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

To: Imran who wrote (8024)	11/29/2000 11:18:44 AM
From: ThirdEye	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

Damn, Imran, you might have something there. Let's look at it the other way around: Supremes rule in Bush's favor and overrule Fl. SC. 1. Lower court judge ALLOWS ballots to count. Point for Bush. 2.GORE appeals to Florida Supreme Court which upholds lower court ruling. Point for Bush. 3. Gore appeals to SC which, if it rules consistent with previous case for Bush that local courts can't change the rules after the fact, meaning the original FLorida lower court ruled incorrectly. Gore becomes President. But by now we are way past Dec 12, the Electoral college may have already met. What then?

To: Imran who wrote (8024)	11/29/2000 11:51:46 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Respond to of 10042

Who'll tell Al Gore that the party's over? Gore reminds me of these Japanese squaddies who were abandoned in several islands in the Pacific and were only rescued in the early 1960s --they were still waiting for a radio address by Hiro Ito to acknowledge that the war was over! Likewise, time for the Bush team to airdrop a coupla "surrender" leaflets over the Naval Observatory.... A Requiem by USA Today.... Defeat appears inevitable, but Gore deserves time to accept it By Walter Shapiro A week before the 1996 election, when Bob Dole trailed Bill Clinton by double digits in virtually every national poll, there were no angry Democrats demanding that the Republican nominee bow to the inevitable. Dole was allowed the dignity of a final week of campaigning even though everyone, Republicans and Democrats alike, knew that the former Senate majority leader would never be president. Al Gore should get the same courtesy. Barring a stunning string of legal victories in Florida and at the U.S. Supreme Court, Gore is doomed to be the modern version of Samuel Tilden in 1876, the man who was almost president. In the two days since the Florida returns were certified, nothing has occurred in the legal thicket or in the incessant spin cycle of politics to lift the cloak of inevitability from the shoulders of George W. Bush. With the White House virtually certain to be Republican for the next four years, it is time to grant Gore a respite to come to grips with his dashed dreams. How cruel it is for Gore to have to face mocking picket signs and derisive chants every time he leaves home. Watching Gore brood over electoral might-have-beens should be vengeance enough for Republicans. A losing candidate often finds his voice in the closing days of a campaign, when he rejects the advice of handlers and finally speaks from the heart. So it was with Gore on Monday night in his eloquent but almost certainly irrelevant five-minute address to the nation. Gone were the ersatz emotions, the patronizing drawl and the exaggerated I'll-fight-for-you rhetoric of the campaign trail. In place of these political gimmicks was a brief glimpse of the hidden man who may well have deserved to be president. The vice president was often derided as a candidate unable to stick to a consistent tone and theme for more than 24 hours. Only now, when it is too late, has Gore found a way to distill his message into a few memorable phrases. ''A vote is not just a piece of paper,'' Gore declared to an unheeding nation. ''A vote is a human voice, a statement of human principle, and we must not let those voices be silenced.'' During the long post-election ordeal, the only enduring principle that has animated either side has been self-interest. Against that cynical backdrop, the Gore forces deserve credit for deciding not to contest the permissive treatment of absentee ballot applications in Republican-dominated Seminole County. Even though many Democratic lawyers say contesting the Seminole County results was the most promising legal avenue, the Gore high command decided that such an appeal would undermine its insistence that every vote should be counted. It is telling that in their post-Florida-certification speeches, both Bush and Gore used the identical phrase, ''common ground.'' Those words were the hopeful title of the late J. Anthony Lukas' epic study of the 1970s Boston busing dispute. If common ground could be found in that wrenching drama of racial polarization, then certainly a prosperous and peaceful nation can rise above the momentary divisions caused by a disputed election. Bush saw ''common ground'' in the bipartisan awareness that compromise is the only way to ensure the future of Social Security and Medicare. Gore employed the phrase to illustrate that the closeness of the election should ''remind us that we are one people, with a shared history and a shared destiny.'' Both men are right. The quest to preserve this common ground, in a policy and a metaphorical sense, should serve as Bush's guiding star as president. But maintaining this common ground requires Bush to demand patience from restive Republicans. It would help if Gore would counsel similar restraint. Airlift home from Florida those camera-loving politicians on both sides whose intemperate oratory has so poisoned the national dialogue. Wouldn't it be uplifting if the nation were treated to a break from dueling press conferences? Wouldn't it be inspiring if governors, senators and other partisan pitchmen suddenly told the bookers for cable TV shows that they were temporarily unavailable for on-air commentary? Although it undoubtedly galls Bush and his lieutenants, the Clinton administration made the correct decision in not giving them access to the government's transition offices while there is still a cloud over the election. But this temporary loss of prime Washington real estate is more than counterbalanced by the White House's offer to begin providing Bush with daily national security briefings. Now there is nothing to prevent Bush from concentrating his full energies on transition planning. The FBI says even another week or two of formal uncertainty would not prevent completion of the necessary background investigations of Bush's top appointees by Inauguration Day. If Gore wishes to go through the charade of his own transition planning, no harm will be done by letting him cling to his illusions for another week or so. Potter Stewart, the late Supreme Court justice, famously defined pornography in a 1970s decision by saying, ''I know it when I see it.'' The same philosophy should apply to the moment when Gore should end his legal maneuvers and hail Bush as the unchallenged president-elect. But in the intervening days, the vice president should be allowed every opportunity to prepare himself and the Democrats for defeat with dignity. © Copyright 2000 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.