dazzleman
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« on: March 01, 2005, 10:20:26 AM » |
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The problem is not that the Democrats backed down in Florida. The problem is that the Gore campaign went about the whole thing in the wrong way.
Given the closeness of the election, there should have been a bipartisan-supervised recount of the full state, and both campaigns should have agreed in advance to abide by the results without further legal action. All the rules on counting should have been agreed to in advance, like the dimpled versus hanging chads, etc.
Instead, Gore played the little girl, running to the courts for recounts only in heavily Democratic counties. Right then and there, it was obvious that he didn't want a fair count, but was simply mining for enough votes to put him over.
Gore's campaign made strategic errors early on that doomed him later. And as it turns out from hand recounts that were done later under several methodologies, Bush won the state in any case.
Gore also erred in aligning himself with Jesse Jackson and his false charges of racial intimidation, etc. Democrats love to trot out that old donkey whenever things don't go the way they want. Many heavily Democratic districts don't even have Republican poll watchers, and the whole Palm Beach County f'up with the butterfly ballot was designed by the Democrats. It's typical of the Democrat mantra of always blaming other people when things don't work out the way they want.
It was actually uncharacteristic of Bush to refuse to back down, as Nixon had done in 1960 in the face of massive fraud in Illinois and Texas.
If you expect the Democrats to fight, they better figure out something positive that they're fighting for. This has yet to emerge.
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