By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)
February 28, 2001
My, how quickly we forget! Or is it, how quick the Democrats HOPE we will forget? After Christmas the "Big News" still harped on who won the election, in spite of the fact that Florida had certified electors for George W. Bush and the Electoral College had voted. Actually, in spite of all the media hype, by December 20th George W. Bush had won the election, not once, but five times.
Yesterday the Miami Herald reported on its lengthy revote of invalid ballots and for the sixth time George W. Bush was declared the winner over Al Gore. After weeks of pressure on Bush Electoral College delegates, when the vote was finally taken it was not a Bush delegate, but a Gore delegate from Washington, D.C. who decided to vote differently than what they voters had asked. One member of the Electoral College cast a blank ballot, giving Bush a larger lead for history.
One would have thought that all those folks who were trying to figure out the "intent" of voters who did not mark ballots clearly, or at all, might have taken note of the fact that an elected delegate for Al Gore changed her mind after being elected. By returning a blank ballot that delegate nullified the vote of 171,923 Democrats who voted for Al Gore. This, mind you, was done by a black woman who was complaining that somehow black folks' votes in Florida "intended" for Al Gore were not counted.
Only, it seems, after the laborious recount financed by the Miami Herald and the Knight-Ridder newspapers, we learn that Gore would not have gained enough votes in Miami-Dade to overtake George W. Bush's statewide lead of 930 votes certified on Nov. 17 -- even combined with votes the former vice president gained during hand recounts in Broward, Palm Beach and Volusia counties. Gore had requested manual recounts in all four counties.
``We've never thought it's been in doubt,'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. ``The overwhelming majority of the American people have moved on. This election has been resolved a long time ago.''
The majority of the American people HAVE moved on. Most people, if they have thought about it at all, realize that, contrary to the picture painted by the Democrats, it isn't only Democrats who fail to properly mark ballots. Statistically speaking, the announcement that George W. Bush won Florida has never changed - in spite of counting only heavily Democrats precincts and in spite of ignoring clear proof that there were at least 2000 illegal votes cast for Al Gore in Florida.
If the illegal votes, which include double voting, aliens voting, dead people voting and felons voting, were eliminated from the Florida vote count, Bush won by a margin of a few thousand votes. If every precinct in the State of Florida, plus all the absentee ballots were actually manually counted, it is obvious also that the margin of the Bush victory would increase.
Does any of this actually matter at this point? We are hearing from Democrats, of course, that it does not. But it mattered a whole lot just a few weeks ago when we were being told that an impending decision on the part of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Florida vote count procedure would, in the Rev. Jesse Jackson's words, mean that the 1960s civil rights demonstrations in Selma and Birmingham, Alabama were for nothing:
"All that we bled for and suffered for the last 25 years is now in the balance here today. This case is up there with the Dred Scott level of case; did the black man have a right the white was bound to respect?"If this court rules against counting our vote, it will simply create a civil rights explosion. People will not surrender to this tyranny. We will fight back."
Other Democrats agreed with Jackson, warning that a ruling against Al Gore would jeopardize the creditability of the country's highest court. Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa accused the U.S. Supreme Court of political intervention: "If this Supreme Court continues to wade into this thicket and make substantive rulings on behalf of George Bush, this court will go down in history as the most interventionist court ever in deciding a political matter." Apparently as long as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Al Gore, Harkin would not call it political intervention.
Sen. Leahy told CNN: "This is very bad for the Supreme Court because their credibility is so diminished and their moral posture is so diminished that it could take years to pull back from that."
And, at this point in time, just Whose credibility is not so diminished that it could take years to pull back from it? Thanks to the behavior of Bill Clinton and Al Gore the credibility of the Democratic Party is now so diminished that Democrats like Harkin and Leahy are having a real struggle trying to mount a policy offensive against what could be the Bush juggernaut.
According to the Miami Herald's meticulous, and very liberal, count of the ballots, Al Gore would have netted no more than 49 votes if a manual recount of Miami-Dade's ballots had been completed. That would have been 140 too few to overcome Bush's lead, even when joined with Gore gains in Volusia, Palm Beach and Broward counties -- the three other counties where Gore had requested manual recounts.
And, of course, most of the other counties in Florida had Bush majorities. Al Gore didn't want them recounted. Obviously if all the counties in Florida were recounted and the illegal votes tossed out, the only way the Bush majority in the state could go would be up. Yet, some Democrats are still hoping for a propaganda victory by refusing to accept the obvious.
``This underscores how unpredictable the whole recount strategy was, on both sides,'' said Doug Hattaway, former Gore campaign spokesman. ``This shows Bush's tactics of delaying and blocking vote counts didn't really benefit him.''
Apparently we are all supposed to just forget that the Bush tactics were all in response to the Gore tactics of demanding recount after recount while filing court challenges to military absentee ballots being counted at all.
It's all over, folks. Al Gore lost. George W. Bush won. Let's move on.
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com
To Subscribe to the Reagan Monitor, the newsletter that gives you news FACTS you can USE to make your life, and the world, better go to:
Start Your Subscription
