[Mr. Mulliner]

Everyone's getting mileage out of this election story, but as silly as the Democrats look and sound to us, I have my concerns that they are working this thing pretty well. They'll take the jeers that their guy lost and used bad strategy and whatever as long as they can keep in front of the public, enough so that they won't forget, their conspiracy theory that the election was stolen.

Who said that now famous line, "Tell a lie often enough and people will believe it"? Seems to be the Dems strategy: just keep saying the election was stolen and remind people through various ways and when the next election rolls around, enough people might be conditioned to believe it and respond.

[Mr. Mulliner]

ping for yet another re-re-re-recount story

[Cincinatus]

Actually, I think that the Democrat die-hards are starting to look pretty silly. I don't think they'll get much political mileage from this lie campaign.

However, it will serve to stoke the fires of hatred in their base and as a money-raising tool (as it most certainly would have for us, had the re-counts gone Gore's way).

[glc1173@aol.com]

Reality is that in a "nation" so balkanized, no system or equipment for doing elections will be seen as "legitimate" by nearly everyone.

That became obvious right after the Florida coup attempt - when a widely-made proposal to switch to touch-screen voting machines produced lawsuits against Philly's adoption of them. There, disability-rights activists claimed that such machines were inaccessible to disabled voters!

[hchutch]

It was either Hitler or Goebbels that used that line.

This is my concern, too. They, and enough people in the press, will keep that myth alive. Just as the left claims that the Rosenbergs were not spies, that Alger Hiss never committed perjury, and that Reagan was wrong to fight the Soviet Union.

[mbb bill]

Should some one mention to the Crats that the world trade center has been bombed since the election??

[Irene Adler]

What I simply do NOT understand is how anyone can say that the voter's "intent" can be determined when the voter VOTED FOR TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE on the ballot. Today, this is called an "overvote" by democrats in order to disguise the actual situation (it's actually a spoiled ballot). When a voter marks a vote for two different candidates, how can ANYONE know which one the voter "intended" to vote for? This is just an excuse for democrat-dominated voting boards to call all those votes for the democratic candidate which is what they did in Florida.

The same situation applies for the "undervote". This is a no-vote situation; the voter left all candidates blank. How can the voter's "intent" be determined other than that he may well have "intended" not to cast a vote in that particular race?

Am I missing something, here?

[LarryLied]

I've been spreading a conspiracy theory around left wing sites such as Indymedia which is getting some traction. Anyone want to join in, the game is this: Pose as a Dominican. Say the new mayor of NYC, Billionaire Bloomberg, had his moneymen in the Mossad take down Flight 587 to send a message to people of color in the city to shut up. Point out that he is going to blame the crash on Muslims. A certain segment of the left wing menagerie eats this stuff up.

[leftiesareloonie]

I don't think the dems can hope to use the Gore got robbed theme to appeal to swing voters. Even people who believe that Bush "won on a technicality," as I think one of the poll questions goes on this issue, won't care come 2004. They will care how Bush has done. If Bush is successful, he will win a second term. If he isn't, he won't. That simple. Of course, if he isn't successful and doesn't win a second term, then the dems will spin and spin that the reason he didn't is because he was "illegitimate." To the victors go the chance to write history, after all.

I do think that the dems willl use the Gore got robbed theme to motivate their base, both in 2002 and in 2004. I don't see how that can be avoided. Blacks are by and large still livid about this and will remain so. But even if Gore had lost "fair and square" in their minds, the democratic base was still going to be highly motivated, I think, because of Gore's win in the popular vote. About that, I've got to say how surprisingly wimpy Gore was on that score. I think that if I had been just barely on the losing end of the electoral college in the same murky way, but had won the popular vote, I would have more explicitly used my popular vote win to justify the recount. Plus I would have shopped for faithless electors. I would have gone all out to use every tool at my disposal, even if it meant discrediting the electoral college. That's what I really expected Gore to do. But he whimped out.

I suppose that if the dems nominate that stiff Gore again in 2004 -- though I'd be really surprised, since the party heavyweightss think he should have clobbered Bush -- his mere presence will raise the issue as "subtext" as loonies like to say and little will be directly said about it. (though you can imagine some journalist asking Gore in a debate whether he believes that Bush was legitimately elected. and Gore parsing his words too too carefully)