Gore doesn't want a fair
count
R. Alex Whitlock
Ever since the night of the non-election
election, I have maintained one theory: Either side will do anything to
win. The idea that either side would even try to approach this situation
fairly and hammer out an equitable system of figuring out who won is laughable.
If either side had dealt with this election fairly, they'd have lost, because
the other side would not have been fair. The incentives to cheat were simply
too great.
With that in mind, I will not try to waste
anyone's time trying to suggest that my man, Gov. George W. Bush, has been
any more honorable than the vice president.
However, as much as this may appear to
be the case to me, it is probably more of a product of my bias than anything
else. Or perhaps Bush's lead in Florida has made his actions seem less
desperate. Perhaps both. I really don't know.
There is one thing I do know: If Albert
Gore wins this election, the idea that he has behaved with magnanimity
and that justice will have prevailed will be the biggest in a long series
of whoppers the Gore campaign has told.
Gore can talk all he wants about how "every
vote should count," but his actions demonstrate quite clearly that he is
only interested in votes that will help him. Despite lip service to the
contrary, the Gore campaign has supported the embargo on improperly filled
out military ballots while sanctimoniously demanding that improperly filled
out domestic ballots are counted (and recounted and recounted ad nauseum).
Gore's offer to recount the votes in the
entire state of Florida may have made for good television, but does an
offer count when you know it will be refused? The Bush campaign knows that
the longer this process goes on, the more likely the Democrats are to "find"
new votes.
The Bush campaign made an early decision
not to "look" for new votes, so a complete Florida recount in which one
side has mechanisms in place statewide to find new votes and the other
side does not is hardly fair.
Instead, if Gore succeeds, we'll get what
he's wanted all along: victory at any price (as opposed to "a fair and
accurate count"). Gore has gotten his legally mandated statewide machine
count. He's gotten much of his selected hand recounts in his personally
chosen counties. He was about to get a recount of only the undervotes in
Miami-Dade County. A full county-wide hand count actually might have helped
Bush. A count of undervotes would have been yet another specially selected
demographic to help Al Gore.
All across the country, people messed up
on their ballots. Many did not intend to vote for any president. Many wanted
to vote for Gore and messed up. Many did the same for Bush.
Gore's insistence that such mistakes should
count in his favor, while he legally challenges Bush's similar complaints,
reeks of the hypocrisy of which the Gore campaign accuses Bush.
In my high school physical education class,
we used to play softball. Every day for two weeks we had a new game. My
team won something like six or seven of the first nine. The other team
declared the last game the "championship," and whoever took that one would
win the series.
They won it and, in their eyes, won the
series. Even though we were the better team, we were close enough that
either team could have won any given game.
This is Gore's election strategy. Recount
enough times and he'll win any given recount. People talk about Gore's
magnanimous offer to recount the entire state, but asking for additional
recounts is easy when you're behind.
This election is too close to be sure who
won. Right now it looks like Bush did, as he's won the last umpteen counts.
In any given recount, however, Gore could be the victor.
So if somehow Gore does manage to pull
this off with a legal challenge or two and does worm his way into the presidency,
it will not mean that justice or the unknowable will of the people of Florida
has spoken.
Instead, it will mean that Gore successfully
clawed, squirmed and weaseled his way past the finish line. Democrats would
do well to not waste our time trying to convince us otherwise.
