In your dreams, Professor
Harvard professor D. Quinn Mills has written a novel predicated on one of the more absurd premises I've come across in a lifetime of loving political novels.
Blue! Red! is about the Second American Civil War. Between the Republicans and the Democrats.
Yes, that's what I said.
In Mills' fevered fantasy, the Democrats have twice in a row been cheated out of the presidency by Republican chicanery. Their candidate- a thinly-disguised Hillary Clinton- is at the point of becoming victim number three. Partisans of the two camps erupt in violence, which finds its focus in... college football games. Finally, the Rose Bowl- between a Red State Big Ten champion, and a Pac Ten Blue State team, played to an empty stadium for fear of violence- somehow becomes a kind of surrogate combat between the two sides.
Uh-huh.
Besides the weakness of the plot in purely literary terms, there is a crucial defect in the premise- if, that is, the book is taken as what it is obviously intended to be: a reference to the whining on the Left that the presidential elections of 2000 and even 2004 were somehow stolen by the Republicans.
In the first place, while there was evidence of some chicanery on both sides in Florida in 2000, the evidence overwhelmingly indicts the Democrats, rather than the Republicans, as the ones who tried to pull a fast one and reverse the verdict of the electorate. Despite plenty of allegations of "voter intimidation," only one- in a polling place in a heavily Republican Haitian precinct in Miami, which had to close its doors because voting there was disrupted by Democratic goons- has actually been substantiated. Dozens of complaints of outright fraud in the handling of ballots in Democratic precincts during the manual recount- a process resisted by the Bush campaign precisely because it is notorious for facilitating vote fraud- were lodged. And the election in Florida would not even have been close enough to justify a recount had thousands of convicts (a population which votes heavily Democratic, when allowed to) not been illegally counted, whereas thousands of legally cast military ballots (from a heavily Republican constituency) improperly excluded.
There is another, little-known aspect to the 2000 Supreme Court decision which needs to be taken into account. The day after it was handed down was the constitutional deadline for the actual voting by the electors. Had a final result for Florida not been declared that very day, Florida's electors would have been excluded, the people of Florida would have been disenfranchised- and Al Gore would have been elected by the majority of the electors from the other states.
In other words, the election would have been stolen. By the Democrats- whose own litigation and delays were what dragged the recount out unnecessarily, and- intentionally or not- created that very dilemma!
The second thing is that, as the article linked to above points out, only the most extreme and paranoid Leftist seriously thinks of the 2004 election as disputed. The result wasn't close enough for it to qualify, either in Ohio or nationally.
I short, Professor Mills- who, oddly enough for a person of his political persuasion, teaches Business Administration- probably shouldn't quit his day job.
HT: Rev. Mike Zamzow
Blue! Red! is about the Second American Civil War. Between the Republicans and the Democrats.
Yes, that's what I said.
In Mills' fevered fantasy, the Democrats have twice in a row been cheated out of the presidency by Republican chicanery. Their candidate- a thinly-disguised Hillary Clinton- is at the point of becoming victim number three. Partisans of the two camps erupt in violence, which finds its focus in... college football games. Finally, the Rose Bowl- between a Red State Big Ten champion, and a Pac Ten Blue State team, played to an empty stadium for fear of violence- somehow becomes a kind of surrogate combat between the two sides.
Uh-huh.
Besides the weakness of the plot in purely literary terms, there is a crucial defect in the premise- if, that is, the book is taken as what it is obviously intended to be: a reference to the whining on the Left that the presidential elections of 2000 and even 2004 were somehow stolen by the Republicans.
In the first place, while there was evidence of some chicanery on both sides in Florida in 2000, the evidence overwhelmingly indicts the Democrats, rather than the Republicans, as the ones who tried to pull a fast one and reverse the verdict of the electorate. Despite plenty of allegations of "voter intimidation," only one- in a polling place in a heavily Republican Haitian precinct in Miami, which had to close its doors because voting there was disrupted by Democratic goons- has actually been substantiated. Dozens of complaints of outright fraud in the handling of ballots in Democratic precincts during the manual recount- a process resisted by the Bush campaign precisely because it is notorious for facilitating vote fraud- were lodged. And the election in Florida would not even have been close enough to justify a recount had thousands of convicts (a population which votes heavily Democratic, when allowed to) not been illegally counted, whereas thousands of legally cast military ballots (from a heavily Republican constituency) improperly excluded.
There is another, little-known aspect to the 2000 Supreme Court decision which needs to be taken into account. The day after it was handed down was the constitutional deadline for the actual voting by the electors. Had a final result for Florida not been declared that very day, Florida's electors would have been excluded, the people of Florida would have been disenfranchised- and Al Gore would have been elected by the majority of the electors from the other states.
In other words, the election would have been stolen. By the Democrats- whose own litigation and delays were what dragged the recount out unnecessarily, and- intentionally or not- created that very dilemma!
The second thing is that, as the article linked to above points out, only the most extreme and paranoid Leftist seriously thinks of the 2004 election as disputed. The result wasn't close enough for it to qualify, either in Ohio or nationally.
I short, Professor Mills- who, oddly enough for a person of his political persuasion, teaches Business Administration- probably shouldn't quit his day job.
HT: Rev. Mike Zamzow
Comments
It wouldn't have gotten that far. The Florida Legislature was set to set aside the disputed election and appoint its own slate of electors (which was their duty under Florida election law).
I would have liked to see that, but perhaps it is just as well the Supreme Court stepped in.
ANTHONY LEWIS: ...the Florida legislature, which, you know, is talking about ignoring the voters and just declaring Bush the winner. I think that would have very grave consequences for the country and I hope they don't do it.
TERENCE SMITH: Why do you say that, Tony Lewis?
ANTHONY LEWIS: Well, it's all very well to play games and say that the Constitution designates the legislature in each state to set up the rules for appointing electors, which the Constitution does, but for a very long time now we have chosen the electors by popular vote. And suddenly after a hundred years and more, really since the Civil War, 140, 135 years, to come in and say, well, we the legislature are going to take over this process because we lost in the courts, I think the American public would not like that and it would be the opposite of the rule of law which everybody was just now talking about so reverently.
Mr. Lewis would call it "the opposite of the rule of law". What a complete misunderstanding. It is the law that the Florida Legislature has the duty to set aside a disputed election and directly appoint the electors. It is sad the level of constitutional ignorance.
I'm not sure it was ignorance on Lewis's part. More a matter of partisanship, and a selective reading of the law.
That must have been before the SCOTUS announced it would take the case, which of course, changed their plans.
I would hope it would take an actual issue to start a Civil War.
Though I should say that if there were a civil war between Libertarians and everybody else, I'd be shooting at you.
Could be wrong. But the fact remains that the decision was handed down two or three hours before the deadline.
Libertarianism is an impractical philosophy on the fringe of the American political spectrum. Libertarians are, and always will be, a non-factor in American politics.
As to McPherson, sounds to me like stare decisis might not be such bad thing after all, eh?
I was just speaking your language :)
There's no reason not to "let it stand" when the court gets it right. Here is the raw constitutional argument, from the same Wall Street Journal article:
Florida's legislators have a constitutional duty to ensure their state appoints electors. Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution says that "each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of Electors." Despite the Florida Supreme Court's free-wheeling approach to statutory interpretation, the Constitution's use of the word "shall" requires the legislature to ensure participation in the Electoral College.