Tag: Al Gore

How far is the Gore campaign willing to go to challenge the election results in Florida and perhaps elsewhere? Salon.Com claims to have obtained a memo from the campaign outlining the formation of a committee to fight the Florida results including raising about $3 million for legal fees.

The Washington Post was speculating the other day that one strategy Gore might adopt is to delay the certification of the Florida election results in any way possible until the Electoral College meets in December. Why? Since Gore has more electoral votes at the moment than Bush, Florida doesn’t necessarily matter — Gore wins if Florida’s electoral votes are still in question.

Of course then the issue becomes whether the Republican Congress would certify the results, and the extremely long shot possibility even that Strom Thurmond, of all people, might become president, even if only for a month or two (he would be second in the succession line if no candidate has been elected by the Electoral College and certified by Congress.)

So far Gore has done a good job of portraying his efforts as simply wanting to ensure the “will of the people” (I really hate that phrase) is followed. If he persists after next Friday’s required certification of Florida’s election results, however, he risks damaging not only his personal reputation but also adding another chapter in the legalistic maneuverings of the Clinton-Gore campaign that might leave a lasting negative impression of the last 8 years.

CounterCoup is one of a number of left wing groups that wants George Bush to simply step aside if he wins Florida because, “A candidate has won the popular vote but lost the White House.”

But it is false to claim that Al Gore has won the popular vote. In fact there are close to two million outstanding absentee ballots that have to still be counted around the country, and Gore’s slim lead in the popular voting could easily vanish (though aside states such as New Mexico and Florida, the absentee ballots are unlikely to change election results in those states).

The other amazing thing is the claim on CounterCoup that “over 19,000 Gore voters’ ballots were thrown away.” Actually those ballots had more than one person chosen as president and as the media finally reported, similar numbers of ballots had to be discarded in the 1996 presidential election as well. Strange that I don’t remember liberals and leftists calling that election a fraud.

After watching Al Gore blast George W. Bush for giving everything to the richest 1 percent of Americans, I figured I would check for myself exactly how much I’d save under the plan at TaxClarity. I’d go from paying about $1,250 a year in taxes to $20.

They have an option to test how much you’d save under Gore’s plan, but I couldn’t for the life of me understand the bizarre mathematical formula behind Gore’s targeted tax credit for child care, so I just put in the maximum allowable deduction there, and under his plan I’d pay about $550 in federal taxes.

I guess Gore wants to make sure us wealthy folk pay our fair share.

Since I don’t plan to vote for either Al Gore or George Bush, it’s kind of fun to watch them duke it out. A couple weeks ago I thought Bush was done for. Here’s my basic rule of thumb to tell when Republicans are in serious trouble: your Republican friends start complaining about biased polls and how the national media is out to get them. Such complaints may or may not be accurate, but they’re usually a sure sign that the Republican candidate is in trouble (I knew people who in 1996 were convinced right up until the day before the election that Bob Dole was going to pull off a Truman-esque upset.)

So when my Republican friends started complaining about the polls and Bush got himself entangled with a New York Times, I figured he was done for. Now he’s surging in the polls and Gore is starting to look downright desperate. The Clinton-Gore response to the heating oil problem really makes Gore look like he is desperate and feeds into the image Republicans are trying to paint of him as willing to say or do anything to get elected (and isn’t it just the height of irony to see Gore calling for cheap gas prices after saying the American automobile culture was ruining the world in “Earth In The Balance”?)

A CNN story today on the two campaigns illustrates how Bush can beat Gore. Gore released a 72 page pamphlet on Medicare. Aside from the fact that his plan is a massive transfer of wealth from poor people to the middle class and wealthy, I wonder if people really react well to this level of detail. If I were Republicans I’d hit back with ads along the lines that destroyed any chance Clinton had of getting his horrendous health care reform bill through Congress.

On the other hand, the story reports Bush talking about how the country is experiencing an “education recession” — a catchy phrase and bringing attention to an issue that cuts across party lines. A conservative columnist I was reading the other day suggested that Bush should go after Gore for “Earth In the Balance.” While the book is nutty, I think a better strategy would be to go after Gore on education. Bush needs to ask Gore directly why he sends his kids to elite private schools, while denying poor urban residents the same options of high quality education for their kids.

Personally, I don’t care who wins. I really despise Gore, who I met briefly in 1992 and who came across as incredibly fake and shallow. On the other hand, policy wise there is really not that much difference between the two from my perspective.