A Few Good Conservatives
Chris Mooney
Over the pre-Thanksgiving weekend, as their
alma maters clashed waspily in the
Harvard-Yale game (Yale won) and as the
candidates themselves went for highly
publicized jogs (Governor Bush is faster), Al
Gore and George W. Bush spinners continued
their grating arguments for and against manual
ballot recounts in Florida. In this battle of repetitiousness,
conducted in any media forum available and with virtually
interchangeable spokespersons -- bench Jim Baker for Marc
Racicot; tag in David Boies when Warren Christopher starts
falling asleep -- it's not particularly easy to warm up to either side.
Indeed, in this respect, the post-campaign is very much like the
campaign itself.
But there's an important difference, too. Whereas the election
turned on whose plans were best for the country (a matter of
interpretation), the Florida recount is about who actually won the
most votes (a matter of fact, though difficult to ascertain). And
perhaps that's why intellectually, the apparent reasonableness of
the Gore position -- carefully counting machine-rejected votes by
hand to make sure none are missed -- seems to be winning out in
the mind of the American public. According to a November 20th
Gallup poll, 60 percent of those interviewed said they thought
manual recounts should be included in the final vote tally for
Florida. That included 23 percent of Bush supporters. By
contrast, only 6 percent of Gore supporters were splitters to the
Republican side, and opposed hand recounts (presumably buying
into the bizarrely futurist argument that these counts introduce
subjectivity and "human error" into the process).
Generally, the conservative punditariat has shown less diversity
on the question of hand counts than regular folks. But there have
been some prominent righties who have proved willing to set
aside GOP talking points, and utter the heresy that these recounts
are the best way of determining who won in Florida. Here are
some of the big names after whom RNC-chairman Jim Nicholson
is surely naming his voodoo dolls:
Chuck Hagel. The first term Nebraska
senator, a prominent supporter of John McCain
and a fellow Vietnam veteran, suggested
recently on MSNBC's Hardball that the only
way of achieving an electoral result that would
be indisputable would be to hand-recount all
67 of Florida's counties (a Gore suggestion, rejected by Bush).
In a follow-up interview with Salon's Jake Tapper, Hagel
commented, "I know some of my Republican friends and
colleagues would probably prefer me to take the company line . .
. But I don't think it's in the best interests of George Bush and I
want George Bush to be president." Hagel continued, "We must
guard that which is most precious, which is that the process that
produces the next president must be seen as legitimate and
validated."
Similarly, there's:
Ed Rollins. Despite Florida Secretary of State Katherine
Harris's much-cackled-at makeup, this longtime Republican
consultant actually seems to like the way she looks; Rollins
described her as "an attractive, articulate woman" recently on
CNBC's Rivera Live. But that was the only good thing he had to
say about Harris -- who has done her damnedest to prevent hand
recounts -- or the Republican strategy she epitomizes. "Obviously
I'm going to get in trouble with my party again," Rollins told
Geraldo. He then went on to argue that, in any situation where an
election comes down to only a few hundred votes, recounts are
"a common practice." Rollins finished with this kicker: "If I was
running [the Bush campaign] . . . I would have taken the . . . Gore
offer, and I would have counted every vote, and I would hope
that I beat him on the ground, and I'd have walked away and
said, 'I'm president of the United States, and I deserve to be.'"
And if you're looking for an independent-minded conservative,
albeit an erratic one, don't forget about good old . . .
Bill Kristol. The leading lights of the
conservative media have generally been
herd-minded when it comes to the hand recount
issue. Indeed, the latest Weekly Standard
contains a conspiratorial editorial by David Tell,
written on behalf of the editors (Kristol and
Fred Barnes), that essentially accuses
Democratic Florida election officials of committing vast vote fraud
in Florida on the night of November 8th -- without a grain of
evidence to support the claim.
However, Kristol himself was much more moderate when
discussing hand recounts with NBC's Katie Couric on November
14th. "We have had plenty of hand recounts in American
elections over the years," Kristol pointed out. And then he, too,
bucked the partisan line, offering a Hagel-ish -- indeed a
Gore-ish -- solution. "I say this as a Republican, I'm not sure this
is in Bush's interest," Kristol began. "But it really, as a matter of
equity . . . the obvious compromise -- is a statewide carefully
monitored hand recount."
And when it comes to conservative independents, don't forget:
Pat Buchanan. Yes, he's crazy. But he says what he thinks.
That's why the Reform Party nominee willingly confessed at the
outset, "When I took one look at that ballot on Election Night . . .
it's very easy for me to see how someone could have voted for
me in the belief they voted for Al Gore." And a campaign aide
called the idea that thousands voted for Buchanan in the liberal
county "nonsense." Of course, few now seem willing to attempt to
deal with the problematic questions raised by the Palm Beach
butterfly ballot -- a revote in that county, for example, seems
politically impossible at this point. But roughly a week ago, when
the Florida debate had not yet shifted to the issue of hand
recounts, Republicans were alleging that Palm Beach County was
a Buchanan stronghold. And Pat told them otherwise.
Of course, independent-minded conservative pundits, party
operatives, and representatives aren't the only ones challenging
the Bush campaign's self-righteous opposition to hand recounts.
As Gallup proved, a lot of good old, "American Gothic"-style
regular folks disagree with the GOP position. On November
20th, CNN interviewed one of them:
Mary Cross. A registered Republican, Cross is a Palm Beach
County vote counter currently engaged in the manual recount.
Cross told CNN's Carol Lin that she had seen no evidence of
any of the sort of malfeasance that Republicans have alleged is
going on during the hand recount process. After hearing this, Lin
asked: "So what do you think of your party making such a
brouhaha about how these ballots are being counted and how
perhaps they should even be invalidated?" Cross responded: "I'm
not very proud of them." That was not on her talking points.
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