Elsewhere I have stated that my politics were 70% Libertarian, 20% Conservative, 4% Liberal, and 1% Social Anarchist. Each of these groups’ basic ideals have good points and bad points. As with all things in life, one needs to be true to himself and pick his battles. There are certain things I find I do not agree with – some things I cannot compromise on – and also pragmatic considerations to factor in. With all this, once the dust has settled, I find myself with the Republicans, although I do not really consider myself as a "Republican" as such. From this mindset I do not find myself fiercely loyal to any one party, but am concerned with facts as they present themselves. Because of this desire to work from facts rather than emotion, I am irked when I visit Democrat/Liberal blog sites and forums, and I find the people STILL WHINING ABOUT THE 2000 ELECTION. These folks are still under the fantasy that 1) Gore won the popular vote and 2) the Republicans stole the office of President. What follows is a piece I wrote in early February 2001 when I was surprised that the Democrats couldn’t let go THEN. My research is more pertinent now more than ever. Perhaps the Democrats should take a clue from the name of one of their more notorious sites, and just move on…
Al Gore was a sitting vice president emerging from an administration that - despite eight years of scandals - had an enormous approval rating and one of the longest periods of prosperity. In spite of these early advantages, the Democrats embarked on a massive voter registration campaign in urban areas, targeting groups most likely to vote Democrat. There were reports of workers going into the jails and prisons to register inmates. One week before the election a news report was leaked about George W. Bush's past. The pundits in the media were shocked - SHOCKED! - to learn that 24 years ago, before his reported conversion to Christianity, G.W. had a drunken driving conviction. The story received much media air play, despite the fact that Bush (unlike another high-profile politician caught on the wrong side of the law) admitted his guilt, paid his fine and got on with life. It is interesting to note that when Bush spoke of his faith in God, the Democrats made a grand show of wringing their hands and moaning about the erosion of the wall between church and state. Yet those same folks applauded when Gore or Leiberman made much the same statements, with it being duly reported by their lapdogs in the media. After what seemed an eternity of campaigning, Election Day finally arrived. When the polls closed in the Eastern time zone, with a fraction of them reporting, the Talking Heads on the network extrapolated from exit polls and announced Gore the winner for Florida. The problem with this is that Florida's panhandle, which is largely Conservative/Republican, is in the next time zone and still had an hour before the polls closed. Many voters in that region gave up and did not bother to vote. One analyst reviewed past voter turnout and voting patterns for the region and estimated that the misannouncement cost Bush as much as 10,000 votes.
After the networks withdrew their announcement of Gore's win in Florida, several high-ranking Democrats (acting as "private citizens") contacted a polling company with instructions for the company to start making phone calls to people to question whether they'd voted for the person intended. Facts brought to light in the weeks following indicate that people had no doubts that they'd voted properly UNTIL they were contacted by this polling company. The news of people's confusion hit the airwaves, and the Democratic leaders IMMEDIATELY assumed that the vast majority of confused (dumb?) voters were Democrats. Hmmmmm. We all know what happened next. Bush won Florida (even without the panhandle votes) by a slim margin, giving him barely enough electoral votes (including Gore's home state, Tennessee) and the presidency. Florida law dictates that when the vote is so close, a mandatory recount is needed. The votes were recounted by machine, and Bush won again. Now the real comedy of errors began. The Democrats' first line of defense was that the ballots in this Republican-controlled state were illegally designed and deliberately misleading in Dade County which is, incidentally, predominantly Democrat. That excuse failed when it was revealed that the ballot had been designed by a Democrat, approved by leaders from both parties, and met the letter of the law for layout. Besides, big, bold letters on the ballot announced that anyone having trouble understanding the ballot was to seek help from the election workers. The Democrats then changed their tactics, claiming that the ballots which required that a hole be punched through next to the intended candidate's name, were too difficult to punch for the voters of Dade County, who were mostly elderly retirees. The improperly punched ballots could not be read by the machines, so their story went, and required a hand count to make sure that "every vote counted." The courts allowed an hand recount, and this event added "chad," along with "hanging chad," "swinging chad," "dimpled chad," and "pregnant chad" to our political lexicons. This presented two problems that were largely ignored by the media, though: Dade County law dictated that only votes that were cleanly and obviously punched through were to be counted, and those same ballots that the (predominately Democrat) recount committees found necessary to scrutinize and hold up to the light had votes for OTHER candidates and proposals punched cleanly through. Meanwhile there was a little matter of absentee ballots, mostly from people in the armed forces overseas. Florida law allows a week past Election Day for absentee ballots to arrive. It was assumed by most that the absentee ballots would be overwhelmingly for Bush, given Al Gore's association with, and support for his boss who "despised the military" and had done so much to dismantle and demoralize the armed forces. Unfortunately for the Republicans, most of the absentee ballots from military personal had no postmarks, and the Democrats were able to convince the (mostly Democrat) Florida Supreme Court to disqualify them. As the hand recount continued, Bush's slim margin of victory got even slimmer. It is hard to say where that would have all led, though, because Florida's (Republican) Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, stopped the recount by the deadline dictated by Florida law, and certified Bush (again) as winner. The liberal Democrats, who had apparently no concept of the Rule of Law, launched a smear campaign with
the help of their media pals, leaving no stone unthrown, even going so far as to criticize her makeup. They also managed to get the Florida Supreme Court involved again to rule that the hand recounts should continue. The Republicans finally figured that something was not quite right, and asked the United State Supreme Court to decide on the matter. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the law gave legislators - not the courts - the virtually unlimited power to choose presidential electors. A few days later the Florida court ignored the ruling of the Supreme Court, and again demanded that the recounts continue. The Supreme Court was left with no choice but to intervene and put a halt to this power grab. George W. Bush was (again) declared the winner of Florida, and the country. In his concession speech, Al Gore urged his supporters to accept the rule of law, and give their support to Bush. All that remained was the formality of the Electoral College to meet and cast their votes. Not everybody knows this, but there are many states whose laws do not require that their delegates to the Electoral College actually vote as they are charged. Several Democrats (again, acting as "private citizens") ignored Gore's request to put the election behind and obtained the names of Republican delegates to the Electoral College. They started digging for dirt in these people's backgrounds and posted their names, addresses, and phone numbers on web sites in an attempt to coerce at least three of them to change their votes. As we all know, this last-ditch effort to steal the presidency failed, and George Bush was inaugurated our 43rd president. The shouting has continued back and forth between Republicans and Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals. The Liberals to this day claim that Gore won the popular vote, and question the legitimacy of Bush's presidency. The Conservatives usually counter with only that Bush was duly elected according to the law of the land. There are several facts that have been ignored by the media, and questions left unasked: The latest "official" final count I have been able to find for the country, dated January 6th, gave 50,996,116 votes to Gore and 50,456,169 votes to Bush, giving Gore a lead of 539,947 votes, and feeding his mantra, "I won the popular vote." What nobody has ever brought up - probably because it was eclipsed by the circus in Florida - is that California had MILLIONS of absentee ballots that had not yet been counted. California law gives a ridiculously long grace period for absentee ballots to get in and still be valid. They have been ignored, I presume, because Gore's victory in "the Land of the Fruits and Nuts" was so broad that Bush would not have taken the state even if he were to get every one of the absentee votes. Those outstanding ballots, however were again primarily military personal, and it has been shown that Bush would have carried the military votes by a landslide. California's absentee ballots alone could easily make up the half-million gap. We will never know how many votes Bush lost from the Florida panhandle, or from Florida's absentee ballots that were disqualified, but given the tight margin of the certified vote, it is safe to assume that G.W. would have more than enough votes to carry Florida with ease. When one looks at the facts, there is really no question that George W. Bush's victory truly was the "will of the people," both in the Electoral College, and – really - the popular vote. Oh, one last thing... News came to light shortly after the inauguration that I'm sure the Talking Heads have not told you. The Palm Beach (Florida) Post
recounted Dade County's ballots, and found Bush actually GAINED a few votes, and the Naples (Florida) Daily News recounted their region's votes - even using the broad standards demanded by the Democrats, and President Bush picked up an additional 226 votes.