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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dan B. who wrote (7092)	11/21/2000 4:05:38 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 10042

Although I do not think this situation is funny, this is: foxnews.com

To: Dan B. who wrote (7092)	11/21/2000 4:24:57 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

Counting chads, if done equitably for both candidates(if that is possible given their nature), would give the only fair result other than leaving the count with the machines. It's too easy to over-simplify in the heat of debate and this is such a complex matter. People use the word "fair" a lot, but fair is one of the most slippery words in the English language. It's next to impossible to get people to agree on what's fair. The two most acceptable ways of being fair are 1) treating everyone exactly the same and 2)setting up rules and following them precisely. If neither of those is feasible, a secondary option is to find a place where you can draw a bright line. Then there's the problem of fair to whom. In this case, there are the candidates and the voters. Of course, it's debatable if the voters are entitled to fairness. Fairness to them is certainly secondary to fairness to the candidates should there be a conflict. Still, lots of people are worried about fairness to the voters, especially when those voters are the much beloved military folks. I think that RCMac's point was very well taken that counting the counties chosen by Gore is not unfair to Bush because Bush made the tactical choice, not once but twice, to not request further counting in the chad-deficient counties that would be more favorable to Bush. Bush and Gore chose different courses within the prescribed rules. One of the two commonly accepted criteria for fairness was applied, following the rules, so I think calling it unfair to Bush is in appropriate even though the other commonly accepted criterion, treating everyone the same, wasn't. Now whether of not it's fair to the voters of Florida and the rest of us is another matter, but I don't think Bush has anything to complain about. Your approach speaks partly to treating everyone the same and partly to drawing a bright line. I agree that you do draw a brighter line, and you prefer the equal treatment approach to fairness. What you've expressing would also be fair, but that doesn't mean that what RCMac expressed wasn't. It's just not as beneficial to you and your candidate. That's different from unfair. Karen

To: Dan B. who wrote (7092)	11/21/2000 5:21:10 PM
From: Solon	Respond to of 10042

<EDIT>--forgot to post the link: dailytelegraph.co.uk This is an interesting article from an overseas perspective. Of course, some people have no respect for the Daily Telegraph. Others find value in outside opinions. If this is representative of friendly world opinion (and naturally I don't know that it is), it ought to give everyone pregnant pause for consideration of their self interest. The bolding is mine. The drama will become a crisis only if Gore wins By Janet Daley News: Divided America holds its breath BY the time you read this, you may have a clearer idea of who will be the next American president. Then again, you may not. The Democratic judges of the Florida supreme court may have decided that chads swept into a corner in Palm Beach should be pasted back into whatever holes Al Gore's observers have mystically intuited that they belong. Or they may not. But even if the court comes down definitively on the side of the Vice-President's army of lawyers, Mr Gore may not - after all this fuss - gain enough votes via his infinite recount programme to beat George W Bush (what sweet poetic justice that would be). But if he does manage to squeak ahead, then Mr Bush's camp will intensify its clamour about a couple of thousand military votes that have been ruled out of play in Florida. The disfranchising of Our Boys Overseas is apparently playing very badly at home, especially as they have been debarred on a technicality far less serious than the Palm Beach residents' tendency to vote for two people as president. Never mind: it should all be over by Thanksgiving. I, for one, will scarcely know what to do with myself when it is. Disputes about hanging chads have become the permanent background music of my life, and hugely enjoyable it has been - but not on the snotty BBC commentators' grounds that the silly old United States cannot even elect a president without a bout of litigious mud-wrestling. To adapt the old insurance slogan: this is a drama, not a crisis. And what a drama. The reason why the United States manages to produce such a superior line in political theatre is because it is determined to play out every conflict and dispute in front of a live audience. Can you imagine another country in which the equivalent of the Palm Beach county canvassing board would conduct internal arguments about the legality of its decisions in front of a crowd of ordinary voters and a phalanx of television cameras? Or any other national legislature that would debate the impeachment of its head of state on live television? The European backroom deal or the British gentleman's agreement is not for Americans. Paradoxically, it is just this commitment to openness and transparency that makes American politics appear shambolic, when it is, in fact, deeply legalistic and procedural. What the events of the past fortnight show is that the United States governmental system is a virtually unsinkable ship. Only the most secure and stable democracy could expose its own internecine electoral haggling - in such excruciating, minute detail - to the goggle-eyed attention of the world. The nation has even, for the most part, kept its temper (only one scuffle has been reported in Palm Beach over a misplaced ballot paper) and its sense of humour. One voting official, commenting on "pregnant" - bulging but not perforated - chads, said: "In Florida, only penetration counts: not pregnancy." So full marks to the United States for freedom of expression and open government. But what happens now? One of these men will end up president and half the country will hate him. That can't be good for Americans, or for the rest of the world on which the credibility of the American presidency relies. Might it not be better to settle these things behind closed doors, like a bunch of cynical, back-scratching Mediterraneans, rather than give vent to all this public mutual vilification? To pick up the melancholy refrain of those British know-nothings who pronounce on the future of this "tainted" presidency: won't the next four years be blighted for whoever gets the job? Won't the "winner" envy the loser in the end - and won't we all lose the moral leadership of the world's last superpower? Well, to a great extent, that depends on who wins. Mr Gore is now one of the most heartily disliked, relentlessly partisan politicians in Washington. If he becomes president after a zillion recounts, he will well and truly have earned the hatred of every Republican in both houses of Congress. His collision with the Republican majorities in the upper and lower branches of the legislature will give a new dimension to the word "gridlock". The tribal hatreds of the Clinton era will continue to be played out with teeth-clenched determination. In the country at large, he is unlikely to fare better: to put it mildly, Mr Gore is not lovable. He is, at least in public performance, one of the most charmless men I have ever seen run for high political office. I cannot imagine anyone less able to unite the disgruntled factions of the country into a forgiving whole. Pomposity and an almost total lack of intuitive human sensitivity are rarely assets in politics. Under these circumstances, they would be fatal. Mr Bush, on the other hand, is a born conciliator. In Texas, he managed so successfully to engage voters of all parties that he was re-elected with 80 per cent of the vote. In a state riven by ethnic and racial tension, he created a genuinely bipartisan spirit of inclusiveness. In private (I am told) and on public platforms, he is a charmer: a truly engaging man in the Ronald Reagan mould of unpretentious, sincere citizen. If he manages to win the presidency, leaping over the last desperate obstructions thrown up by the Gore legal battalions, I predict that he will give the speech of his life. He will invite the nation - with all the considerable warmth of which he is capable - to join with him in mending its divisions. He will promise to be a president for those of every - and no - party allegiance. He will not cast doubt on the integrity of his opponents. He will beseech American citizens to forget their acrimony and move on. And before long, they will.