THE PLANK MAY 28, 2008
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National Review editor Rich Lowry has an absurd column today arguing that Democrats have abandoned their "count every vote" principles over the Florida Democratic primary. Lowry argues:
Back in 2000, Democrats were contemptuous of rules and technicalities about how ballots had to be marked and the process for recounts. All that mattered was the popular will. And the biggest ultimate obstacle to it was the Electoral College, which kept Al Gore from the White House in this “stolen election.”
Well, the Democrats’ attachment to the unadulterated popular will has gone the way of the hanging chad. Suddenly, Democrats are sticklers for rules.
This is silly. No serious person was claiming in 2000 that Al Gore should be given the presidency solely because he won the popular vote. The argument was that he really won the electoral college vote, and that a proper hand-counting of Florida's ballots -- which was allowed by Florida law -- would at least potentially produce that outcome. Gore's popular vote win gave his cause some added moral weight, but nobody would have argued that he should have been made president if he had lost Florida by 100,000 votes.
--Jonathan Chait
8 comments
"Back in 2000, Democrats were contemptuous of rules and technicalities about how ballots had to be marked and the process for recounts." Really? As HBO's excellent re-creation of the 2000 debacle reminds us, it was the Republicans who were contemptous of the rules and techincalities of ballots - particularly the admission of absentee ballots that were neither postmarked or had a witness' signature - ballots that may very well have been sent in after election day.
- dubyadoubte
May 28, 2008 at 12:12pm
You are absolutely correct, Jonathan, that is a horrendously bad argument. But what else would you expect of Rich Lowry? I remember a column by him a few years ago when McCain was at the tail end of his maverick phase. Lowry lit into him and defended the campaign conduct of Walker Bush in 2000. I like to joke that conservatives are right about the slippage of standards. Look at the steep decline of National Review. From Buckley and Burnham and Frank Meyer then to Jonah Goldberg and Rich Lowry today.
- liberal reformer
May 28, 2008 at 12:19pm
Right. Lowry is conflating two different issues here. The first is that Democrats thought Gore won Florida and thus the electoral college vote. The second was that many Democrats argued that we should *in the future* switch to a popular vote. Nobody was arguing that we should change the rules after the fact.
For what it's worth, I still think we should replace the electoral college with a popular vote (and for the record, I will continue to make this argument should Obama win the electoral college and lose the popular vote). I also think we should consider using a popular vote to decide future primaries, but only if a reasonably uniform system could be worked out. As it stands now, it depends too much on the particulars of the contests in each state (caucus vs. primary, open vs. semi-open vs. closed, etc.). Regardless, any changes have to come before the relevant contest.
- AlanSP
May 28, 2008 at 12:45pm
Considering that Mike Crowley just joked that TNR endorsed Hillary, why don't we go ahead and admit that National Review has endorsed Hillary?
- rozenson
May 28, 2008 at 1:18pm
WRONG! The argument wasn't ONLY that Gore won the electoral vote b/c he really won Florida. After the Supreme Court ruling, Dems argued that Bush deserved no deferrance/honeymoon/etc. because he was the loser the popular vote. And many Dems *did* argue that the electoral college system sucked and should be replaced with "all votes are equal." Any superdelagate who expressed such comments but now says they support a candidate because "I personally prefer ____" or "____ is the most electable" is indeed windsocking.
- Lymon1
May 28, 2008 at 2:14pm
I don't think the Dems are contemptous of rules. Below are posts from "TalkingPointsMemo" regarding Michigan's repeated violation of the Democratic primary rules.
1) Michigan has tried holding early, illegal primaries since at least 1980. Back then, Carter and Kennedy pulled their names from the Michigan ballot, which meant that the Mitten State was the only primary state won by Jerry Brown that year.
Same thing happened in 2000: Michigan tried holding early primaries, and both major candidates Gore and Bradley pulled their names from the ballot, leaving "uncommitted" and Lyndon LaRouche as the top vote-getters. Dismayed at this turn of events, the Michigan Dem leadership quickly organized a caucus, which Gore won.
They wanted to try it again in 2004, but then-DNC chair Terry McAuliffe made Carl Levin back down. (Now, of course, Mac works for Hillary, so he's done a 180.)
When Michigan broke the rules AGAIN in 2008, Edwards, Richardson and Obama, and later Kucinich, all agreed to pull their names from the primary ballot in the state. Hillary, however, broke decades of precedent and chose to stay on the ballot.
Posted by tpmgary
May 27, 2008 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
2) This is true. Below is a link to a history of Michigan primary results. In 2000, 1996, and 1980, uncommitted won the most votes.
www.michigan.gov/.../MichPresPrimRefGuide_20863_7.pdf
Posted by ronburgandy
- tec619
May 28, 2008 at 2:43pm
lymon,
Many people of course, do not think highly of the electoral system -- especially when their candidate has just lost the presidential election after winning the popular vote. But this misses the point. Democrats were vexed because the Supreme Court intervened without justification, and the fact that the Gore won the popular vote only made it more maddening (as Chait said). Please provide substance to your claim.
- Mozier
May 28, 2008 at 5:59pm
I think it’s ridiculous to compare the two for the simple reason that one is a general election and one is a primary. Nowhere is it written that anybody has a constitutional right to choose a party’s nominee. It would be nice to be able to, but the level of disenfrancment is completely different
- jandura07
May 29, 2008 at 4:53am