The Stalled Election: Good For Everybody
Quit Whining; We're All Having A Great Time
Please, everybody, stop the belly-aching about the will of the people being ignored, about an overreliance on lawsuits undermining the legitimacy of what's supposed to be the most powerful office in the world.
This suspended-animation election is turning out to be the best thing that's happened to American politics in a long time.
Think of it this way:
We political junkies normally have to suffer through months of ambiguity -- "This Mayor May Run Against This First Lady," "This President Might Veto Tax Cut That Might Get Passed" -- before we finally get a conclusion. It'd be like pro football were 90 percent training camp (the campaign), a handful of exhibition games (the debates) and one Super Bowl game (Election Night).
Usually, all we get is a few hours of rising drama -- that guy might win! -- then the conclusion, and a quick anticlimax as the other guy makes his concession speech.
Not this year! They took the best 24 hours of the election season and are stretching it out to four weeks, maybe a month and a half! Al, George -- hats off. You guys are putting on a hell of a finale.
The Winners
This is not just the self-interest of a political geek talking. The election strangehold is producing side benefits across the spectrum of American life.
Television: The broadcasters can obsess over something on a slightly higher plane than the ?lian-Benet-Survivor/infotainment pablum to which they've become addicted. The viewers can watch without feeling sleazy, like during the Lewinsky/impeachment story, or uncomfortable, like during the racially-charged OJ Simpson story. This one doesn't even involve actual human suffering like Kosovo or the Gulf War, despite the whining of a few Floridians.
Grade school students: They get a social studies lesson that isn't boring. (One of you disagreed: See below.)
South Florida voters: Maybe some of these well-tanned citizens are truly bummed out that their votes may have gotten garbled by a goofy ballot. But when I talked to people in West Palm Beach who were chanting at rallies or hanging out near county canvassing board meetings, they all were relishing their "Jerry Springer" moment, the delicious feeling of being a righteous martyr with a TV camera paying attention to you.
Al Gore: At the least, he has spared himself for a few weeks the crushing realization of defeat, like a lottery ticket holder who hits the "pause" button before the machine spits out somebody else's winning ping-pong balls.
Gore supporters: See above.
Bill Clinton: "Hey -- my schedule for late November says 'Get used to being ignored.' But people are still asking me what I think about things!"
Joe Lieberman: While Al tries to stay above the fray, Lieberman is getting tons of face time. Bonus national prominence. And Lieberman's been re-elected to his Senate seat, anyway. He doesn't have to be stressed out by the threat of impending political unemployment, unlike Gore -- and Dick Cheney (see "Losers," below).
Florida elected officials: How many Americans who can't name their own representatives in Congress now can tell you the name of Florida's secretary of state? Katherine Harris is definitely getting a book deal out this, or an endorsement deal with Maybelline. We may even recognize the Florida Supreme Court justices by the time this is done.
(Psst -- Speaking of Florida elected officials who are going to get a book deal ? want to see photographic evidence of Judge Charles Burton, chairman of the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, violating a local smoking ordinance? Click here and watch. I wouldn't be surprised if this comes up in the U.S. Supreme Court hearing.)
Me. I thought my travel budget for 2000 was zeroed out after the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles!
Losers
No, this deadlock has not been good for everybody. Among those coming out on the short end of the chad:
Dick Cheney: Picture this. The guy has his fourth heart attack. Four days later, his boss asks him a small favor: Organize my transition to office even though the federal government won't fund it or give you office space. This is a stressful gig for a pacemaker candidate. It almost makes you forgive him for voting against freeing Nelson Mandela in the '80s.
The stockholders of Butterfly Ballot Manufacturing Inc.: Orders are down sharply.
Breaking Even
In the middle category ...
Bush voters: For the rabid supporters of Crown Prince Dubya, on one hand, Gore's defiance is burning them up. On the other hand, they get their Jerry Springer moment to console them. And most voters didn't feel that strongly about Bush in the first place. That's why it was a near-tie.
Poppa Bush: Even if Junior falls short of the presidency, he still did better than his father ever imagined back in the days when he was crushing beer cans on his forehead at state dinners.
Yes, readers, this is an interactive column, so we invite you to submit your own winners and losers. E-mail dan@.com. Include your full name, city and state if you want us to consider publishing it.
The Audience Speaks
It's been called a living civics-class lesson, but Matt Mueller of Hamburg, Minn. isn't buying it:
"The true benefits of this election started and ended on election night, as far as social awareness and a good social-studies lesson for the kids goes.
"That night, the Electoral College was brought out into the limelight because the person that won the popular vote did not win the electoral majority. All that's going on now is Al Gore is using the courts ... to try and steal back the election. Besides the mandatory recount, none of these other precedings are legit. ... This whole process is nothing but a sham by Gore ..."
Don't give up on the educational value yet, Matt. Your favorite archaic institution of indirect voting will come back into the limelight in the days leading up to Dec. 12, the deadline for states to say which candidate's electors they will seat in the Electoral College, and Dec. 18, when the electors cast their votes in each state capital.
Previous Columns:
- Now Can We Doubt All Politics?
- Recounts: Why Stop With Elections?
- Ending The Non-Election: Creative Suggestions
- More Viewer Ideas On How To Settle This
- The Never-Ending Election
If you just can't wait to vent, submit a posting to our online forums on Indecision 2000 in the Hot-Button Issues room: Click here.
