So, Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000

Should he have been awarded the Presidency based on winnng the popular vote, even though those weren't the rules going into the election?

No vote.

I thought people could draw the obvious conclusion. I really need to stop doing that. :eyes:

:eyes: <--- Hee Hee! Look at my cute little smiley!

Should Al Gore have been awarded the Presidency because he won the popular vote - or not. No, of course not. But most would agree he should have been President because he won Florida.

Where were either Clinton's? I don't remember them fighting tooth and nail... If Bush had not come along and fucked up so badly.. If Gore had been the President, would Hillary have been able to run today?

election, why should the Clintons had fought tooth and nail for Al Gore?

Bush was running around talking about "restoring dignity" to the White House... On the other side..they, as democrats, should have been fighting tooth and nail for a democrat in the White House.

The Supreme Court stepped in and stole it for Bush. End of story. This act will go down in HISTORY. And, the Supreme Court justices are going to have to live down their vote (if they weren't on Gore's side). Those who sided with dubya are going to have to live forever with this anchor around their necks. Believe me, the anchor is well deserved! I want their names burned into the minds of history students so they can judge their stupidity appropriately!

at LEAST. He IS our President, de jure. Surely everyone at DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND agrees.

because that would be changing the rules after the election was over, correct?

something I thought Democrats agreed upon and embraced.

Don't be disingenuous.

edit speeeeling

So what in the hell are we talking about it for?

upon the importance of rules and laws and ethics.

Well, nearly every Dem, that is.

On the day the Congress sets aside for states to conduct elections during years for Presidential elections, not only do the states conduct elections in which the popular vote is counted, but according to the laws contained in each State Constitution, THAT IS ALSO THE DATE THE STATES ELECTORS ARE SELECTED BY PARTY according to the laws of that state. Many people do not realize this. I think 49 out of 50 states have constitutions which specifically say the Electors will be determined as a result of the winner of the popular vote. I cannot remember which State does not use that specifically. Although the Slate of Electors are not individually named that date, the party of that Slate is determined that date.

Following the day of the year on which the voting has occurred, any irregularity in an election cannot be altered by the State for purposes of changing that election.

So when the legislature of Florida threatened to pick its own Slate of Electors even if the recount was completed and Gore won the popular vote, Constitutionally it could not have done this. It was bound to comply with the State Constitution, which stipulated the popular vote winner would determine the Slate. Any change the legislature wished to make COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MADE UNTIL AFTER THE 2000 ELECTION HAS PASSED BUT HAD TO BE IMPLEMENTED BEFORE THE DAY OF THE NEXT ONE. One might prefer the "generic" rendition - you can't change the rules in the middle of the election!

Unfortunately, no one challenged this Legislature's threat to do this and most people believed they could and would have done this. However, if the Legislature had carried through on its threat, the Slate could have (and should have) been rejected by the Senate when the Electoral College Votes were counted since Florida's would have been Constitutionally illegal.

The Bush* campaign received much free legal advice from Constitutional attorneys who went to Florida and volunteered their services during the 2000 debacle. One such attorney is the now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court - Roberts. Roberts had to have known the State Legislature could not have legally done this, but he probably also assumed the public was ignorant on this subject.

The 2000 election is not in any way representative of the primary. The popular vote is a nonsensical metric in the primary given that some states have caucuses and some have primaries. The caucus states, which by the way they are designed, have a massively lower turnout compared to primary states, are disenfranchised in the popular vote count- so a state that has a caucus may net some thousands in the popular vote for the candidate who wins, while one with a primary news tens if not hundreds of thousands for the winner, even when the states are of comparable size.

What you need is a system that proportionately rewards candidates according to the size of the state they won, and according to the results of either the caucus or primary... hmmm... something like... pledged delegates?

Pledged delegates is the ONLY metric by which you can count support. The 2000 election cannot be compared with this primary, because there none of the states had caucuses.

Not only that, I do not buy the notion that caucuses are undemocratic. The primary is, in effect, an internal decision of the party, and the party can decide any way it wants, and will wish to make the most informed decision. Caucuses have many advantages- the people who caucus are more likely to vote, and more passionate about their vote so less likely to defect, and more likely to be more active and make more informed decisions. At the same time they ARE open to everybody who wishes to participate, so nobody is barred from entering.

In that sense, they're exactly the same.

he won FL.

didn't fight for it.... he rolled over and let Bush have it. I have a great deal of respect for Al Gore for a number of reasons, but the "good of the country" crap left me cold. I wanted him to fight.

Where do you people get this revisionist history bullshit?

Al Gore didn't concede until a month after the election, when all his legal options were exhausted. He was within 100 votes of winning Florida before the Supreme Court issued an injunction to stop the recount.

What the hell are you talking about?

I believe that popular vote SHOULD be what determines the winner in presidential elections. But if and until the rules are changed to use the popular vote, either through constitutional amendment or a interstate electoral pact, I believe the electoral college SHOULD be followed. A lot of people seem to have a hard time making this rather simple distinction, you can disagree with a rule and still want the rule to be enforced. This is the exact situation I am in with respect to Florida and Michigan. I do not like Iowa and New Hampshire having a preferred status in the schedule, but I believe the rule must be changed first. Once a rule like this is agreed to it needs to be followed.

it's not about rules -- it's not about this current situation -- florida was stolen -- and that's all it's about.

And neither should Hillary.

were allowed to vote for whomever they want, and had the country's best interest at heart, and not their party's, would you have been outraged if Al Gore made the argument to them that he actually won and deserved to be elected?

a stolen election has nothing to do with the current primary mess there -- no one has stolen anything.

to assert they have would be a lie.


in the case of florida --from chad to illegally purged voters to lies about how many times the votes were counted to moving polling stations -- the election was stolen and gore won.

the Electoral College. One of two legitimate solutions to the Florida debacle should have been utilized:

- recounts are very common occurrences and where in 2000. The recount should have continued as defined by the State Constitution of Florida and by opinion of the Florida Supreme Court. The Constitution of the United States delegates the authority for the conduct of elections to the 50 states, not the Supreme Court. The intent of that document was the keep the three separate branches of the Federal Constitution as equal, each keepings the other in balance. It was abundantly clear IT WAS NEVER THE INTENT OF OUR FOUNDING FATHERS FOR ONE BRANCH OF THE GOVERNMENT TO "SELECT" THE OTHER.

- The Slate of Electors from Florida could have been negated for election irregularity, failure to follow the laws pertaining to elections. This would not have been the first time in our history this would have happened; and it's entirely possible it could happen again in the future.

It is my belief that should either of the above two options been followed, Al Gore would have been President of the United States these last seven and one-half years, the Country would not been in the deteriorating state it is in, 9/11 would not have happened, and the preeminent war in Iraq would not have occurred.

People are fond of saying elections have consequences, but thefts of elections have catastrophic results.

Just like primaries and caucuses are the rule now. Enough of this popular vote nonsense.

Technically superdelegates are free to vote for whomever they want to and technically they can give the nomination to the person who is second place in pledged delegates if nobody has the magic number of pledged delegates.

That said, it's not going to happen, and especially not going to happen based on popular vote which is an absurd metric in primary contests. The object of a primary is to get as many delegates as possible. If the object were to get as many votes as possible, both Obama and Clinton would have run completely different strategies and god knows who would have been the winner. The superdelegates know this and that's why even Hillary's own superdelegates are saying they are voting for the candidate with the most pledged delegates.

They can argue all they want to that winning a lot of votes in big states is more important than winning delegates out of caucuses in Idaho and Nebraska. At the end of the day this all comes down to the fact that Howard Wolfson and Mark Penn are fucking idiots for not putting resources into the small state caucuses instead of blowing it all on "big state" media buys for Super Tuesday. If they had just done that, Hillary would have had this thing locked up long ago.

And Gore won Florida.

I don't think. I remember there being a lot of people hoping somebody would have some integrity and do the right thing. But they respected the outcome of the vote so I don't know why anyone would expect our pledged delegates to do anything different. I don't know why more Dem leaders aren't telling the truth about what is happening.

Remember?


:barf:

is not comparable to an illegitimate primary in 2008 which one candidate is trying to force to be recognized.

and therefore he won the election, according to how we used to elect a President.

and some votes according to the MSM. Am I wrong? What's the proof?

This question refers to the popular vote and whether Al Gore should have been awarded the Presidency because he won the popular vote. You might think yes, you might think no, you might think no but he should have been President because he won Florida.

Al Gore won the popular vote and should have been President but from what understand he lost Florida so therefore the Electoral vote and the election.

a million votes and doesn't win the Electoral vote you will be happy with that result? Or will you be whining the election was stolen and the Electoral College should be eliminated?

He has to win the electoral vote. That's all there is to it. I would never suggest a candidate be made President based on the popular vote - unless there is clear theft like in Florida.

it was the other says it wasn't. I am not convinced either way. It's like the oil thing one side blames the oil companies the other claims they need to drill more and build refineries. I can't figure out who is telling the truth.

and the Bush campaign, that is right.

But there were many votes that were not counted that were entirely valid but did not meet the narrow interpretation that the Bush campaign had set forth for what should be considered a vote.

votes not counted? Chads?

In other words, they argued that any vote that was not clearly marked for one candidate or the other should be discounted. But there were many votes, many of them in Democratic dominated counties like Palm Beach and Broward Counties, that were clear as day votes for Gore but were not included in the certified count due to the Bush campaign's narrow interpretation of what a vote should be.

made Democrats look ridiculous. If a voter is too f-----g stupid to punch a hole in a piece of paper they shouldn't be counted, maybe they started to punch it then decided not to vote at all who knows what they were thinking.

Most of the time, they were a result of machine error.

The best examples of human error were the many undervotes and overvotes in Palm Beach County and Broward Counties.

and were really concerned about what's best for the country, I'm pretty sure he would've made that argument to them. And it would've been a compelling one.

If I recall, one of them voted for Edwards, didn't they?

but they're party hacks. They're there as functionaries of the party.

But if they were a TRUE electoral college, dedicated to doing what's right and what's best for the country, would you have been outraged if Gore had used the popular vote argument?

The rules are the rules. I would have been mortified if he'd tried to say he should win on the popular vote if Florida had come in clean.

And just who do you think the super delegates are? Party Hacks.

and their job is to pick the candidate that's best for the party.

and the Electoral College are their hacks that vote for the country according to the rules of their state. Nobody would ever argue that they ought to ignore their state vote and go for the popular vote, just because they think they should.

rush limpbaugh and the brown shirts thought bush was going to win the popular and they were going to have a national campaign to make bush the winner based on that.

But, we're not bushits and not capable of a coup..hell, we didn't even stop one.

NOT THIS TIME

But legally, he should have won because he probably won Florida. I would like to see them do away with the electoral college, but to do so retroactively in 2000 would not have been right. Then as now, both candidates would have run a very different campaign if it were a campaign for the popular vote. They also would have run different campaigns if our primaries were winner take all...Obama would not have spent any time in New York or New Jersey, spent more time in California, and she probably would not have ceded so many small states.

but at the time the rules were electoral college which Al Gore won also. so he won either way.

He won the popular vote, and he actually won the EC too but for the SC. 20,000 black Floridians were purged from voter registrations unfairly along with many other "irregularities." Maybe you should have asked why the presidency was awarded to Bush when the election was so obviously fixed. Besides that, there are those rules, you know. A primary is not a general election. Not done the same way.

Gore won the popular vote. Should he have been awarded the Presidency because he won the popular vote? Yes, no, no but he should have been due to Florida. Simple.

The is no comparison, but NO, he should not have been awarded the election because he won the popular vote. That's not the way we do it. He should have been awarded the presidency because he actually won Florida and if the Florida votes had been counted correctly, he would have won the electoral college.

should have doesn't count unless this is changed

even so. But you can't change the rules in the middle, and you can't declare victory by changing the rules at the end.

Still the Electoral College should be gone.

Unfaithful electors should have rose up to elect Gore.

I'm sure it will be lapped up nonetheless.

That was a presidential election, this is a primary contest for a party's nomination. Two different animals. There are no superdelegates to my knowledge in a presidential election. In fact, electoral votes are accumulated based on the popular vote in each state. So the popular vote is a valid measure for some purposes. With a race where each candidate is virtually tied in the popular vote in a nomination contest, it seems hard not to recognize the popular vote. Gore was not in a contest within the party to chose the best nominee, and to make a case for himself as the best nominee, in your example - he was already nominated. The comparison you make is not valid.