relying on the positive law of this nation. The rest of them were being "activist." The other four made an appeal to abstract right, i.e. to the effect of "throw out the Constitution, it is so morally important to count all votes." Furthermore, it was the Florida Supreme Court which a few days before decided to ignore the rules of the Florida legislature, and therefore the Constitution itself, to throw out the legislature's deadline and demand a recount.
3. Gore would have won if everybody's vote had been counted equally and nobody's vote had been suppressed. NOT TRUE. The media suppressed the panhandle vote. Factor that in, give Gore the butterfly ballots 9-1, give him his goofy recount demands and you still wind up with a Bush victory.
4. George Bush tried to steal the election. NOT TRUE. As Bill Sammon reports in his fantastic book on the subject, Al Gore reportedly drew on a napkin three concentric circles -- indicating, in outgoing order, his top priorities. The inner circle contained his name. The second circle contained the Democratic Party. The last circle contained the United States.
To this end, as Sammon also notes, Gore dispatched lawyers to throw lawsuits all over the place in Florida that they knew would never stick -- e.g. the butterfly ballot (no way that would fly...what would the remedy be?) -- just to buy themselves time. They also dispatched Jesse Jackson to Palm Beach County to rouse up black voters to march on that issue. It was all a pre-planned political game.
5. The butterfly ballot was illegal. NOT TRUE. The butterfly ballot was created by the Palm Beach County elections chairwoman, a Democrat, and -- according to the law -- was published in the newspaper days before the election. Thus, if people "mis-voted," it was their own fault.
Time and again, it was the Democrats who were operating outside the boundaries of law and ethics. Not the Republicans.
Bully for Gore for winning the popular vote, but that matters not a whit in this nation. And you know what? I am glad for that. I love the Electoral College. It is one of the last remaining protectors of state's rights. Besides, all those who have been yim-yammering about how it is unfair should take a good, hard look at the Senate. There is one senator for every 17 million Californians. There is one senator for every 247,000 residents of Wyoming. Is that fair? Does that comport with the left's notions of abstract right? I doubt it. But I also doubt they are interested in eliminating the Senate, or the way it is composed, as that is presently their last vestige of power. |
