I am halfway through this book:
Down & Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency
https://www.amazon.com/Down-Dirty-Plot- ... 225&sr=8-4
It is all about the 2000 election. If you are further interested in it I highly recommend you buying the Kindle version for only $2.99.
I followed that election quite closely on a day-by-day and hour-by-hour basis as events were occurring.
In both this topic (and others) there have been all kinds of allegations about what has gone with the 2020 election.
As I've been reading the book I've been highlighting certain short portions of it to put them here so that all can see the real party machinations that go on in an election! I'm also sue that you will be able to make many parallels between this year's election and that one from 20 years ago.
Vinny
1)
“Daley isn’t into all these ‘irregularity’ things,” Streett says, referring to the arguments many in the Gore camp want to make about the reports—all merely anecdotal, at this point—they’ve heard about, say, blacks being stopped at polls, harassed, and intimidated by cops. “He thinks we should be cautious talking about the irregularities.”
Streett’s right. Daley’s been around politics since birth, so he knows a few hard and fast facts about this kind of thing, and it’s made him pessimistic about it all. First off, Daley thinks, it’s very, very rare that an election is turned over unless it’s because of some bizarre accident or mistake, some number that was recorded incorrectly, some ballots that an angry elections judge took home. That kind of thing is usually sorted out within twenty-four hours. But barring some legitimate explanation like that, the longer it goes—whether it’s a race for state rep or mosquito abatement district, it is very tough to turn an election over. The system is set up that way. Then there’s the matter of all these rumors. Not that Daley is flip about it, but every election has allegations of roadblocks and people being arrested and yada yada yada. This stuff won’t play in Peoria.
2)
On Larry King Live that night, LePore sees Democrat Wexler and Republican Foley square off against one another. Ironically, even though a former Foley staffer ran against her in 1996, Foley’s the one defending her today.
“If there was confusion,… the Democrats should have objected before this sample ballot was printed and published and distributed,” Foley says.
“Good point,” King says. “Congressman Wexler, you signed off on it.” “Well, that’s not exactly so, Larry,” Wexler says. “Many people did complain to the supervisor of elections when they saw the sample ballot.”
That’s not true! LePore thinks. In October, LePore mailed out 655,000 sample ballots. Even before the sample ballots had gone out, she’d sent them to all 150-some candidates, faxed and mailed them to Friedkin and Friedkin’s counterpart at the Republican Executive Committee of Palm Beach County. The Palm Beach Post and the Sun-Sentinel printed copies in their papers. And not one complaint. Not one! Not a peep! What the hell was Wexler talking about?!
“… the Palm Beach County supervisor herself, Larry, yesterday, sent out an urgent message to poll workers late in the afternoon, which I’ve never seen done, which said, ‘Advise the people how to vote, because there’s mass confusion,’” Wexler goes on.
“Ah, OK,” says King.
“Ah, OK”?! LePore thinks. Wexler was the one to request that “urgent message”! And now he’s citing it as evidence that there was something wrong with the ballot?! Acting like he had nothing to do with it, this whole “which I’ve never seen done” thing?! What a liar!
Maybe I was naive to call him a friend, she thinks.
3)
In any other business, liars are called liars. There are penalties for perjury in the law, fines for inaccurate claims in advertising, libel laws against journalists and publishers. But many political spokespeople take to lies like mutts to kibble, knowing that their bosses are rarely held accountable for such lies. Politics, of course, by necessity utilizes spin, obfuscation, and a degree of hyperbole. But lines can still be crossed—when speakers say things for political purposes that are just plain false, whether aware that the matters were not true or simply indifferent to what the truth is. And the media rarely calls them on it. Democrats and Republicans both know this and exploit it in desperate circumstances. Perhaps because Gore already had a reputation for misleading voters and overstating his record, the Bush people got away with it much more. So by November 9, they’re emboldened to say whatever the hell they want to.
4)
And yes because as governor, Bush would joke with Texas state representative Rick Green, Republican of Dripping Springs, about his slim 1998 victory over the incumbent Democrat. Green lost on Election Night by 20 votes, but in his call for a hand recount—which went ahead because of the law Bush signed in 1997—he ended up winning by 36. Bush got quite a kick out of that, calling him “Landslide” Green. And yes because New Mexico Republican National Committee chair Mickey Barnett is setting the stage for a possible recount in his state, where Gore’s margin of victory was rather slim. And yes because Bush and his team had no problem with the hand recounts that went on in some Republican-leaning Florida counties the day after the election, where he picked up votes. And yes because the Bushies are contemplating hand recounts in Oregon and Wisconsin and Iowa and New Mexico. And yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. But Bush and his team don’t care; they almost never do. Quite unlike the Gorebies, who shiver at the slightest negative clause in a New York Times op-ed.
I’m not quite sure which attribute is worse. But I’m pretty sure I know which is the one employed by the winners in political warfare.
5)
In a way, it’s just annoying, Lee thinks. He has no doubt in mind that if the current skirmish he’s been drawn into were reversed, those exact same parties would be making—with the exact same vigor and vehemence—the exact opposite arguments. Democrats would be saying that the Republicans were inventing votes; Republicans would be arguing that county canvassing boards have the discretion to do whatever they see fit. It’s all kind of tiresome, he thinks.
6)
“I see it all across the state,” Sancho will later say to me.“Each side is simply trying to achieve its ends, uncover votes it believes will be favorable and suppress votes it believes will be unfavorable.” In the process, neither party is doing much to elevate the dignity of this process much above your average Panama City wet T-shirt contest.
7)
Gore also suggests that he and Bush meet “personally, one on one, as soon as possible… to improve the tone of our dialogue in America.”
A few hours later, Bush goes on TV to respond. To the recount proposal—No. To the offer to meet personally to improve the tone of our dialogue in America, that would be—No.
Just as Gore seems to ooze insincerity, Bush seems nervous, twitchy, in hopelessly over his head. Neither of these guys’ public appearances seems to do much to reassure anyone; in fact, they explain why this was a tie.
“As we work to conclude this election, we should be guided by three principles: this process must be fair, this process must be accurate, and this process must be final,” Bush says. Fairness means no more counting. Accuracy means that hand counts can’t be used. Final means Friday at midnight, when the overseas absentee ballots are due. He also offers the obligatory whack at hand recounts. “As Americans have watched on television, they have seen for themselves that manual counting, with individuals making subjective decisions about voter intent, introduces human error and politics into the vote-counting process.”
Throughout the election, Gore got called on his various fibs and demagogueries, as he should have. Some of the things he said were outrageous—hinting that there was something benignly racist about Bill Bradley’s health-care proposal immediately comes to mind. But Bush seems to get away with his rank hypocrisies. I have no idea why. How can he keep slamming the very notion of hand recounts when Texas has one of the most liberal hand-recount laws in the nation, thanks in no small part to him?
They had tried. On Thursday and Friday in Palm Beach, Eskew’s complaints weren’t finding many takers among the reporters who were there, who saw that absent a few minor incidents of human error—all corrected—there wasn’t much to gripe about. Everything was pretty orderly. So Eskew passed off his charges to Tallahassee, and a new Big Lie begins, and the campaign the otherwise respectable Racicot begins to aggressively wage here on behalf of the Bush team henceforth consists of nothing short of a goulash of truth, lies, and innuendo—most offensively against the judiciary—and served to the American people with a sprinkle of concocted moral outrage.
9)
Anyone who sees the process knows that it is organized, and highly supervised, with bureaucrats and county workers slaving away, trying to do the right thing while under the watchful eyes of the media as well as political operatives from both sides. But the Bush team doesn’t want America to know this. Harping on the changing standards alone isn’t doing the trick, so they begin alleging fraud and corruption.
“I think when the American people learn about these things, they’re going to ask themselves, ‘What in the name of God is going on here?’”
One might say the same thing about Racicot’s press conference. It’s a pretty shameless episode in an otherwise respectable career.
10)
If two men lie, one stuttering, the other smooth and smiling, it is human nature to disbelieve the stutterer and trust the man with the confident grin. And right now, the Bush team is smiling.
11)
What exactly could the legislature do?
Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution states that each state may select its presidential electors “in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” So it is not unforeseeable that the state legislature would take matters into its own hands and choose the state’s 25 electors, especially if the election results remain subject to legal attack up until the deadline for selecting electors in December. What Baker doesn’t have to add is that the legislature is controlled by the Republican Party. We’re going to get Florida’s electoral college votes, Baker’s threatening, whether by stopping the recount or calling in favors.
12)
“All of this is unfair and unacceptable,” Baker says. “It is not fair to change the election laws of Florida by judicial fiat after the election has been held. It is not fair to change the rules and standards governing the counting or recounting of votes after it appears that one side has concluded that is the only way to get the votes it needs. It is simply not fair, ladies and gentlemen, to change the rules either in the middle of the game, or after the game has been played.”
It’s a litany of whining that only a Texan could make sound intimidating. When the Connecticut-born Bush tries it tomorrow—“Make no mistake, the court rewrote the laws. It changed the rules, and it did so after the election was over”—he doesn’t quite pull it off with same machismo. And how could he? After all, it’s daddy’s friend who’s running the show down there, bailing him out, just as it’s been for W. all his life.
