[Avalon Memories]

Sorry, but you are incorrect in one important detail. Concessions are precedent. Nowhere did I say they are law. Unless there is some rare compelling interest, winning candidates do not concede. Losing candidates do. When election outcomes are very close the candidate who has the fewer votes on election day has the option to concede (withdraw) or contest the outcome. Recounts are mandatory in some jurisdictions when a result is narrow.

I was responding to the original point that Dick Cheney would have become president in Bush v. Gore if Bush had conceded. There is no precedent or scenario where that could have happened. Bush was ahead in the election eve count and all recounts. The reason the whole mess dragged on as it did is precisely because Gore withdrew his concession and decided to fight all the way through the courts. Concessions do matter.

[Political Junkie Too]

I was going to post the same thing that TexasGurl24 said, which you did not address.

Concessions do matter.

If "concessions do matter," then why was Al Gore allowed to retract his concession. Shouldn't it have been "game over" once he conceded, and no amount of retraction would have mattered once he conceded?

-PJ