All of a sudden the air is filled with cries from Gore supporters as to how terrible the EC is, based on their disappointment with this one election. Not a peep out of any of them, back when it was widely assumed that Bush would win the popular vote but could lose the electoral count.

To all these noisy people, I say "Can it." The Democrats have nobody to blame but themselves. I voted for Gore, but he ran a simply terrible campaign. And the Republicans energized their base much better than the Democrats, as well as doing other things much more intelligently than the Democrats. As an example, the Republican campaign had a very strong presence among our military personnel overseas, a fact which I'm sure will be seen as important after this coming Friday.

-- Peter Errington (petere@ricochet.net), November 14, 2000

Answers

I agree, but in reverse. I voted for Bush but felt he spent to much time in CA. and other places where he probably wasn't going to win. If he had picked the gov. of Penn. or Mich. as his running mate instead of Chaney he probably would have picked up one of those states and this would all be moot.

-- The Engineer (spcengineer@yahoo.com), November 14, 2000.

Peter--

I hate to admit it but this cuts both ways. Before the election, the Democrat deep-thinkers were writing about the wisdom of the EC (Al Hunt had a piece in the WSJ) and the Republicans were defending the importance of the popular vote.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), November 14, 2000.

I don't think either party ran a terrible campaign. If either party had, we probably wouldn't have seen such a close race.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), November 14, 2000.

hmm:

I really doubt these two are the best their respective parties could come up with. Maybe there's some truth to the aphorism that those who want power the most are the least appropriate to hold it. And here we have two sons of successful politicians, who seem more like dogs chasing a car -- they know they're *supposed* to, but they have no idea what they'd do if they catch it.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 14, 2000.

I really doubt these two are the best their respective parties could come up with.

I say that every four years.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), November 14, 2000.

I haven't seen the air filled with cries from Gore supporters as to how terrible the EC is, Peter. I guess Hillary said something about it, and Doc sure did, but WHO ELSE?

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), November 14, 2000.

Anita, your question led me to examine three past threads on the EC: Doc Paulie's "Republic vs. Democracy", "Hillary says do away with Electoral College", and my own "I'm a fan of the Electoral College".

Of the many responses, there were only two people other than Doc who expressed any support for getting rid of the EC, and neither was a disappointed Democrat filling the air with loud cries. So your memory was better than mine. I could argue that Doc is capable of filling the air with loud cries all by himself, but I concede your point.

-- Peter Errington (petere@ricochet.net), November 14, 2000.

To Hmm:

Here's why I feel Gore ran a terrible campaign. Let's assume that the Democrat and Republican were people of equal political skill, so the race came down to the issues. I think the Democrat would have won by at least ten points. Al Gore has an absolute tin ear for politics. He did himself in, in the three debates, for example. Before the debates he was in good shape. After the debates he was limping and never really recovered.

I didn't watch any of the debates, but the TV clips I saw showed him being an obnoxious fool. For example, sighing histrionically during the first debate, as Bush made his points (and then insulting everyone's intelligence by claiming that he hadn't realized that the TV cameras were showing him as well as Bush).

-- Peter Errington (petere@ricochet.net), November 14, 2000.