Spirit - are you blind or what - you say - "The spin today is all Pro-Democrat"YEA _ cause they are the only ones on TV whining all day.
Here is what the American people think:
POLL - MOST WANT GORE OUT
washingtonpost.com
By Claudia Deane and Richard Morin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, November 27, 2000; 10:39 AM
A clear majority of Americans believe the vote count in Florida was accurate and want Vice President Gore to stand aside and allow Texas Gov. George W. Bush to assume the presidency, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
More than half of those surveyed – 56 percent – also approved of the decision by the Florida secretary of state to deny a request by Palm Beach election officials to extend Sunday's deadline for completing their hand recount until this morning.
But the country remains divided over whether the controversial indented or "dimpled" punch-card ballots should have been counted as legitimate votes in South Florida, a claim that is central to Gore's ongoing efforts to reverse the Florida outcome. Nearly half – 48 percent – said dimpled ballots should not be counted, while 42 percent said they should.
The survey also found that the country's initial reaction to the weekend's events in Florida is deeply divided and highly partisan, with Democrats rallying around Gore as Republicans stood even more strongly behind Bush.
"Number one, Bush has definitely won. Number two, I think they ought to get it over with," said John Holmberg, 54, a Bush voter in Orlando who describes himself as angry about the election situation in his home state.
Stacey Foust disagrees. She's a college student and mother of three in Junction City, Oregon, who voted for Gore. "My point of view is that all of the votes should have been counted. I just want the whole thing over. But I think what's fair is fair, and I think we should just let it go a few more weeks."
"It really could all have been done now if we hadn't kept stopping and starting and stopping and starting."
Political independents and moderates, swing groups that were fiercely courted by both sides during the presidential campaign, again hold the balance of power in determining the outcome of the post-election drama.
Initially, Bush appears to have the upper hand. On question after question in the poll, a clear majority of independents and moderates joined Republicans to support the Texas governor.
A total of 607 randomly selected adults were interviewed Sunday night for this survey. Margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus 4 percentage points. The practical difficulties of doing a survey in a single night suggest these results should be interpreted cautiously.
The Post-ABC News survey suggests that time is quickly running out on the Gore campaign. More than half of those interviewed – 57 percent – say they want the controversy resolved within a week. About half – 53 percent – strongly believe Gore should concede now; fewer than a third are adamant that the Democrat should challenge the Florida vote in court.
"I'm satisfied with Florida's count now," said Glenn Krohn, 29, a salesman in Chattanooga who voted for Bush. "In my opinion Gore should concede this election, and they should work on the laws and the voting systems so this doesn't happen again."
Overall, 60 percent of those interviewed want Gore to abandon his presidential bid. Even a small but significant proportion of Gore's own supporters currently want him to give up his presidential bid. One in four Gore supporters agreed the vice president should concede the presidency to Bush, and a slightly larger percentage said ending the election quickly was more important than making a full case in court.
Still, two in three Gore supporters said he should continue pursuing the matter through legal means. And a third said they would be willing to wait past Christmas for a resolution.
"What's a month, compared to four years that we have to live with this person?" said Elizabeth Ketsios Zweiback, 30, a designer in Chicago who favors Gore.
The majority of independents (67 percent) say Gore should concede the election, and most support this option because they believe in the fairness of the Florida vote rather than out of a sense of fatigue. Nine in 10 Republicans believe Gore should step aside; three in 10 Democrats agree.
Views of the process in Florida remain deeply partisan. Nearly six in 10 Democrats – 57 percent – say they have little or no confidence in the state's vote count. But three in four Republicans say the totals presented by the state canvassing board last night were accurate, and so do six in 10 political independents.
Similarly, three in four Democrats say Secretary of State Katherine Harris should have given Palm Beach County the 9 a.m. extension requested to finish the manual vote recount, while nine in 10 Republicans and two in three independents think she was right to adhere to the 5 p.m. Sunday deadline.
"I don't think Florida has the right to say 'we're going to certify even though Palm Beach hasn't finished [their hand count],' " said Roger Ruleman, 50, a small businessman in Waldorf, Md., who supports Gore.
"Don't tell me how many I've got if you've stopped counting. Don't tell me I've only got 2 or three thousand," Ruleman said.
Two in three Gore supporters say the infamous dimpled chads should be counted, while an equally large proportion of Bush partisans say no.
"It's sad we've gone from what we were used to – a general election where people were voting – to hanging chads, dimples and trying to divine votes through prophecy," said Roy Steffen, 54, a Vietnam veteran and registered nurse in Chula Vista, Calif. "It's souring people I know toward the whole electoral process, which there's not a lot of faith in anyway," said Steffen, who voted for Bush.
Americans were divided over the role of the U.S. Supreme Court in the ongoing election drama. Although the Bush campaign was the first to request the high court's involvement, supporters of the Texas governor are divided whether the court should be involved in the case. About half – 47 percent – said they approved of a Supreme Court review while nearly the exact same proportion disapproved. Two in three Gore supporters approve of the high court becoming involved.
"It's the highest office in the land, and I think the highest court in the land should be the one to decide," Krohn said.
"I never thought it was right for the Supreme Court to get involved with the elections at all. I think it should be two separate things," said Holmberg.
Democrats and Republicans do agree on at least one issue: Majorities of both parties as well as independents don't want the Florida legislature to get involved in resolving the election.
The Post-ABC News poll and follow-up interviews with survey participants suggests that Republicans may be more righteous and angry about what has happened in Florida since the Nov. 7 election, while Democrats seemed more irritated, resentful and resigned to a Gore defeat.
One sign that Bush supporters have dug in their heels deeper: while about half – 53 percent – of the vice president's backers say they will consider Bush "legitimately elected" if he becomes president, the majority of Bush supporters (60 percent) say they will not consider Gore a legitimate victor if he were to somehow attain the presidency.
If Gore were to eventually win, "I'll feel like it's a big fraud," said Dennis Dehart, 28, a carpet layer and Bush voter in Dennison, Minnesota.
Others disagreed. "I'm going to support either president who goes into office, even though I have my differences," said Ruleman, a Gore supporter. "With a vote this close, they both must be pretty good."
One final problem for the vice president in the week ahead: His supporters seem to be paying less attention. About half of Bush's backers say they are following the election's twists and turns "very closely," compared to about a third of Gore's supporters.
This attention gap has grown somewhat since the days after the election, largely because interest among the vice president's supporters seems to have flagged somewhat. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted five days after the vote, 44 percent of all Gore supporters said they were following the election very closely.
Still, many voters are struck with a sense of the historic moment. "I'm 77 years old, and never in my life have I seen one carried out like this," said Dorothy Allison of Ottumwa, Iowa. "I've never seen one this close, and this kind of battling back and forth. Probably we never will again."
© 2000 The Washington Post Company |
