Patrick (siresorrow) wrote:
"mary, i understand why you believe this way. i have a different belief. i
live about 2 hours drive from jacksonville fl. i understand that they had
22,000 votes which were undefined and therefore disqualified. but the gore
campagn did not pursue a recount in that county. because jaconsville
remains
a republican territory. and i am wondering about tampa and pensicola as
well.
i believe what you are seeing is the reflection of the specifically chosen
democratic counties by the gore party to boost their vote count. and i am
wondering why the bush party didn't purse the same thing in counties where
they were predictied to win. "
Me now: I also wonder why the Bush campaign didn't pursue recounts in areas
in which Bush was predicted to win, or perhaps, in other areas that were
especially close and which Bush lost. But the campaign chose not to. One
could argue that it had no reason to do so, since in every tally of
machine-counted votes, Bush has come out ahead. However, I think that when
you're winning by a margin of as little as 200-and-some votes and at most,
no more than 1000 over all but the first few days of the post-election
period, you might wish to clarify the situation for yourself and your
country, especially in the event that your opponent has made it quite clear
that he has no immediate plans to roll over and play dead.
Of course Gore chose to contest areas that were heavily Democratic. It
wasn't up to the Gore campaign to do the Bush campaign's job for it: that
would be a little like expecting a defense attorney to make the prosecutor's
argument.
With that said, however, the best thing would have been a total recount of
the Florida votes, if any recounting at all were going to be done. But
whatever some Bush supporters might think of the sincerity of the offer,
that option was offered by the Gore campaign. . . and refused by Bush.
Mary P.
