Who would place Reagan as our best president

[NorCal Cat]

Originally Posted by TripletDaddy

Gore won the popular vote because more people wanted him to be the President.

Yeah, so? What's your point? Doesn't mean Bush stole the election due to anything the Supreme Court did. God bless the founding fathers for the Electoral College!

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

This just isn't accurate. Revisionist history indeed.

Regardless, multiple independent recounts after the Supreme Court ruling showed that its ruling did not result in the incorrect person being elected.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

This just isn't accurate. Revisionist history indeed.

What do you find inaccurate here?

I remember the Equal Protection argument of Scalia and found it a bit ironic. However, I also remember the constant challenges by Gore, and the effort to describe "hanging" chads.

[TripletDaddy]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Regardless, multiple independent recounts after the Supreme Court ruling showed that its ruling did not result in the incorrect person being elected.

Either way, the good news is that he will never be elected again. The sad news for our country is that his legacy will be one of stupidity and failure.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

What did you want to happen? Would you have promoted not counting any of the ballots with hanging chads? Why not? Wouldn't your approach be a poorer reflection of the will of the people (and keep in mind that measuring the will of the people is the sole purpose of an election).

Bullshit. The purpose of an election is to declare a winner with reasonable degree of accuracy. Lofty sounding but amorphous ideals don't cut it for me in order to cry for the angels to be on somebody's side won't sway me.

I would not count something which is ambiguous. If somebody were so stupid as to punch two, you can't count it.

[Tex]

I love the "Gore really won" crowd. Linus will never surrender his blanket.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

And how do you declare a winner with reasonable degree of accuracy? By measuring the will of the people. You don't hold an election for the sake of an election. You hold it for the sake of giving the people a representative of their choosing, and you determine that choice by measuring their will through ballots. This isn't a "lofty sounding but amorphous ideal," it is the foundation of a republic.

And you are assuming that all hanging chads were on ballots with 2 punched choices, which is emphatically not true (and was not the basis of Gore's recount request).

You are a lawyer. Don't pretend that making a determination about whether something is "ambiguous" is in and of itself unambiguous. What are the rules for the determination? How is "ambiguous" going to be defined in the context of the ballots?

Gore didn't care about the will of the people. He cared about winning and if he thought "courting the will of the people" would help him win, he'd do that.

Elections are held for elections sake. Most of the time, they reflect the predominant attitude of those casting votes. In a few elections, we resort to the winner of the electoral college.

I do not believe it was unambiguously proven with any degree of reasonable certainty that the hanging chads were unambiguous. Or that Gore would have won.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

When did I say Gore "really won?" Happy hunting.

Ahem:

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

I am not in the "Bush stole the election" camp. I will say that the election probably should have gone to Gore, though.

I'd forgotten you were one of the few nitpickers worse than Lebowski. We'll put you in the "Gore probably should have won" camp instead. Feel better?

The point is the same.

[TripletDaddy]

Originally Posted by Tex

I love the "Gore really won" crowd. Linus will never surrender his blanket.

Gore really did win....the popular vote.

I love you, too, Tex.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by TripletDaddy

Gore really did win....the popular vote.

I love you, too, Tex.

Too bad that's not the criteria for winning the presidency, eh?