Stratfor.com's WorldView - 13 November 2000 _________________________________________________ OUR NEW SERVICE FOR SUBSCRIBERS This e-mail newsletter remains free. But subscribe to Stratfor.com today for just $49.95 and get more global intelligence, every day. http://www.stratfor.com/subscribe.html _______________________________________________ U.S. Election Results in Foreign Policy Concerns By George Friedman A statistical improbability has placed the United States on the edge of a constitutional crisis at worst and a leadership crisis at best. The real danger the American election poses is that it calls into question the legitimacy of the presidency. Since the president is the chief agent of U.S. foreign policy, this could destabilize the international system. The consequences are not trivial. Let us review how we got into this mess. As they have every four years for two centuries, the American people went to the polls on the first Tuesday in November to elect a president. Turnout was unexceptional. The campaign was neither the most rancorous nor the most enlightening. It took place in a time of relative peace and prosperity. Truth is, the candidates of the two major parties agreed on more things than they disagreed, leaving genuine divergence to the candidates of minor parties. As elections go, it just wasn't that important. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, or maybe by pure accident, the election turned out extraordinarily close to the point of statistical improbability. The popular vote almost evenly divided. Vice-President Al Gore appeared to lead by 200,000 votes out of about 100 million. We say appeared to because no one knows what the total would be in a national recount. Making a mistake of two- tenths of one percent is easy when you count 100 million ballots in a few hours. Nevertheless, it seems Gore won the popular vote. However, the popular vote does not elect the U.S. president. America's founders created a peculiar institution called the Electoral College. Voters do not vote directly for president but for electors real people nominated by parties. Whoever wins the popular vote within a state, with a few state exceptions, has his electors selected. They go through a process in December, cast their votes, which are then reported to the Senate in January, electing the president. The founders created the Electoral College primarily for two reasons. First, they distrusted the ordinary citizen to elect a president directly. Which is why they created this temporary council of elders who select the next president. Second, the founders understood the United States is a diverse land with varied interests and not a homogeneous entity. Certain groups are not very large but remain utterly essential to the nation. Consider farmers. They are vital out of proportion to their small numbers. If the political system responded only to size, it might completely ignore their interests. The Electoral College design forces national candidates to pay attention to farmers' interests because the farmers control at least some electoral votes. __________________________________________________________________ Would you like to subscribe to our new services for just $49.95 each year? http://www.stratfor.com/subscribe.html _____________________________________________________________ The system of state-based Electoral College forgetting the human electors for the moment also forces national candidates to break down their message to the state level and create a national political base from the parts. This has two effects. It forces national attention on matters of local importance in all parts of the country and selects presidents skilled at coalition building. So, the system has its uses. One of which was visible this week. If the popular vote counted, the country would now be going through a national recount, in which both sides would search for evidence of wrong doing everywhere. The events in West Palm Beach would repeat in every city, town and subdivision in the country. If you think the current situation is weird, imagine the United States undergoing a national orgy of recrimination. The electoral system has built in damage control, which the country badly needs right now. The statistical improbabilities in this election are amazing. Not only did the popular vote virtually tie, the electoral vote count through pure, unintended accident also equally divided. The entire election rested on the outcome of the vote in a single state, Florida, where the vote was amazingly close. But amazingly close is not the same thing as tied. On election night, Texas Governor George W. Bush won by less than 2,000 votes, percentage-wise on the order of the lead that Gore had in the national popular vote. But a win by a single vote constitutes a victory and determines the recipient of a state's electoral votes. Bush had more than a single vote majority. He had won the election in Florida, and was therefore president-elect. Florida's election law ruled a recount was in order. The recount seems to show that Bush won, albeit by hundreds of votes rather than thousands. No matter. A win by a vote is a win. This is where it gets complicated. In the wake of the election, some residents of West Palm Beach claimed the particular ballot used in that county confused them, causing them to vote for Pat Buchanan rather than Al Gore. Others ruined the ballot by punching two holes, attributed to more confusion over the ballot. Both sides continued to raise other issues throughout the state. Normally, this wouldn't matter. A single state never decides the election. Then again, a few hundred votes do not decide most elections. Confusion over a few hundred or even several thousand ballots is a common occurrence. No matter how common, it never affects the outcome of the presidential race. But in this case, it matters greatly. If true, it means that without the ballot confusion, Gore would have won Florida and therefore the presidency. As untenable as the current situation is, the alternatives are even more difficult to contemplate. A special election in West Palm Beach to select the next president is too wacky to imagine. Picture a weeklong campaign where millions of dollars and all candidates' time are in one town dominated by a single ethnic group the outcome of which would decide the presidency of the United States. A new general election in Florida is possible and somewhat less insane, but it would violate the intent of the Electoral College by turning a single state into the beneficiary of every promise a candidate could think of making. Both would probably offer to move the White House to Disney World. ________________________________________________________ Promote global intelligence. Forward this newsletter to your friends and colleagues. ________________________________________________________ America is not in crisis because of the close election. It is in crisis because there appears to be no way to know which way the vote actually went in one American town. If Bush wins, there will be those who say it was against the intent of the voters. If Gore wins, it will be said he won because of extraordinary dispensations in vote counting that did not take place anywhere else. The election now turns on such trivial, contingent questions such as did 100 pencils punch completely through a card that no matter who wins, the legitimacy of his presidency is open to doubt. This could lead to a constitutional crisis if the legitimacy of the West Palm Beach vote is rescinded and something is done about it. The United States can avoid the constitutional crisis and still wind up in a leadership crisis whether anything is done at all. If nothing is done, Bush will win and be barely legitimate for four years. If something is done, and Bush wins, the country can dodge the bullet. If something is done and Gore wins, America winds up with a president who got there through special dispensation. Arithmetic oddity has placed us in a leadership crisis, on the edge of constitutional crisis and heading towards a crippled presidency. The courts cannot solve the problem. In a way, nothing can solve the problem. Not even an act of statesmanship by either candidate could resolve the issue of who should be sworn-in. Nor would statesmanship by the loser enhance the leadership of the winner. Assume George W. Bush suddenly withdrew. That would not make Al Gore president. Bush is not in a position to hand the election over and neither is Gore. A withdrawal by either does not obligate their electors in any way. In fact, it could free them for unprecedented zaniness. The issue is not in the hands of either candidate. While the courts can declare a winner, they cannot anoint a leader. The fact is no one, least of all the candidates, is in position to make a binding decision. A single voter has the power to bring suit. All the campaign consultants in the world cannot control the outcome. Perhaps the withdrawal of both candidates might help, but there is no provision for new elections even if every citizen agreed to hold one. Whether any president will have the legitimacy needed to govern authoritatively is unclear, unless the extraordinary happens and the Senate and House band together to guarantee his authority. Alas, since both institutions now divide right down the middle, and neither house has leadership worthy of the name, the United States is in a strange predicament indeed. Oddly, this will matter more to the rest of the world than to the United States. The president has deeply limited domestic power. He can lead, but no one need follow for the nation - as opposed to the federal government - to function. The place where the president has tremendous authority is foreign policy. The crisis, unless resolved authoritatively, will most affect the ability of the next president to conduct foreign policy. Therefore, deeply affecting the rest of the world, rather than the United States. At a time when other great powers are rising to challenge the United States, one can be certain this strange outcome will come under careful study in foreign capitals. We believe deeply that embedded in history is a logic that unfolds over time. This situation makes it hard to argue that point. Accident, not necessity, seems to govern. No wonder world headlines reflect confusion. The Republic will survive this anomaly, but not without discomfort. The impact on U.S. foreign policy during the next four years remains unclear. That ought to concern the world. _______________________________________________ SUBSCRIBE to our new service. Just go to http://www.stratfor.com/subscribe.html _______________________________________________ (c) 2000 Stratfor, Inc. _______________________________________________ SUBSCRIBE to the free, daily Global Intelligence Update. Click on http://www.stratfor.com/services/giu/subscribe.asp UNSUBSCRIBE by clicking on http://www.stratfor.com/services/giu/subscribe.asp _______________________________________________ Stratfor.com 504 Lavaca, Suite 1100 Austin, TX 78701 Phone: 512-583-5000 Fax: 512-583-5025 Internet: http://www.stratfor.com/ Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
