Posted on 11/12/2001 3:25:02 AM PST by YaYa123
(A blast from the past...a little bit of well-deserved nanner nanner for Terry McAuliffe, as his long promised vote re-count results are finally released.)
" Talk about not getting over it. The rank-and-file activists who attended the Democratic National Committee's winter meeting in Washington over the weekend were sooooo not over it. "We won that election," new DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe said of the race that left Al Gore working on his class syllabus and George W. Bush working in the White House. "If Katherine Harris, Jeb Bush, Jim Baker, and the Supreme Court hadn't tampered with the results, Al Gore would be president!" The delegates, who had been mostly quiet, began to applaud. "George Bush would be back in Austin!" McAuliffe continued, to more applause. "And John Ashcroft would be home reading Southern Partisan magazine!" Roaring applause.
(Not everyone was captivated; Don Fowler, former party chairman and McAuliffe compatriot in the 1996 fundraising scandal, studied the Washington Post sports page as McAuliffe spoke.)
McAuliffe's speech captured the strange we-won-but-we-lost atmosphere inside the DNC meeting. The new chairman's insistence that Democrats won the election — an article of faith that no one was allowed to challenge publicly — short-circuited the process in which a losing party normally examines itself in the wake of a presidential defeat. Instead of taking a clear-eyed look at the party's mistakes, McAuliffe based his new agenda on re-fighting the last war. "We will transform the anger about Florida into energy about politics," McAuliffe said — failing to mention the 29 other states Gore lost. "We will prove there is victory after denial, democracy after Florida…and we will show George Bush the door in 2004." To that end, McAuliffe committed the party's full energies to a post-Florida emphasis on "voting rights." Making liberal use of racially inflammatory language, he announced that the DNC and several civil-rights groups will hold hearings on allegations of racism and voting irregularities in Florida in coming weeks. "Profiling on the highway has now moved to the voting booth!" McAuliffe declared, to more applause.
The irony of McAuliffe's strategy was that at the same time he pandered to black delegates, he was simultaneously crushing a challenge to his power by a prominent African-American. Maynard Jackson, the former mayor of Atlanta, had gathered widespread support among blacks — and some other prominent Democrats like former senator Bill Bradley — going into the winter meeting. Jackson and his supporters were angry that McAuliffe, with the support of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had maneuvered himself into the chairmanship virtually before anyone heard about it. The whole process was rigged, Jackson said; several times during the last few weeks, he called the pre-arranged vote "a Florida inside the DNC."
Although Jackson never had the strength to seriously challenge McAuliffe, he did have the power to demand concessions from the new chairman. First, Jackson demanded co-equal leadership of the party. McAuliffe refused. Then Jackson demanded a sort of semi-co-equal leadership. McAuliffe refused that, too. But McAuliffe, who greatly wished to avoid a nasty racial fight on the eve of his coronation, had to give Jackson something. As the two negotiated, Jackson played up the charge that blacks were being shut out of the party; his campaign placards read "Everybody…For a Change!"
What's more, just to make things tougher, McAuliffe weakened himself a bit by stumbling into a minor political-correctness gaffe. Speaking to party leaders about alleged intimidation of black voters, he referred to the voters as "colored people." It was a remark that might be construed as "insensitive," to use one of the Democrats' favorite words, and it caused a lot of talk among some black delegates. A McAuliffe spokeswoman explained that he had meant to say "people of color."
Whatever. After days of back-and-forth, McAuliffe finally came up with a deal for Jackson. The former mayor agreed to accept the newly created position of "National Development Chair," which gives him control of various "equal opportunity" programs inside the DNC, as well as of the party's Voting Rights Institute. By early Saturday, the DNC issued a press release in which Jackson announced his withdrawal from the race. "We are a united party with one mission," Jackson said in the statement. "Terry will fight hard for our values."
But Jackson remained a center of attention. In the meeting's last hour, as McAuliffe fidgeted and ran around, Jackson — now wearing a McAuliffe button on his lapel — held court outside the door of the main hall, accepting the glad-handing of arriving party bigwigs. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle stopped by to say hello. And House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt immediately brought up the presidential election recount as he shook Jackson's hand. "The problem is really much bigger than Florida," Gephardt confided solemnly. "Yes," Jackson agreed, nodding his head. By the time McAuliffe finally gave his speech, Jackson was sitting in a prominent spot with a gallant-loser smile on his face.
Although McAuliffe dwelled at length on the issue “…McAuliffe based his new agenda on re-fighting the last war.” of race and the election, he did cover a few other topics in his speech. For one thing, he promised to continue raising lots of money, although he seemed uncomfortable with his reputation as the party's top soft-moneyman and eager to be known as a statesman.
Second, he was noticeably interested in putting a lot of party resources into this year's governor's race in Virginia, which will determine who succeeds Jim Gilmore, McAuliffe's rival at the Republican National Committee. And third, McAuliffe pledged to build a Clinton-style war room inside the DNC; he promised to triple the size of the party communications office and triple the size of its opposition-research branch.
And that was it. At the end, McAuliffe introduced Reverend Willie Barrow, of Operation PUSH, to deliver the benediction. But Barrow wasn't anywhere to be found. "Reverend Barrow?" McAuliffe queried. No answer. It was an awkward moment; would McAuliffe tap a substitute preacher, or perhaps say a brief prayer himself? Too dangerous — instead, McAuliffe punted, asking for a moment of silence in lieu of a prayer. But the notoriously hyper McAuliffe could stay silent only for a second or two, and he declared the meeting over as soon as the moment of silence began.
As the delegates left, they walked past vendors who sold buttons and signs that seemed on-message with the party's Florida Forever strategy. "Bush es un pendejo," read one button (translation: "Bush is an asshole"). Another, less poetic, button read, "Bush Mandate: Death Penalty if You Don't Say the Pledge of Allegiance." And a third said simply, "Doing My Best to Piss Off the Religious Right." Like the delegates themselves, the slogans were angry, the voice of people more interested in re-fighting an old war than moving on to a new one. For Republicans, that might ultimately be very, very good news."
Rush Limbaugh and/or Bill O'Reilly might have some interesting comments on this piece.
Dan Keating of the Washington Post says Undervote is where Gore thought they would pick up votes. Much to everyone's surprise, the undervote favored Bush.
"Yes, Matt, we looked at statewide results of undervotes, not just the counties Gore requested."
Overvotes. 60 - 70 - 100 more votes for Gore if double overvotes were counted.
Matt Lauer conducted a surprisingly short interview...no wonder...every question he asked of Mr. Keating gave a positive response for Bush.
Well, the latest news about last year's election has all the DU, DemCom, Bartcop, Smirking crowd in a tizzy. Too much rage for so few websites.
But with the losses in Afganistan by the Taliban, the Bartcop crowd must be near the end of their (loosely defined) sanity limit ... I mean, just how much rage and dysfunction can one expect Prozac to counter?
Anyway -- at this point I would ask all Freepers to please be kind to these people ... especially Bartcreeps. After all, some of them may in fact pay taxes and they may share as much as 93% of the same genetic code as humanity!
But the cnn.com headline on the results is:
"Florida recount study: Bush still wins
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A comprehensive study of the 2000 presidential election in Florida suggests that if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a statewide vote recount to proceed, Republican candidate George W. Bush would still have been elected president....."
The word before it in the dictionary, "pendejada," means "a stupid thing to do/say."
I understand that Spanish slang varies a good deal from one Spanish-speaking country to another.
I love The Drudge Report, but Matt isn't above using misleading tabloid style headlines to attract readers. Bait and switch journalism...that's what it amounts to.
Really, the Florida recount story should be broken as: "The Never Ending Story: the Story of the Results of the Florida Re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-count Has Broken. Again."
When will the recount issue end? When we find the answer to the question, "How many chads can a ballot-shucker chuck when the ballot-shuckers shuck them chads?"
Breaking news: we have anthrax scares, fears of a new attack, a war in Afghanistan, and the World Trade Center lies in smoking ruins, entombing the remains of thousands of innocent people. We have economic uncertainty, and job uncertainty.
George Bush won the 2000 election. Again. Gore lost the 2000 election. Again. The 2000 election is over and done with. Move on. We have the man we need to lead us in this terrible time. Let him continue to lead us.
I can't wait to see how Joe Conason in The NY Observer covers this final, final, vote count.
Gene Lyons too. hee hee hee
Somebody slap me!! I shouldn't joke about Gene Lyons...he might be under a suicide watch!
So what? Terry Gilmore,Janet Ashcroft,nor Bill Bush seem to care about this,so why should anyone else?
"So what? Terry Gilmore,Janet Ashcroft,nor Bill Bush seem to care about this,so why should anyone else?"
I care, because the very real issue of vote fraud was completely swept under the rug by this recount BS.
It would have been oh so personally satisfying if President Bush and John Ashcroft had blasted the behavior of Gore/Lieberman, of their lawyers and team members, of Florida democrats, of Mary Frances Berry and the Civil Rights Voting Commission, of Robert Wexler, but it wouldn't have accomplished anything else beneficial for them, or for the country. It sure wouldn't have healed any wounds.
McAuliffe kept up the devisive fight long after Gore/Lieberman and most other reasonable people gave it up. He continues to this day to play the race card against Bush and republicans. We need to pay attention, we need to take action against him, and most certainly, we need to care.
I started to send her the following in an email, but she might think I was gloating, so I'll just share these headlines from today with you:
LATimes
"Election 2000: A Recount
Bush Still Had Votes to Win in a Recount, Study Finds"
WASHINGTON Post
"Florida Recounts Would Have Favored Bush"
Palm Beach Post:
" Under the two most likely scenarios, Bush Wins Florida"
New York Times:
"Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote"
Chicago Tribune:
"Ballots, rules, voter error led to 2000 election muddle, review shows"
Atlanta Journal Constitution:
"In last analysis of vote, Bush would have won under any recount scenario"
The Nation:
"Consortium: If standard had been "count every vote," Gore would have won Florida November 12 @ 3:01am
The long-awaited media recount of disputed ballots from the 2000 presidential vote in Florida has provided only a little new information regarding the election result. Despite investing almost $1 million and 10 months of effort in a review of uncounted Florida ballots, the conclusions of a consortium of major newspaper and broadcast partners were generally inconclusive."
Imagine how they feel. I remember months ago, McAuliffe and Carville on television promising this vote count would definitively prove, once and for all that Gore won. "Just wait..you'll see, Gore won Florida", they said. Pardon me while I ROTFALMAO.
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