Surveying the Damage.(the aftermath of the 2000 presidential elections)

Seated on the Inaugural dais, only inches from the oath-taker yet a lifetime's hopes away, Al Gore looked wan. This was duly noted by a number of my conservative friends. Confounding the stereotype of the heartless, Republican, they shyly offered that they felt sorry for him.

Don't. Not only was Al Gore a carrier of the deadly virus known as Clintonism, he also displayed a level of dishonesty and ruthlessness in pursuit of the presidency that was all his own. And particularly during the grueling five weeks after the election, Mr. Gore did real damage to the nation that may require years to heal.

The country has endured hard-fought campaigns before. And Mr. Gore did not introduce mendacity to American politics. Yet his willingness to, in his own words, "do anything to win" and especially his willingness to bulldoze through the election process, has added a measure of corruption to American political life beyond what Clinton had already accomplished.

The details of the abortive theft are well-known--the all points bulletin to the plaintiffs' bar minutes after the first Florida vote count; Gore campaign manager William Daley's November 8 claim, "If the will of the people is to prevail, Al Gore should be awarded a victory in Florida and be our next President"; the attempt to count "under-votes" while disqualifying military absentee ballots; the shifting standards for counting a "vote"; and the choice of only Democratic counties to be hand counted. The gambit failed, but it might easily have succeeded. With hindsight, we can see that if the Gore forces had not wasted time demanding hand counts during the "protest" phase, they might have reached the U.S. Supreme Court one week earlier. Then it's easy to imagine the Supreme Court remanding the case to the Florida court with enough time for a third recount, which, through the magic of two-to-one Democrat to Republican canvassing boards, could have yielded Gore the votes he needed.

The nation was saved from this outcome by the luck of a 5-4 conservative majority on the United States Supreme Court. (While it's true the Court split 7-2 on the equal protection argument, the vote on the all-important remedy was 5-4.)

By fighting the outcome of the election in the courts, Gore chipped away at a foundation of our democracy: the willingness to abide by election results no matter what. The argument that Gore's edge in the popular vote gave him some sort of moral claim to the presidency was both specious and cynical. Specious, because it was no secret to Gore and his party that we have elected our Presidents through the Electoral College for 200 years. That's why, David Boaz notes (see page 30 "Practical Advice for the Warriors') both Gore and Bush spent time in the last days of the campaign in places like West Virginia. Al Gore no doubt wishes he'd spent more time in his home state of Tennessee, which, had he carried it, would have given him the Oval Office.

The argument was cynical because in the days before the election, as David Frum has, elsewhere noted, the Democrats, expecting Bush to win the popular vote, had lined up op-ed pieces arguing that the popular vote was secondary in presidential contests. When the results turned out to be the reverse of those expected, the phone lines burned up with Democrats withdrawing their articles.