Dixie aside, Gore would be president (BARF alert)

Letters to the Editor, Seattle Post-Intelligencer ^ | October 1, 2002 | David Harnden-Warwick

[ShorelineMike]

I couldn't make up this letter to the editor (below) if I tried:
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Hubert G. Locke's argument ("Even friends abroad decry America's arrogance," Sept. 27) that America is divided into two very different political cultures is easily illustrated by looking at the state-by-state results of the 2000 presidential election.

Several months ago, I analyzed these numbers from the 13 states associated with the historical Confederacy (Kentucky and Missouri -- which, granted, did not secede but did send representatives to the Confederate Congress -- along with Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas) and contrasted them with the rest of the country. The results are striking.

In the states that made up the Confederacy, the center-left and left candidates, Al Gore and Ralph Nader, together polled only 45.1 percent of the total vote, compared with 54.4 percent of the total vote for the center-right and right candidates, George Bush and Pat Buchanan. However, in the rest of the United States the results are almost exactly opposite: Gore and Nader combined took 53.9 percent of all votes cast, compared with 45.5 percent for Bush and Buchanan.

So even if five partisan justices of the U.S. Supreme Court hadn't intervened to install Bush as an unconstitutionally selected chief executive, and Bush could have found a way to take office legitimately, those of us living outside Dixie would still be stuck with a leader we did not vote for.

Perhaps not letting the South go was the biggest mistake the Union ever made.
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David Harnden-Warwick, Bellingham

[ShorelineMike]

I've already emailed a response to this idiocy to the P-I, but feel free to FReep away ...

[I_Love_My_Husband]

As a Northerner, a Northern Californian yet(!), THANK YOU DIXIE!!!

[Times-a-Wastin]

<> Being from South Carolina..... I agree.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

He's totally ignoring the sagebrush west which generally went overwhelmingly for Bush Only exception I can think of is N.M.)

[Drango]

Bellingham

Damm close to that Congress slime Jim McDermott.

[Wallace T.]

The decent citizens of the 37 states that were not part of the Confederacy should be thankful that Southern independence was thwarted. Had the South won, the United States (assuming Southern secession did not result in further schisms) would probably be a socialist democracy of the European type.

[austingirl]

The dimwit who wrote this needs to see "THE MAP". What a BS analysis - it's the 20 biggest population centers, where Dimocrapic vote fraud is rampant where all the liberal votes are - not the whole state, just the urban areas.

[Huck]

Actually, the 1896 McKinly vs Bryan election was very similar electorally.

1896:

2000:

[wideawake]

Hmmm . . . this guy wants to eliminate Southerners, and by that of course he means white Southerners, from the political life of the nation.

Of course, blacks voted something like 91% for Gore - so if we excluded them from the political life of the nation, Bush would have won the popular vote by 15-20 points.

The fact is, both urban blacks and rural whites have a right to cast a vote, and this guy's rhetoric is, in its essence, despicable and anti-American.

[Huck]

[Sgt Carter]

What does FReep mean?.. email? This is a moot point Bush is President Gore isn't who care what some long haired, pot smokin, plastic banana goodtime rock & roller with no job. How do I know he has no job? Because had all that time to waste on doing this stupid research then had time to send a letter to the editor. We are one America, North, South, east, and west yet these libs always try to divide us. They truly are the enemy.

[Norman Conquest]

If the South were out, neither Gore nor Clinton would be an American citizen. Neither would be eligible to run for president. Yet another good reason to build a time machine and rewrite the war.

[#3Fan]

The decent citizens of the 37 states that were not part of the Confederacy should be thankful that Southern independence was thwarted. Had the South won, the United States (assuming Southern secession did not result in further schisms) would probably be a socialist democracy of the European type.

You've had good innings and bad innings. The South fully supported Wilson, FDR, and Johnson.

[MamaB]

I am glad that OUR votes count. At least some of us in Dixie know HOW to vote. The rest of the coutry should be as smart as us. LOL

[mountaineer]

Someone should remind Mr. David Harnden-Warwick (cool name, no really) that it was West Virginia - a Northern state - whose five electoral votes put Bush over the top.

[cardinal4]

The fact there is still at least one person who thinks that algore,aka "Sweatstain", is presidential material shows how much trouble this country is in. The Left still doesnt get it; Gore lost, and they should be thankful that Bush won. Because on 9/11,algore would have wet his pants. It is funny that the political party that represents the left and algore beongs to is imploding. This fact dovetails nicely with the fact that this same party, fronted by the likes of Daschle,Clinton,McDermott and Shiela Jackson-Lee, is represented by the Jackass.

[The_Victor]

THANK YOU DIXIE!!!

My thoughts exactly! The south saved the Union.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

This moron just realized that the South decides political elections? The Solid South won it for GW, thank God.

[Bubba_Leroy]

Of course, if we could dump New York and California, Bush would have won in a landslide (and we wouldn't have Senator Hitlary to deal with).

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Very interesting Huck. I've long suspected that the way people vote now has as much to do with the region of the country as anything. It looks like this is the case.