Contrarian Thread: Bush Won. Fair and Square.

[Potus]

I hold the opinion that Bush won the 2000 Presidential Election fair and square. I realize this isn't a popular opinion to hold on the Atlas and I may be ridiculed for it, but here me out. There are a couple factors that messed with the outcome of the election.

1. The DUI- This story was very blatantly planted by the Gore Campaign. Now, I'm not complaining about dirty politics or whatever. The DUI story should have been dealt with in the spring when Gore was running an awful campaign. The DUI's proximity to election cast a shadow on evangelical voters all over the country. This undoubtedly kept people home or swung some voters to Gore. If the Buh campaign had laid the story out, that damage would have been much less severe.

2.Election Coverage- When polls close in Florida, they don't close statewide. The panhandle, which is heavily Republican, is in a different time zone. When polls closed in most I Florida, networks covered exit polls and early returns that showed Gore winning the state and the election. This undoubtedly depressed turnout in the heavily Republican Panhandle. That matters a lot when the margin is so close.

3.Democrats Didn't Want to County Every Vote- Why did the legal scrum center around a couple of heavily Democratic counties? Because, despite their slogans and Atlas wisdom, Democrats opposed a statewide recount. Recounts tend to, when you look at the majority of them, increase the lead of the current leader. Democrats didn't lead statewide. They did lead in Miami-Dade. They supported a recount strategy that only recounted Democrat-favorable counties. If there was a statewide recount, Bush would have been the President-Elect much sooner.

4.The Gore Campaign Threw Out Ballots- the Gore Campaign, despite the mantra of counting every vote, executed a systemic suppression strategy across the state. The legal strategy succeeded in some parts of the state. They suppressed 1,400 military ballots that likely would have grown Bush's lead. There were also 25,000 absentee ballots thrown out in Seminole and Martin Counties. Those are both Republican strongholds.


This is a brief summary of why Bush won Florida and should have won the popular vote.

[sg0508]

The DUI was a form of "October Surprise", which has been used time and time again.  That's what happens when you make irresponsible decisions.

As for the polls not closing in the Panhandle prior to the state being called, that was wrong by the networks, but it was usually done that way prior to 2000, even in GOP landslides.  They NEVER waited until 8pm and in TX (where El Paso closes at 9pm EST), they usually called the state at 8pm, until 2004.

Gore had no business losing WV or NH.  Clinton won twice in WV...easily. There was no sign of weakening of the state under Clinton the way VA weakened for the GOP under Bush.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

2.Election Coverage- When polls close in Florida, they don't close statewide. The panhandle, which is heavily Republican, is in a different time zone. When polls closed in most I Florida, networks covered exit polls and early returns that showed Gore winning the state and the election. This undoubtedly depressed turnout in the heavily Republican Panhandle. That matters a lot when the margin is so close.

This point is absurd. You're telling me that thousands of people waited until the last hour to vote, saw the reports on TV, and said "oh well"? Then they weren't very intent on voting anyways.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This last statement makes no sense. It's usually the other way around. Electoral votes are decided by popular votes.

[GaussLaw]

Who cares?

Bush was President for 8 years.  The Supreme Court basically said 7-2 in a related decision that basically said Bush would've been the winner due to the Equal Protection Clause.

I think Bush won fair and square, but I think he was a horrible President.  Just my 2 cents.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Points 1 and 2 have nothing to do with "fair and square." Gore and Bush should've and could've been prepared for October surprises. They're just a part of being in an election. To say "boo hoo, Gore dredged up the DUI and if he didn't do it Bush would've done better" is true, but... Gore did dredge it up, and it was well within his rights to do.

[Dr. Cynic]

I don't believe it was fair and square. I'll never believe it was fair and square because I think the electoral college is an illegitimate way to elect a President in this day and age.

However, I accept that it happened. I lived 8 years in this country that he led. I profited greatly from making fun of him from 2004 when I started doing stand up until 2009 when he left office. I accept that's the path we went down. It's no good now bitching about it almost 15 years later.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

2.Election Coverage- When polls close in Florida, they don't close statewide. The panhandle, which is heavily Republican, is in a different time zone. When polls closed in most I Florida, networks covered exit polls and early returns that showed Gore winning the state and the election. This undoubtedly depressed turnout in the heavily Republican Panhandle. That matters a lot when the margin is so close.

This point is absurd. You're telling me that thousands of people waited until the last hour to vote, saw the reports on TV, and said "oh well"? Then they weren't very intent on voting anyways.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This last statement makes no sense. It's usually the other way around. Electoral votes are decided by popular votes.

It's a case of low-information likely voters hearing the phrase "polls are closed in Florida" on TV, even though they were still open in the panhandle at the time, and believing the misleading information. The networks should have been saying "polls are closed in most of Florida". There were probably similar problems in earlier years, but they didn't come to light until 2000 because FL had never been so ridiculously close before in the era of TV election night coverage (1960-present).

[KCDem]

Delusional West Virginia Republican is delusional. News at 11.

[Adam Griffin]

The four times in which there has been a discrepancy between the popular vote and the Electoral College, the Democratic candidate won the popular vote and the Republican candidate managed to steal the election through the Electoral College. No need to try to spin or glamorize this particular instance.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

The four times in which there has been a discrepancy between the popular vote and the Electoral College, the Democratic candidate won the popular vote and the Republican candidate managed to steal the election through the Electoral College. No need to try to spin or glamorize this particular instance.

That's an occurrence of electoral geography of the times, I'd think, rather than any ingrained bias towards the Republicans. And 1824 is the first occurrence, before either party had formed (though of course we could say that in spirit, Adams represented what would become the Republicans and Jackson later led the Democrats, blah blah f#ckity blah).

[South Dakota Democrat]

2.Election Coverage- When polls close in Florida, they don't close statewide. The panhandle, which is heavily Republican, is in a different time zone. When polls closed in most I Florida, networks covered exit polls and early returns that showed Gore winning the state and the election. This undoubtedly depressed turnout in the heavily Republican Panhandle. That matters a lot when the margin is so close.

This point is absurd. You're telling me that thousands of people waited until the last hour to vote, saw the reports on TV, and said "oh well"? Then they weren't very intent on voting anyways.

This is a brief summary of why Bush won Florida and should have won the popular vote.

This last statement makes no sense. It's usually the other way around. Electoral votes are decided by popular votes.

Sorry to bump this, but I'll just add that most networks called Florida at around 7:50, about 10 minutes before polls in the pandhandle closed.  Seems impossible that it would suppress that much vote in the last 10 minutes.

[lupojohn]

I hold the opinion that Bush won the 2000 Presidential Election fair and square. I realize this isn't a popular opinion to hold on the Atlas and I may be ridiculed for it, but here me out. There are a couple factors that messed with the outcome of the election.

1. The DUI- This story was very blatantly planted by the Gore Campaign. Now, I'm not complaining about dirty politics or whatever. The DUI story should have been dealt with in the spring when Gore was running an awful campaign. The DUI's proximity to election cast a shadow on evangelical voters all over the country. This undoubtedly kept people home or swung some voters to Gore. If the Buh campaign had laid the story out, that damage would have been much less severe.

2.Election Coverage- When polls close in Florida, they don't close statewide. The panhandle, which is heavily Republican, is in a different time zone. When polls closed in most I Florida, networks covered exit polls and early returns that showed Gore winning the state and the election. This undoubtedly depressed turnout in the heavily Republican Panhandle. That matters a lot when the margin is so close.

3.Democrats Didn't Want to County Every Vote- Why did the legal scrum center around a couple of heavily Democratic counties? Because, despite their slogans and Atlas wisdom, Democrats opposed a statewide recount. Recounts tend to, when you look at the majority of them, increase the lead of the current leader. Democrats didn't lead statewide. They did lead in Miami-Dade. They supported a recount strategy that only recounted Democrat-favorable counties. If there was a statewide recount, Bush would have been the President-Elect much sooner.

4.The Gore Campaign Threw Out Ballots- the Gore Campaign, despite the mantra of counting every vote, executed a systemic suppression strategy across the state. The legal strategy succeeded in some parts of the state. They suppressed 1,400 military ballots that likely would have grown Bush's lead. There were also 25,000 absentee ballots thrown out in Seminole and Martin Counties. Those are both Republican strongholds.


This is a brief summary of why Bush won Florida and should have won the popular vote.

1. McCain knew about the DUI in the primaries, but never brought it up. There is, as was pointed out already, an "October surprise". And if you want to talk about "dirty politics", Bush's campaign conducted that smear campaign against McCain in South Carolina when they knew that was the one time he was in big trouble after the ass-kicking he took in New Hampshire and McCain had a 5-point lead in day before/day of states.

2. Go back and watch almost EVERY election and the Big 3 networks ALWAYS say the polls close at 7pm. True or not, no one ever put up a fuss before and no one has since.

3. There's a story (I don't have enough posts yet to post links in my messages) that shows 6 newspapers doing an independent study making a case for EVERY possible method to re-count the votes. On more than one scenario, Vice President Gore wins.

4. There were multiple boxes of ballots locked away in Talahassee. Only the Governor or someone like that can have access to that. Who was the Governor? Oh right.....

I respect you for voting. I won't even quibble with your vote for Bush, but there's no real narrative you can make to say Bush won literally.