Posted by
Bob Siegel on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 9:02:30 PM
I won’t predict which party will win in November, but I will predict this: If the Democrats lose
they will claim that the Republicans stole the election. Why not? It worked in 2000 so they tried it again in
2004. In fact, pamphlets about how to
claim voter fraud were handed out by the Dems in 2004 prior to Election Day!
Say what you want about the Democrats, they know how to plan ahead.
Perhaps this would be an appropriate moment for us to catch our breath
and review what actually happened in 2000, since it’s used as the proto-type to
voter fraud debates and, (like many historical precedents) it is based upon
mythology.
Myth One: Bush stole the election by going to court.
Not so! Bush won the Florida election
every way it was counted. It was Gore
who first brought the matter to the courts and it was the Florida State Supreme
Court who ordered a new recount (a recount that was only going to count
certain districts) The United
States Supreme Court overturned the Florida ruling.
The liberal press loves to talk about the “conservative” Supreme Court which
took Bush’s side but we hear little about the Democratic Florida Supreme Court
that was taking Gore’s side.
Myth Two: Al Gore won the popular vote.
People love to alter the premise of an argument right in the middle of a
debate. Once it is pointed out that Gore, not Bush, brought the election before
the courts, they switch gears and talk about how it doesn’t really matter,
because Gore won the popular vote anyway.
Let’s put aside the fact that this is irrelevant, since we live in a
country where elections are decided by the Electoral College and not the
populous. Let’s also put aside the fact
that Democratic publicists, prior to the election, were fearful that the
situation would be reversed, that George Bush would win the popular vote, and
lose the Electoral College. Anticipating this scenario, they went out of their
way to remind us that the Electoral College was a “time honored
tradition.” Putting all this aside, the truth is, Al Gore did not actually win
the popular vote!
Now, some of you are saying, “Bob, what are you talking about? Of course Gore won the popular vote.”
No, he didn’t. Not really. Let me
tell you why. Because, we weren’t taking
a popular vote! We were participating in an Electoral College vote. Oh sure, in any such election, we can read
the popular statistics that go along with each state. But this is nothing but a
shadow, debris left over from the Electoral College. Let me explain: Nobody entered that election
thinking of it as a popular vote because we knew the results would be tallied
differently. Since we did not think of it as a popular vote, a true popular
vote was never taken. For example, a Republican living in California pretty
much knew that Gore would win California. No
matter how many popular votes went toward Bush, Gore would still get more and
thus gain ALL of the Electoral
College votes. For this reason, many Republicans figured that at the end of the
day, their vote would not really count for much. If there was the slightest inconvenience
in getting to the polls, they probably said, “The heck with it. What’s the
point?”
Likewise, a Republican living in Texas, knew
that Bush would take Texas. If he
was unable to make it to the poll with ease, there was little to worry about.
Bush was going to win without his help so why sweat it? You see, state by state we knew it was “winner
takes all.” But if the country had been told that we were going by the popular
vote alone, far more people would have voted. Whether you lived in a Democratic
state or a Republican state, you would have known that your vote could be much more important.
Face it. Gore did not win the popular vote because we did not agree as a
country to take a popular vote. Yes, there was a popular vote of sorts that
mirrored the Electoral College and yes, Gore won that, but had we been told
that the popular vote was going to be the vote that counted, who knows how it
would have gone? I’m not saying Bush would have won. I’m just saying, we’ll
never know. So we may as well forget all this nonsense about how Gore “truly
won” and just stick to the rules we all agreed to ahead of time.
This is Bob Siegel, making the obvious obvious.
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