re: #250 palomino

Your side caught a big break on the butterfly ballots, where hundreds of people (possibly more than Bush’s winning margin) voted for Buchanan rather than Gore. All water under the bridge now, of course, but the election couldn’t have been much closer…and the idea that we can determine a “real” winner in a state so close and so fucked up in its election counting is a fantasy.

There were many swings in that election. When national network news went on air at 7PM central time and announced that the polls had closed in FLA and that Gore had carried the state, thousands of voters standing in line in Pensacola gave up and went home. Others didn’t go to vote. This, even though in reality it was 6 PM central time zone, and the FLA panhandle is on central time, and the race was as close as they come.

That was a “goal” scored by Democrats. All perfectly fair and legal, under the anything goes rules of politics. Who would have won if those voters had stuck it out? Who would have won if Ms. McGillicuddy’s cow hadn’t kicked over the lantern? There’s just no way to say.

We have to live with these things, because we have to live with each other once the election is over. The Electoral College is, among other things, a system for amplifying very small swings of chance into the appearance of finality and convincing victory. And that’s how we should want it. In politics, the appearance is a reality of its own.