I must say I feel for Gore

Because, in last analysis, his decision of not contesting the results of the 2000 election does sit right at the alpha point of this historical, and hysterical, mess, we are now sitting in for the foreseeable future. As a good, southern garden variety, American democrat he thought best to avoid the inevitable constitutional crisis that a refusal to accept the results would have necessarily initiated. The reactionary elit in this country, which had become clearly neo-fascist during Clinton's Presidency (e.g. Gingrich), was granted access to power by default and used it in its usual way, through manoeuvers, treachery, complete disregard for human rights, human cost and democratic principles. Even its involvement, probably passive, in the advent of 9-11 is not completely beyond doubt. On Gore's part, and with monday morning quarterback hindsight, this is not only a mistake but a truly historical blunder. Honestly, I feel sorry for him because I know that he must carry this terrible weight (visible on his physical person.)

Who would have guessed that bush would be so venal, unless they really knew of his family's dirty dealings.

Did Gore know?

Water under the bridge, sad to say.

Gore fought back but lacked a strategic vision. Dershowitz said at the outset that the challenge had to be state wide and that it had to focus on racism given the 50K on the felon list and the massive disenfranchisements of black sections of FL cities. The technical approach didn't work and we got a freeper judge.

WE did not rise up except spontaneously at the inaugural parade. We did not yell from the roof tops. We share EQUALLY with Gore the historical blunder.

We have a chance to do something now, which we are her and elsewhere. Call tyranny what it is by name. Do what Toto did, show the beast for what it is, a pathetic little charlatan.

Happy Thanks Giving fshrink.

Our culpability is far, far greater.

of the controversy. The State of Florida delegates all of its voting authority to the 67 individual counties. The only way a state recount could have been instituted was (1) through a court order (at which time the legislature would have accused the judiciary of re-writing election law); (2) through permission of the Governor (and we all remember who that was).

Gore took the only avenue open to him, the one which specified steps he could pursue in first contesting the election, and subsequently protesting the election. He played by the book. He chose not to go through the courts because he knew the Republicans were baiting him to do just that.

Gore should have enunciated, shouted out the grave crime of voter disenfranchisement. The 50K black names on the felon list denied the right to vote was a known face, as was the process of denial through the Republican controlled computer services firm that advised against using the list. The black vote in FL was 90%, I believe, so there are 45,000 votes stolen by an interested party, Jeb. That should have ignited the whole country. As I recall, Duval County just threw out a whole bunch of black votes as well. I agree that Gore had to go through the legal process. Parallel to that, the theft of the these votes by Jeb and Co. plus the popular victory should have been on the air through surrogates every single hour. I'm so saddened by FL 2000 and the aftermath and it was such an obvious injustice. I admire Gore tremendously and don't fault him for this. It's just a lost opportunity. We should have hit the streets. I regret doing less than I could have.

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You should have fought harder.

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I've been a very constructive poster for two years. I've simply reached my limit. If DU administrators deem that I've gone over the edge -- so be it.

Gore will always have my admiration. Can't say the same for Kerry.

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He had a damn strong case since he trailed by just 500 votes out of 6 million cast in a state where the governor was bush's brother and Kat Harris, who certified the election, was on bush's campaign staff!!!! Hell yes, there was vote-stealing. But the press constantly called him a sore loser for 5 weeks and turned the country against him and thus made it easy for the USSC to hand in their infamous bush v gore verdict which stopped a count of the machine rejected ballots that had never been counted even once!!!

he could have done it better (allow jesse jackson, encourage our protests), but I feel he exhausted his remedies - always thought so.
he never had the progressive coalition kerry got, nader was scoffing "toss a coin", Sarandon was guffawing on letterman about the dumb palm beach voters, and after he conceded everuone jumped on him.
Whereas Kerry, who didn't dip a toe in the water in spite of all of us, Moveon, Air America, etc, etc is praised for "avoiding the sore loserman accusations"
I am quite confused.
Anyway, considering Kerry kicked him out of the race because "it was his turn" and "this election shouldn't be about the past", I'd say Al is now enjoying a cup of "I told you so"