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Notes from the 2000 election
Seven hundred ninety-three. As of this writing, just 793 votes separate George W. Bush from Al Gore in the state of Florida, where the fate of our nation will be decided. There were more people than that at my friend Frank's Halloween party last year. Heck, I've played to larger crowds than that.
We know Gore won the popular vote, and we suspect Bush won the electoral college. One thing is for certain: the next President of the United States will be a loser. (Then again, we knew that in June).
While the twits in Tallahassee work their abacusses off, let me get something off my chest: Ralph Nader is responsible for this! If it weren't for Ralph and his self-important idealism, our fair nation would not be in jeopardy of four years of Shrubbery.
Nader is also to blame for the voting booth snafu in Florida, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, male pattern baldness, and the United Airlines slowdown. Remember Hurricanes Andrew and Hugo? Vintage Ralph. The author of Unsafe At Any Speed was also the author of the World Trade Center bombing and the plot to assassinate JFK. Cross my heart and hope to die I saw that self-righteous jerk whispering to John Hinckley, "If you really want to get Jodie's attention, shoot President Reagan." The server problem that prevented half my readership from accessing this URL a few weeks ago was also the work of Nader. And if that wasn't enough, he made me late for work this morning, the rat bastard.
Look, we are all upset that Dubya may well be our next Chief Exec. But let's not make Ralph Nader the scapegoat.
Consider:
Pre-election polls indicated he would get about 7% of the popular vote -- a substantial percentage, but not nearly as much as Ross Perot received in 1992. Instead, Nader wound up with less than 3%. Why the disparity? Many of his backers clearly panicked and went with Gore.
Nader's support was greatest in New York, California, and other states Bush had already conceded to Gore. The Vice President still won in Wisconsin and Minnesota, swing states where experts said Nader would be a factor. The only state where the so-called Nader effect may have played a role is Oregon, and its seven electoral votes are incidental to the outcome of this election.
The most viable third party candidate usually gets about 2% of the vote, and that's all Nader got in Florida. True, his 96,915 votes could have swung the election to Gore. But so could have the 17,658 of Pat Buchanan, the 15,658 of Libertarian longshot Harry Browne, or the 2,275 of Natural Law party candidate John Hagelin. While we're at it, let's also chastise the 621 Floridians who chose Socialist David McReynolds; the numbers are that close.
If we're going to point fingers -- and as angry Americans, that's what we do -- there are better places to target our rage:
First, the way the parties choose their candidates must be reformed. Both Ass and Elephant had quality people in their respective camps in Bill Bradley and John McCain, and both passed on these men to run a lesser candidate whom spin doctors deemed more "electable," whatever that means. So we can thank our arcane primary system for forsaking the Logginses for the Messinas.
Second, this business of each state being worth so many electoral votes is...put it this way: the only degree offered by the Electoral College is a B.S.
The system was installed by our Founding Fathers to ensure that iconoclasts like Nat Turner, John Brown, Victoria Woodhall, and yes, Ralph Nader, could never be president, even if they somehow won the popular vote. Simply put, it ensures that a country founded by white male aristocrats will always be maintained by white male aristocrats. That the spoiled Governor of Texas, a man who has difficulty speaking for the silver spoon in his mouth, stands to be a beneficiary of this system is axiomatic evidence of its obsolescence. It should be killed off like a murderer in Fort Worth.
Third, a third term for a president is not prohibited by the Constitution but by a subsequent Amendment, for reasons not clear to this observer. Four more years of Bill Clinton would be preferable to four years of Gore, and certainly to four years of Bush. Instead, the man most qualified to lead the country is now New York's First Dude, destined to be spotted by Page Six working NYU coeds at Coyote Ugly.
Finally, and most importantly, Gore ran a lousy campaign. Had he stood firm on his beliefs; had he called into question Bush's qualifications -- the arrest record, the glug-glug problem, the twenty-year gap in the resume, the possible literacy problem, the record governing the State of Texas and its lackluster baseball club -- instead of assuming the benighted American public would figure this out on their own; had he recognized that the people who don't like Clinton don't like Clinton because of his behavior in the Lincoln Bedroom, not the Oval Office, and lauded the Administration's many accomplishments (it's the economy, stupid); had he, during the debate, looked Shrub square in the eye and said, "No, sir, I don't believe you are competant to run the country. Lousy presidents beget lousy presidents," or words to that effect; had he picked a running mate from a swing state, rather than in-the-bag Connecticut; had he let his boss campaign on his behalf in Little Rock; he would have won handily.
Instead, he didn't even win his home state. Had he taken Tennessee, with its 11 electoral votes, he'd have captured the presidency with 271 electoral votes, even if Bush won his kid brother's state. Any coach will tell you: teams that don't defend their home court don't go far in the playoffs.
So now it comes down to the opinion of 793 Floridians. Seven hundred ninety-three, and falling fast. Maybe Bush will win Florida by exactly 666. Wonder what his Bible Belt boosters would make of that?
By Greg Olear
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