Re: 2000 election Florida called for Gore too early

I was listening to the radio today and they were talking to a guy from Florida because that's where Shiavo was going on. He said he was in the panhandle about as far from Terri as he could be. The host says yeah, you're actually in the Central Time zone aren't you? The guy says, yeah, I'm in that part of Florida that ran out and voted bush when they called the election for Gore.

I wonder if this tipped the election for bush or if that guy was just blowing smoke? Anyone know the story here - if this had a big influence or just a big mouth trying to be cute?

election. Granted, the Nader vote made it easier; but it was going to be stolen come what may.

How convenient to put the blame on Nader.

Surely it had nothing to do with a Supreme Court over stepping it's boundaries, ignoring the law, and stopping the count that would have given Gore the presidency.

No, it's Nader.

You can love Nader all you want. But don't ignore the obvious.

The people who voted Nader were not obligated to vote for Gore. He was there choice, and you should respect it.

Bush stole the state. Over 35,000 votes were tossed out in black districts in Jacksonville. The Supremes stopped the recount because of a Republican financed rally in Tallahassee. Stop blaming Nader, it is only slightly more inaccurate than it is childish.

:eyes:

Stop buying that spin because it's false. Let's see what really went on, shall we.

First off, though it was little published, a consortium of media outlets and did a recount of the votes, and guess what, they found out that Gore won.

Second, Gore ran a horrible recount campaign, trying to cherry pick counties here and there, instead of just asking(as was his right)to have the whole state recounted.

Third, you're igoring the role of the Supreme Court in this fiasco. How can it be Nader's fault? I seem to remember it was the SC that appointed him president, and last I heard, Nader wasn't on the bench.

Fourth, you are ignoring the role played by Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush played in this drama. Harris disenfranchised over 100,000 mostly Democratic voters through vote scrubbing. Gore was handed this information, with documentation, by journalist Greg Palast. Think of it now, Gore had, during the recount period, information of high crimes and misdemeanors done by Bushco in order to steal the election, enough damning evidence to banish the Bushies to the political wilderness forever, yet what did he do with this information? Fucking sat on it, the condemning us to an eight year reign of the imbecile, with Jebbie in the wings.

Fifth, Gore screwed his own self while campaigning. One of Florida's hot issues was that of off shore drilling in the Gulf by BP Amaco, a big Gore donater. The people of Florida didn't want this to happen, but being the good little corporate whore, Gore back his oily masters to the hilt on this issue. This pissed off 398,000 self described liberal and 198,000 registered Democrats enough to where they decided to double screw Gore, and voted not for Gore or Nader, but dropped their vote for Bush out of spite. Gee, alienating close to 600,000 voters wasn't a smart move on Gore's part now, was it.

Face it friend, despite the rhetoric around here, evidence clearly shows that Nader was least of Gore's problems in Florida. But apparently many people, including yourself, simply can't stand the thought that it was Gore and the party's own actions that brought them down. God forbid we blame a Democrat for anything eh:eyes:

a contributing factor. I know this has been re-hashed to death on here, but I had never considered the time zone thing before today.

The time zone factor could have played a role, but I have no idea how big a role it would be.

I thought it was odd you had concluded that I was blaming Nader!

obviously the state was called for Gore too quickly.

This is true for two reasons.

1. It was way too close to make any call at that early hour.

2. The polls hadn't closed in part of the state, and the networks should not have made any call with the polls still open regardless of the numbers.

It was a very bad call by the networks.

factor was greater than the amounts that Bush had won by?

Oh yeah, Nader had NO IMPACT on that election... Oh please...

And shot himself in the foot with the recount process?

What, no acknowledgement that it was the Supreme Court who actually selected Shrub?

What, no acknowledgment that the vast majority of Nader voters were either going to be voting Green no matter what, or that they wouldn't be voting at all if Nader hadn't been running.

Sorry friend, your beating of a dead horse is pathetic. It just goes to show how unwilling you are to look at the shortcomings in the Democratic party, opting instead to scapegoat a campaign whose effect on the election was negligible. Gore ran a piss poor campaing, unwilling to get down and dirty as he should have, and kowtowing to his corporate masters to the point of shooting himself in the foot in Florida. His recount campaign was pathetic and lacking a spine, much like the rest of the party these days under Bush.

Hell, even Al From doesn't blame Nader, and he is a lot more hooked into elections than you are. So why are you in such a state of denial?

"pathetic" is truly dignified of you. I'm always happy to know that such classy people are on my side of the moderate line.

You can continue to make excuses for the parties failure, and take Darth Nader off the hook. I voted for Nader because I live in a Blue State and traded my vote with a friend in Wisconsin to make sure he voted for Gore, instead of Nader. The fact that people knew it was going to be an issue long before the election took place and that people had genuine concern about how it would affect the outcome of the race, PROVED to be correct. Even if only 50% of the voters who voted for Nader had voted for Gore, we still would have had enough votes to change the decisions.

"You can continue to make excuses for the parties failure,"

I'm the one pointing out the party's failures in '00, not making excuses for it. It is you and your fellow Nader haters who are scapegoating a man who was exercising his Constitutionally given right to run for office. You may not like it, but hey, it is his right in this supposedly democratic society. Besides, I didn't hear any Dems speaking out against Perot in '92 when he ran, and he pulled in seventeen points more than Nader did. Of course that is because Perot helped Clinton to win.

And how were these concerns you mention PROVEN to be correct? And how do you excuse the fact that Gore pissed off 600,000 people in Florida to the point of them voting for Bush? Gee, if Gore hadn't been so insistent on pleasing his corporate masters, he would have won now, eh. Even if only 0.1% of those he pissed off would have voted Gore, he would have won.

You're grasping at straws friend, truly you are. You are discounting the effects of Gore's poorly run campaign, Gore's sitting on the voter disenfranchisement story, the role of the Supreme Court, the role of Katherine Harris, and other assorted missteps and pinning the blame solely on Nader. Sorry pal, but it doesn't fly.

" It is you and your fellow Nader haters who are scapegoating a man who was exercising his Constitutionally given right to run for office. "

Uncontested. He had the right to run.

" Besides, I didn't hear any Dems speaking out against Perot in '92 when he ran, and he pulled in seventeen points more than Nader did. Of course that is because Perot helped Clinton to win. "

Thank you for proving my point. I appreciate your help. At least you finally, by association to the '92 race, admitted, though not directly, that Nader cost us the race in the same way that Perot cost the Pugs the race in '92.

"And how were these concerns you mention PROVEN to be correct? And how do you excuse the fact that Gore pissed off 600,000 people in Florida to the point of them voting for Bush? Gee, if Gore hadn't been so insistent on pleasing his corporate masters, he would have won now, eh. Even if only 0.1% of those he pissed off would have voted Gore, he would have won."

You also seem to miss the fact there is sufficient evidence to support claims of voter fraud, and disinfranchised voters as being the main cause of the Florida decision being given to B*. And thats even with the supposed 600K voters who allegedly voted for B*. I'm sure they interviewed over 600K people that told them in no uncertain terms that they were going to vote for Gore, but decided to change their minds. Sorry, but its outrageous to think that 600K Democrats would even consider voting for B*. That claim in itself is bogus. You can say all you want that Gore didn't run a great campaign. And I would not disagree on that. The reason he sticks to his reasons why he feels he was cheated out of the race is because this is what all the evidence they have points to. Not your out in left field claim the 600K voters suddenly became Repukes. sorry, I gotta call BS on that.

My mentioning Perot, with his nineteen percent of the vote, as having an effect on the '92 election in no way, shape or form means that I acknowledge that Nader, with his two percent of the vote, had a negative effect on the Gore campaign. I'm not proving your point, you are simply having pipe dreams again. I guess you missed the part upthread where I stated that most of the Nader voters were either committed Greens, who wouldn't have voted for Gore in any case, or former non-voters, who wouldn't have voted at all if it hadn't been for Nader. Again, you are glossing over facts in your headlong rush to keep your head in the sand.

And again, you must not be reading my posts upthread closely, for gee, I did mention the matters of voter fraud(and how Gore ignored these verefied allegations when Palast handed them to Gore on a silver platter during the recount, thus missing a golden opportunity to banish the Bush family to the political wilderness forever).

As far as the 600K figure goes, well, first off, it was only 198,00 who were actually registered Democrats, the other 398,000 voters were self described liberals. Now you might want to disbelieve this, but gee, Greg Palast and Jim Hightower both reported on this matter. Source and verification friend. Sorry, but it is true.

But again and again, you foolishly come back to Nader as the be all and end all of Gore's loss. Please friend, take your head out of the sand and look around you. The Democrats have become almost as much a part of our problems as the 'Pugs are, and it is time to clean house. But you can't start such a reform if you refuse to acknowledge the problems.

I didn't say Nader was the end all of Gores loss. Just one of many reasons, but I am sick of people trying to get this hack off the hook. Most of the Greens have since abandoned him, which forced him to have to run as an Independant. Many others have been able to come to grips that he is a liability to the left. You can defend him all you want, but he is nothing but bad news to every Dem.... friend

Look, I'm not a big Nader fan, OK, I've not even voted for him. However, I've gotten tired of people who constantly blame Nader for the '00 debacle, yet ignore every single other reason that Gore lost. And you've got to admit, the man does speak truth to power, or have you forgotten who it was who went into Ohio demanding for a recount and fraud investigation(hint, it wasn't Kerry, who had the most on the line there)

I have beaten back your accusations with sources and facts, so now you are resorting to ad hominems and inuendo. Come back when you have some real proof to back up your claims. Better yet, take all this energy you are expending in attacking Nader and put it into reforming the Democratic party, where it would do some good. Continuing to blame Nader is denying the reality that the Democrats are now part of the problem, you know, the two party/same corporate master system of government that we're now living under.

But hey, at least it gets us out of the Terri Schiavo/Pope dying rut now, hey;)

You have argued your points, though your points have only been debated, over and over again, by many people. I haven't spoken of Nader in years, and only brought it up because I was replying to an assertion made, that I consider to be incorrect. We will never really know for sure what may have happened if he had not run in '00. Thats the facts. Since he did, anything anyone really says is merely speculation about other possible scenarios. I have agreed that Gore lost due to many reasons, and to pin ALL the blame on Nader would be letting Gore, and the election system itself off the hook for their part in the "why we lost" debates. In other forums, when the '00 loss was fresh in the mind, I reviewed lots of evidence, theory, rhetoric, and lies that were made.

The one thing that most people I spoke to agree on, were the top 3.
In what order they placed them varied, but most believe that
Election Fraud, Gores lack of "character" (especially following someone like Clinton), and The Nader Factor. There was sufficient evidence of all of those factors on the outcome on the race. Everything else is a chicken and egg debate. I just am one who put the Nader Factor at the top. Others are free to disagree. But your claims that he wasn't a factor at all are simply not true. It was 5 years ago, and am not still carrying old links and info that supported his affect on the race, so I have no links available, but the points were well debated at the time.

November 15th. Bush shot it down.

from your post: >Second, Gore ran a horrible recount campaign, trying to cherry pick counties here and there, instead of just asking(as was his right)to have the whole state recounted.<


Apologies for picking nits and if this is off-topic. Just thought I'd point it out. (Otherwise, carry on.) :)

---

Late November 15, both Gore and Bush made televised statements on the Florida vote from their official residences -- the Vice President's mansion in the nation's capital and the Governor's mansion in Austin, Texas.

Gore proposed completing the hand counts in three Florida counties "to determine the true intention of the voters based on an objective evaluation of their ballots."

He also offered "to include in this recount all the counties in the entire state of Florida." And he asked for a one-on-one meeting with Bush as soon as possible before the vote is finished "to improve the tone of our dialogue in America."

Bush said a recount would unnecessarily and unfairly drag out the process.
http://www.usembassy.it/file2000_11/alia/a0111602.htm



Vice President Al Gore is open to a statewide recount in Florida, and proposes holding a meeting with GOP candidate George W. Bush

>Gore then said, should his opponent, Republican George W. Bush prefer, a full recount of all Florida counties could be conducted. He then offered somewhat of an olive branch to the Bush camp, offering to meet with the Texas governor twice -- once before the completion of the vote count, and again afterward.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/15/recount.wrap/

In all the wrong places. Rather than pushing for it in the media, or with Bush, he should have been pushing it in the courts.

"But the consortium, looking at a broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots. This also assumes that county canvassing boards would have reached the same conclusions about the disputed ballots that the consortium’s independent observers did. The findings indicate that 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.”

Source: Analysis of Consortium Study, Ford Fessenden & John Broder, NY Times Nov 12 2001

*sigh

that many of the factors you list contributed.

Yes, I'm sure that there were things Gore could have done differently if he'd had the benefit of hindsight that would have let him win.

Yes, I'm sure that Nader was not the single biggest factor contributing to Gore's defeat.

Yes, Nader didn't know that the election would be close enough that his candidacy would be decisive.

But the fact remains that if Ralph Nader had not run for president in 2000, all else being equal, Al Gore would almost certainly have won.

In spite of all his blunders, gee it turns out that GORE DID WIN!! He simply allowed it to be stolen out from under him. Sheesh!

Considering how close the final vote tally was, *every* contributing factor put Bush into the White House.

If you look upthread, you will see that I've posted many facts and sources that prove that Nader's run in Florida didn't cost Gore the election. Al From even says that Nader didn't cost Gore. Hell, there were other third party candidates on the Florida ballot<img src="" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com"> why do we hear nobody bitching about them, after all, their vote numbers were comparable with Nader's? But no, I guess Nader is the easiest scapegoat, and allows the Democratic party to continue to ignore the massive problems that are going to tear it apart if they continue to be unaddressed.

First off, you're factually wrong that Gore didn't ask for a statewide recount. He did. I saw him do it on tv. Besides which he had no obligation to call for a statewide recount in the first place. Selective recounts are not only acceptable, they are normal. That's how they are always done. Gore was blocked from his legal recounts.

More to the point is your ephemeral logic that he didn't try hard enough; that he didn't get 'down and dirty'. Here's some non-quantitative condemnation that dwarfs any of that in electoral terms: Nader spent his entire campaign attacking Dems with the unassailable lie that 'There's not a dime's worth of difference between Dems and Repubs.' How many votes did that utter slander cost the Dems nationwide in 2000? A million votes? Three million votes? Probably more. Certainly alot more than 600,000 votes in Florida that's for sure. And what makes it even worse is that Nader knew this bunch of America maulers was as bad as they've proven to be. He knew what he was doing, even if the youth and other dimly cognizant people across America that listened to him didn't. He had no illusions and he kept up his slime from start to finish. There was intent there and knowlege of what it would all mean. Since you want to factor intangibles in, factor that in to a nationwide contest.

But mostly what's wrong with your flat-out denial of simple mathematical reality, beyond the intangibles, is the utterly absurd notion that other people's failures excuses Nader's behavior. No such concept exists. Nader did what he did, on purpose, and the electoral margin, just in Florida and elsewhere, cost Dems the election, aside from who knows how many states his campaign of outright slander cost in the larger scheme. It doesn't make any difference whether somebody else did something bad too. Since when has that ever been any kind of excuse for behavior, either in your personal life or in a court of law? Since never.

Nader did what he did. That Gore failed in other ways is zero excuse for that.

Like the ones where I stated that upon further review, Gore actually did win Florida. Or that the Supreme Court was the final arbitor of this sad matter. I guess you also failed to read that while yes, Gore did publicly call for a statewide recount, he failed to follow through on his pronouncements and push a statewide recount through the Florida courts.

I guess that you also failed to read where I stated that most of Nader's votes came from people who weren't going to vote for Gore anyway, Greens or former non-voters who wouldn't have been voting at all if Nader wasn't in the race. So that makes all of your very loose stats off by over half. However, none of those national stats matter anyway because we are talking about FLORIDA here, where yes indeed, Gore cost himself 600,000 votes by his allegiance to his corporate masters at BP Amaco.

And my criticism of Gore's unwillingness to get down and dirty is hardly ephemeral friend, it could well cost this nation a price that we cannot pay. It has already cost us over 1500 soldiers' lives, untold wounded, and over a hundred thousand innocent Iraqis dead. So listen carefully while I lay out Gore's failing here for you in plain talk.

Right before the '00 election journalist Greg Palast was working on a bombshell article, specifically he was investigating the disenfranchisment of mostly Democratic voters in Florida through the infamous vote scrubbing brought about by Katherine Harris, complete with ties to Jeb Bush. Palast had everything in this sad tale down, and shortly after the election, while the recount is still in full swing he handed it over to Gore.

Think about it, Gore had just been handed Bushco's head on a platter. Charges of disenfranchisement were sourced and unimpeachable. A tale of deception that would not only hand Gore the presidency, but banish the Bushs to the political wilderness forever. Now I don't know about you, but if I had such information, I would have run with it. After all, not only is the office of the President on the line, but the well being of this country. And yet what did Gore do? He fucking sat on it, doing nothing, and thus condemning us all to the next eight years in hell.

Now you bitch about Nader's charges concerning the lack of difference between the two parties. Well guess what friend, as we have seen in the past five years, he is being proven right! The IWR vote, the Patriot Act, the confirmations of Ashcroft and others of his ilk, NCLB, prescription drug act, the list goes on and on. Wake up friend, we're living under the two party/same corporate master system of government. We bitch and whine about how the Dems are lacking a spine, well there is a good reason for that. It's because they're not looking out for the best interests of you or me, the ordinary person, they're looking out for the interests of their corporate masters, the ones who pay the big bucks to fill their election coffers.

There were a lot of reasons why Gore failed in '00, but quite frankly, Nader wasn't one of them. Even that DLC god Al From admits that Nader wasn't a factor.

and addressed three of your points in my response. It's you who hasn't addressed my responses. I'll repeat them for you.

But first let me say that I liked Ralph Nader and his whole lifetime of work, up until he betrayed the Democrats and this nation in 2000. And further, I agree with many of the details you put forth. None of which exculpates Nader for his behavior.

We're probably mostly in synch with the recount mess, except that you miss a few points. As I said he did call publically for a statewide recount, which you admit. And I wish too that he had pushed it. But his strategy to call first for a selective recount not only wasn't bad, but is SOP. You recount your strongholds where your votes may have been minimized. You typically don't call for recounts in your opponents strongholds where they can pick up votes. If your opponent wants to do that, fine, but you neither have the obligation nor is it usually a smart thing to do. We can debate the tactics of that, but the Gore team's choice to focus on their precincts was reasonable and appropriate. And legal, counter to all the blather at the time that it was somehow an unfair tactic. It was, again, standard operating procedure. You don't really have an issue on the recounts beyond debatable tactics.

You can talk all you want about how most Nader voters wouldn't have voted at all, but that's not all those voters, and the ones who did would have swamped Bush's margin by thousands or even tens of thousands of votes in Florida alone. Further, if Nader had behaved in anything close to an honorable manner he would have given those votes to Gore in contested states like Florida at the end and it would have been well over a ten-thousand vote margin. You are putting your hands over your ears if you think the math doesn't add up.

Second, I didn't say Gore tried hard enough. I will say that he tried harder than the people around him wanted, and harder than the mainstream media whores who mocked the guy who won and didn't cheat, for not giving up to the guy who lost and did cheat. It's a matter of degree, and your trying to say that Gore simply gave up is untrue. He could have fought harder, but he did fight. But of course I didn't excuse that. What I did do was point out that in terms of the broader campaigns, nobody trumps Nader's sliming of Democrats with lies from one end of the country to the other. It's you who doesn't address that or look at it, and it's no small point. Whatever Gore did, he did in trying to win. He may have made tactical mistakes; he may have not given it his all, but he didn't intentionally set out to sink the Democrats. Nader did, from start to finish. Nader's motives were ugly. Whatever he did, those motives taint everything. You can't get around that. Motive is as much a factor in the condemnation of Nader as it is in a jury trial. Gore failed trying to do good for the left. Nader failed the left in trying to do bad for Democrats. Case fucking closed on any of the soft issues. And you can credit those 1600 dead in Iraq to Nader. And the 3000 in the WTC too, since you want to get 'down and dirty' with the condemnations. I do hold Nader responsible for the results of his backstabbing more than I can ever hold someone responsible for the failures of their honest efforts.

Nader was wrong to lie about Dems being no different than Repubs. That bolstered the main theme that Republicans were working on, that Dems just happened to be economically successful and that Repubs would be just as successful and you'd get a big-assed tax cut too. Nader made that case for the Republicans throughout the campaign, and it played Dems out as chumps. Who knows how many millions of votes it cost in the Presidential race. Who knows how many Republican Senators and Congressmen Nader helped elect nationwide, with people listening to that 'dimes worth of difference' shit. I never denied the broad issue of Gore not running a good campaign. It's you that refuses to see Nader running an ugly anti-Dem campaign and costing Dems so much. It's you that doesn't look at the broad picture.

So, you try to song-and-dance your way around the mathematical fact that Nader's numbers cost Democrats battleground states, and you fail. Not your fault; the numbers are hard to refute. You then go to the more amorphous issue of the efficacy of Gore's campaign, and I agree with you even without the possibility of hard numbers on that. But along those lines you do everything you can not to face the reality of Nader's campaign against Democrats from the flank and how no failure of Gore's efforts can in any way obviate Nader's betrayal. Nader was sticking it to Democrats to the bitter end, long after it would have helped him in any way. And he did stick it to us.

Yes, Gore had failures. I don't need anyone to tell me that. But that's all you have and it's not much. It's certainly not enough to excuse what Ralph did. It absolutely doesn't absolve him in how he did it.

Nader stabbed the left in the back; he did it on purpose, and it cost us two terms with the nightmare for America that is Bush.

calling Florida for Gore when there was still a large swath of Bush voters who could still go to polls. However, if it were not for the blatant fraud, Bush would have lost FL panhandle or no panhandle.

before polls closed in the most western part of FL. Yeah, I'm sure there were a LOT of rural Floridians sitting at home watching the tube half an hour before poll closing, JUST about to get their asses up and vote, but saw the premature call and said, "Aw fuckit, hon, git me anudder beer."

And I bet they have swampland to sell down there, too.

(as MollyStark points out below)

http://uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/ARTICLES/ElectionNight/pe2000elecnighttime.php

Love your scenario. Made me laugh, thanks.

there were thousands of votes that had Gore's name checked and written in - which in FL is a legal vote because the clear intent of the voter could be determined - but the Secretary of State - who was a part of Bush's campaign threw out all these votes.

and Gore really lost because the extreme court stopped the count....

remember the final count including the Pan Handle was like 537 votes in favor of Bush - and it got down to in the 200s druing the recount before it was stopped - so if you take the thrown away over votes that should have been counted - Gore wins.

What they really do is LIE very often...

Anyone who was discourage from going to the polls at that point was never going to go in the first place.
Florida was called for Gore at 7:50PM est.

the state of Florida.

I remember seeing Monkey Boy and his Monkey parents being interviewed about Florida going to Gore and they were all cool as cucumbers saying "all the votes aren't in yet, we're confident we'll win."

It was all rigged from the beginning, with or without Nader.

n/t