How Low Can He Go?
George W. Bush claimed a mandate after the November elections with 50.7% of the vote. According to Terry M. Neal of the Washington Post: "You'd have to back to at least the early 1800s to find a president who has been re-elected by a closer margin."Well, in Dubya's defense, it's not the lowest amount for a first election. Given that Bush was not elected to his first term, but rather selected by the 5 Supremes, he has a higher first election percentage that Clinton.
With his approval rating down to 45% his mandate seems to going by the wayside. The only one more unpopular these days is Tom DeLay.
6 Comments:
I know this is an attempt at humor but I believe we can't correct the Democrat fall from electoral victory until we face the truth.
Wouldn't it be better if the average democratic voter knew the truth or is there an advantage to be gained by keeping this myth going? It hasn't worked in the two election since. Maybe we should drop this myth.
On Nov. 12, 2002, a group of major U.S. media organizations, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and CNN, released the results of a 10-month investigation into disputed votes cast in Florida during the 2000 presidential election.
Included in that group were such ultra-liberal media outlets as the Tribune Co. (owner of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel), the St. Petersburg Times and the Palm Beach Post as well as the Associated Press. They based their conclusions on a review of 175,010 contested ballots conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), a nonprofit survey firm affiliated with the University of Chicago retained by the group.
Their report insisted that George Bush would have won the election in Florida by 493 votes even if the U.S. Supreme Court had not intervened to stop the statewide recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, and that Bush would have won by 225 votes if recounts had been completed in the four Florida counties where Gore sought them.
The media group stated that it was their conclusion that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling halting the statewide counting of disputed ballots did not determine the outcome of the presidential election.
Said the New York Times, no friend of Republicans or George Bush, "The findings indicate that the Supreme Court didn’t steal the presidential election from Mr. Gore."
My trusted friend, lest you be too swayed by the Party Line, let me share the real story, from Consortium News:
Those stories were based on the hypothetical results if the state-ordered recount had looked only at “undervotes.” The news organizations assumed, incorrectly it now appears, that the “overvotes” would have been excluded from such a tally, leaving Bush with a tiny lead.
In going with the “Bush Wins” headlines, the news organizations downplayed their more dramatic finding that Gore would have won if a full statewide recount had been conducted in accordance with state law. Using the clear-intent-of-the-voter standard, Gore beat Bush by margins ranging from 60 to 171 votes, depending on what standard was used in judging the “undervotes.”
Beyond the big newspapers’ false assumptions about the state recount, the news stories showed a pro-Bush bias in their choice of language and the overall slant of the articles.
The New York Times, for instance, used the word “would” and even declarative statements when referring to Bush prevailing in hypothetical partial recounts. By contrast, the word “might” was used when mentioning that Gore topped Bush if all ballots were considered.
“A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots,” the Times wrote, “reveal that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward. Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United State Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore.”
Two paragraphs later, the Times noted that the examination of all rejected ballots “found that Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount. … The findings indicate that Mr. Gore might have eked out a victory if he had pursued in court a course like the one he publicly advocated when he called on the state to ‘count all the votes.’”
Left out of that formulation, which suggests that Gore was a hypocrite, is the fact that Bush rejected Gore’s early proposal for a full statewide recount. Bush also waged a relentless campaign of obstruction that left no time for the state courts to address the equal-protection-under-the-law concerns raised by the U.S. Supreme Court in its final ruling on Dec. 12, 2000.
Note also how the Times denigrates as misguided Gore “partisans” those American citizens who concluded, apparently correctly, that the U.S. Supreme Court awarded the election to Bush.
The headlines, too, favored Bush. The Times’ front-page headline on Nov. 12 read, “Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote.” The Washington Post’s headline read, “Florida Recounts Would Have Favored Bush.”
Spreading Confusion
The pro-Bush themes in the headlines and stories were repeated over and over by television and other newspapers, creating a widespread belief among casual news consumers that Bush had prevailed in the full statewide recount, rather than only in truncated recounts based on dubious hypotheses.
Now, Judge Lewis’s memo undercuts both the tone and the content of those news reports. It is certainly not clear anymore that the state-ordered recount would have favored Bush. It also appears likely that the interference by the U.S. Supreme Court was decisive. Based on the new evidence, the major newspapers look to be wrong on both these high-profile points.
Beyond Gore’s narrow victory from the recoverable ballots, the news organizations concluded – but played down – that Gore lost thousands of unrecoverable ballots because of flawed ballot designs in several Democratic strongholds. Gore lost other votes because Gov. Jeb Bush’s administration disqualified hundreds of predominantly black voters who were falsely labeled felons.
The New York Times also reported that Bush achieved a net gain of about 290 votes by getting illegally cast absentee votes counted in Republican counties while enforcing the rules strictly in Democratic counties. Though the new recount tallies did not include any adjustments for these irregularities, the news organizations estimated that Gore lost tens of thousands of votes from these disparities, compared to Bush’s official victory margin of 537 votes.
For months, the leading news organizations have been bending over backwards to protect Bush’s fragile legitimacy, possibly out of concern for the nation’s image in a time of crisis. Yet, whatever the motivation for trying to make Bush look good, the evidence is now overwhelming that Bush strong-armed his way, illegitimately, to the presidency.
In the days immediately after the election, Bush obstructed a full-and-fair recount in Florida, even dispatching hooligans from outside the state to intimidate vote counters. When Gore pressed for recounts in the courts, Bush sent in lawyers to prevent the tallies. Then, after losing before the Florida Supreme Court and the federal appeals court, Bush ultimately got a friendly hearing from five political allies on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Is your defense of the 2000 election myth the following: The New York Times and the owner of the Los Angeles times were inclined to favor George W. Bush over Al Gore?
Is it your conclusion that when these reporting organizations went to count for themselves that they were in George W.'s pocket?
And do you now buy into the convoluted possibilities put forth by "The Consortium News" over the number of news organizations that went to find out for themselves?
I want the Democrats to be a national party again and I just think the article points you shared sound goofy to many. They will keep us in the minority for a long time.
I know it’s hard to keep up with this stuff.
See if this helps.
Further, it is old news about which we can do nothing. But, to forget the past is to potentially re-live it. While you work diligently to restore the Democrats to their rightful majority, don't fall into the trap of complacency.
As you are well aware, the Democrat message is the right message for the majority, but, if we were to put our cranial appendages in the proverbial anal orifice and ignore the realities of the past as you suggest we should, our mascot will be the ostrich rather than the donkey and they'll do it again.
Pull it out, friend, and walk towards the light!
Doesn't it concern you that you must go to England to find a news article to support your myth? Again you show an article that sounds goofy and gives no facts. This is the stuff of loony theories and people destined to be in the minority because the rest of America thinks it sounds wierd.
There were a couple of quotes in the article that might shed some light for those who want to live in the light:
"America's liberal newspaper establishment originally set up the commission in the belief that it would discover that Al Gore was the winner of the Florida count." End
Doesn't it make more sense that they are putting off the report because it doesn't support their hope of an Al Gore victory?
Another quote "French and Canadian newspapers suggest that the black-out can only raise suspicions, and the issue is being increasingly aired on the internet." End
Oh my, the french and canadians suggest some suspicions about George W. Bush. Should this be a surprise and doesn't it sound a little conspiritorial?
On your comment about repeating the past I would point out that the democrats have lost soundly the last three national election cycles. The "raised suspician", anger and conspiricy strategy didn't get us over the top. Democrats need new direction because this should be the past we are trying to avoid.
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