What do you think President Gore

[Puglover]

could have done further to fight the Florida recount? Or when he conceded was that truly all that he could have done? I've often wondered about this.

[eileen from OH]

1. It's not so much "what more" he could have done. . .

It's what he should have done INSTEAD. Which was pushing for a full-state recount, rather than selected counties. By cherry-picking the counties where he could have come out ahead, it opened the door to all sorts of arguments that he wasn't "really" interested in counting all the votes, just the ones that could help him. It was the single most boneheaded move in the whole Florida mess.

eileen from OH

[Bridget Burke]

3. Where have I heard about "cherry picking"?

He could not LEGALLY request a full-state recount.

[Kahuna]

18. Riiiight.

nt

[Cheswick2.0]

5. I can't understand why democrats still get this wrong

That was not a legal option in the state of florida. There were only 2 ways to call for a whole state recount. One is if both candidates agreed. OF course bush did not. Two was if the GOVERNOR OR SECRETARY OF STATE called for a whole state recount. Guess that wasn't going to happen either.

[FlaGranny]

12. Also, it should be remembered

that Gore did invite * to agree to a full statewide recount. Of course, THAT didn't happen.

[Puglover]

15. So Cheswick....

is that why he only asked for the recount in the 3 counties? He wasn't cherry picking but using the only option he had? Wow if that's the case I really learned something new today.
Someone should clue Gore Vidal in on this. He gave a great interview with Amy Goodman the other day and I definately did NOT get the feeling he knew this.

[demnan]

22. You have to discount

everything Gore Vidal says about Al Gore. They are cousins and have never gotten along with each other.

[Cheswick2.0]

23. I guess someone should clue in Gore Vidal

that was the law. Gore asked several times if Bush would agree to a statewide recount. Bush did not agree.

[library_max]

27. Actually, Gore didn't even ask for the recount in the counties

There were four, by the way, not three. And the recounts in those counties were requested by the county election officials, also as required by Florida law. Neither candidate could have requested a recount under the statute used to request those county recounts.

[eileen from OH]

17. Okay, but Gore didn't even call for it (until waaaay too late)

What if he had immediately challenged Bush to do a full state recount, right off the bat. What if they had really, really pushed for it on tv, in every damn thing they said. Right from the get-go? Then the "count every vote" thing would have had real teeth and there would have been no way to spin it. MAKE Bush officially refuse it, MAKE the Sec State/Gov refuse and jump on it big time. Make the only conclusion possible that they don't care about counting every vote, make a huge deal of that and it would have put Bush on the defensive, instead of the other way around. THEN, the Gore team can say, "okay, well if you refuse to do that, you've given us no other choice, we can at least demand that these counties be recounted."

We lost the Florida recount battle not just because of the Supremes but because of inept strategy (oh, and stoopid Lieberman and his military absentee ballot crap).

I loved Al Gore (love him more even now) but from a PR, media standpoint if nothing else, they made some big mistakes.

eileen from OH

[Rainbowreflect]

19. What military absentee ballot crap are you talking about?

Maybe the question of allowing illegal ballots to be counted?
Ballots dated too late.

[eileen from OH]

28. Yeah - the Gore camp wanted to challenge the late ballots

and the Bush people turned it into a disenfranchising-the-military-thing. Which it wasn't and there was already evidence that the Bush team was using it to get military votes cast even after the election. Then Lieberman gets on some Sunday talk show and says we should honor our brave blah-blah-blah and not challenge any of the military votes.

eileen from OH

[Cheswick2.0]

24. yes he did call for it

right at the begining. Bush said no.

[eileen from OH]

26. According to a quick search. . .

On Thursday, Nov. 9 the Gore people called for a recount of Volusia, Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade.

It wasn't until Nov. 15 that Gore challenged Bush to a full-state recount.

According to "Down and Dirty" by Jake Tapper, there were conflicting ideas within the Gore camp about what to ask for - some were concerned that a full state recount would not produce a Gore win and argued for just those counties - and they won out on the strategy issue.

eileen from OH

[On the Road]

11. Cherry-Picking?

In hindsight, requesting a recount in every county would have been a winning strategy. But no one knew that. There were formidable logistical obstacles to making sixty-some applications.

Gore did what most candidates do. To put it in perspective, Bush conducted a selective recount in New Mexico -- one county. He then criticized Gore for doing the SAME THING at the SAME TIME. Unbelievable. How do you fight something like that in the court of public opinion if no one publicizes it?

[FlaGranny]

13. Maybe a winning strategy, ribofunk,

but against Florida law. See other posts above. :-)

[On the Road]

16. Gore Could Have Requested a Statewide Recount

There was nothing illegal about that. He just would have had to file papers separately in each county. Some advisers encouraged him to do this, but he stuck with the limited recount.

Actually, as David Podvin pointed out, all the chads and overvotes should have been counted even without filing for a recount: "No ballot shall be ignored that is rejected by a machine and on which the intent of the voter is clear."

[library_max]

29. County recounts had to be requested by county election officials.

Not by the candidates. That was the law.

[On the Road]

33. Let me Get This Straight --

I have always understood that the Gore campaign requested a recount in three counties. You're saying that those recount requests actually came from the county officials?

Gore chose recounts in areas like Miami run primarily by the GOP but with some strong Democratic precincts. I don't believe Miami asked for a recount -- in fact, officials were part of the effort to shut it down.

[library_max]

34. As a matter of fact,

the election officials in Broward, Dade, Volusia, and West Palm Beach counties were the ones who requested the original four-county hand recount. Dade County officials got cold feet after Tom DeLay brought a crowd of Republican goons down to intimidate them.

[On the Road]

35. Regardless of Which Side of the Issue You're On,

it's always been presented as fact that the decision on which counties to recount was driven by the Gore campaign. This issue was hotly debated among Gore and his advisors the day after the election. Bush criticized the Gore team for making the recount selective. None of it was ever attributed to a handful of county officials.

Is all that history wrong? I don't mean to be argumentative, but I'm just incredulous on hearing that it was a local decision.

[library_max]

36. As a matter of law, recounts had to be requested by the election officials

Now, if there was some decision to ask some election officials to request recounts and not ask others, that's possible. But they would have had no luck asking the election officials in every county statewide, because many counties had Republican election officials.

But I think a lot of the history you're recalling is right-wing propaganda. I'm not accusing you of being a propagandist, but that stuff is so damned pervasive. Often everything you hear "from both sides" is actually coming from the same side. Unless you've actually talked with decision-makers in the Gore campaign, I would say that anything you've heard or read about what they did and didn't debate is suspect.

[On the Road]

37. No, I'm Including Democrats Who Were on Gore's Team

discuss the debates they had about where to seek recounts. One in particular was lobbying Gore to get as much on the table as possible, but Gore chose only to seek recounts in three counties. I don't think I've ever heard of country officials making a decision independently of the candidates.

Perhaps it was an informal arrangement. Is it possible that once a candidate requested a recount, it was difficult for the county to refuse? I don't Miami would have gone ahead on its own, for example. They did everything they could to kill it once it was underway.

[library_max]

38. Who said this, where and when?

I'm not trying to corner you. It's just that there's been so much shameless lying by Republicans trying to neutralize the claim that the election was stolen that I want to make sure you weren't taken advantage of by some hoser. By the way, the recount really was in four counties, not three.

[On the Road]

39. I Don't Feel Cornered at All

but you have me curious because I always understood it as a given that Gore made the choice on which counties to count (you're right, it was four). A few links which mention it as a decision by Gore:

Here's a quote from an article in The Nation:

"When the Florida presidential election ended in a virtual tie, Gore and his advisers limited their recount request to the undervote ballots in four counties--Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Volusia."

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010319&s=corn

Here's a quote from a court document:

The Vice President has sought to have a manual recount in only four of Florida's sixty-seven counties. The four counties he selected, however, are all among the most densely populated counties in Florida and in each one of them he received a significantly higher proportion of the vote than did his principle opponent, Governor Bush.

http://www.jamesmadisoncenter.org/11thcircut/motioninjuncpendingapp.html

Here are two from contemporaneous new sources:

Gore's campaign said it would push for an additional recount by hand in four counties...

http://html.wesh.com/sh/election2000/stories/election2000-20001109-113102.html

The Gore campaign has criticized the ballots in use in Palm Beach County as confusing, and has asked for a hand count of votes cast there and in three other counties.

http://www.ljworld.com/section/election2000/story/32688

[tom_paine]

30. Good point, ribofunk.

I think we all were caught by surprise about "things having changed".

Not 9-11...12-12-2000 is when things changed.

Actually, things changed when the Bushevik sent the Rent-A-Mob down there.

That, perhaps, was Gore's greatest mistake...not to oppose that. But he was dazed by the Bushevik Fantasy Bubble and someone mentioned correctly that Lieberman was probably counseling cowardice "the blood will be on your hands, Al, if you fight this".

Jefferson himself said the Tree of Liberty must sometimes be watered with the blood of Tyrants and Patriots alike.

[Bridget Burke]

2. He could not have done more, legally.

Especially since his party was not behind him.

[BOHICA06]

4. Nothing ...

the SCOTUS makes the law ... until it reverses itself. Dred Scott, Plessy v. Furgeson, Japanese-American internment, The Death Penalty (on and off) were all law of the land - and were or are wrong. Unless he wanted to go for the second American Revolution (with guns) - his run was over when they ruled.

[Puglover]

6. That's what I thought..

although someone said the other day (maybe Randi) that SOTUS had NO right deciding election law decisions in Florida. That was entirely up to the Florida Supreme Court.

On edit, it was Gore Vidal being interviewed by Amy Goodman not Randi.

[On the Road]

14. Yes, SOCTUS Had No Right to Intervene

but they had the authority to make the official decision.

That's part of what made the decision so bad. It was beyond appeal. Even though every legal scholar in the country knew it was a partisan decision.

[ibegurpard]

31. I agree

particularly when it became apparent that he had very little support in pursuing it. I was rooting for him to stop at that point but if I knew then what I know now, I would've flown to Washington and chained myself to the White House fence.

[On the Road]

7. As I Understand It,

The restraining order expired with the SCOTUS decision. It was clear that SOCTUS was wrong to specify Dec 18 as the final cutoff date.
There was still plenty of time for a recount.

That meant that Florida could have gone ahead and conducted the recount, and sent a slate of delegates for the winner. Problem is that the Republicans in Florida (and some Democrats) would never have cooperated with starting the recount again.

And if Gore won, there would have been two competing sets of delegates, and it would have gone back to the Supreme Court. The outcome would have been been predictable.

So the more I think about it, the more I think Gore would have had to start a revolt in order to contest the election further. He would have been opposed by all Republicans and some Democrats. It would not have been a winning strategy.

Gore did not give up easily, even after many Democrats asked him to back off. In his concession speech, he said he strongly disagreed with the court decision. He later mused that some people wanted him to set up a "sort of government in exile" -- so he obviously was aware of that sentiment and considered it.

There really are no appeals beyond the Supreme Court. That's why it's hard to see what else Al could have done.

[lovedems]

8. I don't think he could have done anything. He was battered by the press

and that was the first instance we were able to witness the ruthless nature of this administration.

Boy, when I see him and the Big Dog on television, I really miss them both.

It would be a great summer for me if we see more of Gore and Clinton campaigning with Kerry.

[sdfernando]

9. Not much

I don't think he could have done anything more really. If I remember my civics lessons correctly, if SCOTUS had not intervened in the recount and the recount would have taken longer to complete than the required certification date, then the decision to award Florida's electoral votes would have gone to the Florida legislature. Since Florida's legislature was/is majority Republican, the result would have been the same.

At least this is how I remember it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Puglover]

10. I posted the question

cause I really didn't know. SOTUS decision was just so wrong. I remember reading a great article by Vincent Bugliosi, I think it was titled "None dare call it Treason" just ripping SCOTUS...it sounds as if it should never gone there in the 1st place.

[sdfernando]

20. I agree

I agree that SCOTUS should never have gotten involved. I just think that the result would have been the same in the end.

[mrgorth]

21. Need help with a freeper

He says Gore got a statewide recount and * won so he demanded a statewide hand recount which there was no legal precedent for. Anyone?

[Cheswick2.0]

25. the statewide recount

was required by law. Even at that not all the counties recounted. Katherine Harris told them they did not have to. What hand recount did happen was never completed. As for precedence.... that freeper is nuts. Hand recounts are perfectly legal.

[library_max]

32. Hand counting was established in Florida law as a corrective to flawed

mechanical counts. Most states have similar provisions, because voting machines are prone to certain kinds of predictable errors. Florida state law provided for the Florida courts to "craft any appropriate remedy" in the event of a contested election. Of course, the Florida legislature covered their tracks by changing the law, but the law that counted was the law on the books on Election Day 2000.