Posted on 11/29/2015 7:09:17 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
An example of an extremely significant, decidedly unintended result of a relatively tiny event can be nightmarish. This one is, at least for me. It concerns the role I played in getting George W. Bush elected president in 2000. That I was the butterfly whose fluttering cascaded into Bush's election still pains me. I had written an op-ed for the New York Times titled "We're Measuring Bacteria with a Yardstick" in which I argued that the vote in Florida had been so close that the gross apparatus of the state's electoral system was incapable of discerning the difference between the candidates' vote totals. Given the problems with the hanging chads, the misleading ballots (in retrospect, aptly termed "butterfly ballots"), the missing and military ballots, a variety of other serious flaws and the six million votes cast, there really was no objective reality of the matter.
Later when the Florida Supreme Court weighed in, Chief Justice Charles T. Wells cited me in his dissent from the majority decision of the rest of his court to allow for a manual recount of the undervote in Florida. Summarizing the legal maneuverings, I simply note that in part because of Wells's dissent the ongoing recount was discontinued, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and George Bush was (s)elected president.
Specifically, Judge Wells wrote, "I agree with a quote by John Allen Paulos, a professor of mathematics at Temple University, when he wrote that, 'the margin of error in this election is far greater than the margin of victory, no matter who wins.' Further judicial process will not change this self-evident fact and will only result in confusion and disorder." (Incidentally, the CNN senior political analyst at the time, Jeff Greenfield, cited the quote in his book on the 2000 presidential election, "Oh, Waiter! One Order of Crow!," and wrote, "The single wisest word about Florida was delivered not by a pundit but by mathematician John Allen Paulos." I doubt, however, that Greenfield thought it was reason to stop the recount.)
I was surprised and flattered, I admit, by the judge but also very distressed that my words were used to support a position with which I disagreed. Vituperative e-mails I received didn't help. Many were angry that I would support Bush. Some were clearly demented. With all due respect to these correspondents and the esteemed judge, I believed and still believe that the statistical tie in the Florida election supported a conclusion opposite to the one Wells drew. The tie seemed to lend greater weight to the fact that Al Gore received almost half a million more popular votes nationally than did Bush. If anything, the dead heat in Florida could be seen as giving Gore's national plurality the status of a moral tiebreaker. At the very least the decision of the rest of the court to allow for a manual recount should have been honored since Florida's vote was pivotal in the Electoral College. Even flipping a commemorative Gore-Bush coin in the capitol in Tallahassee would have been justified since the vote totals were essentially indistinguishable.
Historical counterfactuals are always dubious undertakings, but I doubt very much that the United States would have gone to war in Iraq had Gore been president. I also think strong environmental legislation would have been pursued and implemented under him. Was I responsible for Bush's presidency? No, of course not; butterflies can't be held responsible for the unpredictable tsunamis that in retrospect can be traced to their fluttering and to a myriad of other intermediate events. Still, every once in a while, the guiltifying thought that the unwarranted Iraq War was my fault does occur to me.
This reminds me, has anyone counted how many time Trump says I (also we) and gotten on him about it the way everyone did every time the head of our current administration gave a speech?
I’m not bashing him, because Trump could very well be the antithesis narcissist of what we are experiencing now and therefore could actually reverse what damage has been done. Wild ride ahead nonetheless.
Watch out! They’ll use common core math!
Skepticism is the order of the day.
Either I missed it at the time or had forgotten it.
Finally someone who will take the blame for everything that has happened in the last 15 years besides Bush.
From now on we just say it was Paulos’ fault.
Maybe a future POTUS will be build lots of camps and mental hospitals and deposit thousands of domestic marxists, mozlums and “environmentalists” in them.
I agree.
I remember the night of the election when Gore recanted his statement about Bush winning the election.
Whoever talked Gore out of conceding the election had to be the people who Gore knew were going to do whatever they could to get Gore elected. There was a great book, “How Gore Tried to Steal the Election”. It was very revealing with the insider info which thoroughly convinced me the left was all in for CHEATING TO WIN THE ELECTION.
You’re right .. Gore knew they were cheating to try to win.
But, we had a lawyer by the name of Ted Cruz who went before the Supreme Court and argued Bush v. Gore AND WON.
. A test: who said the following?
We are the ones we've been waiting for.
We versus I is not a reliable measure in any case...without analysis, it's a mere statistic.
And, all of this BS goes away if we revise the Electoral College vote count. Time to dump the winner take all model in favor of the truly representative model...EV is cast in favor of the candidate winning popular vote in the HOUSE DISTRICT, and the two that represent the Senators are cast in favor of the candidate winning the popular vote at the STATE level.
The WTA model horribly discounts and disenfranchises the voters outside the major metropolitan areas, across the nation. In Ohio, for instance, in 2012, the outcome would have been quite different with a District Apportioned model. Instead, we had (once again) the voters in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, and (to a lesser extent) Toledo sealing the fate of all the state’s EV. This despite the evidence that an apportioned EV would have ended up in favor of Romney over Zero.
FWIW, I give much credit to Katherine Harris' lawyer, Joe Klock, for arguing that, whatever else, voter responsibility begins when they enter the booth and read the instructions. This despite the humor of getting the Justices names wrong twice.
-PJ
Looks like Steven Wright(Comedian)!
Could be a “Brother”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJCMjJwIGxY
Well, it was my understanding that Cruz WROTE the legal paperwork. So, while the arguing before the court is important, so is the writing of the paperwork to support the argument.
I Voted for Perot in 1992. Clinton was my fault.
(Living in CA it made no difference, but it’s a Catholic Guilt kind of thing)
Do you think Salon will publish my Confession?
-PJ
Larry of the Three Stooges helped Elect Bush?
I did not know that.
Sorry .. but I just assumed he did the arguing .. since he wrote it. I never saw it written that Ted Olsen went before the court.
Ralph Nader has a better claim then him.
I and we counted separately because the we is who is actually going to do the work.
There were NO CIRCUMSTANCES that could have resulted in Gore becoming President, no matter what SCoFLA ruled and no matter what a partial recount showed.
There were some, but not all, circumstances under which Lieberman could have become Bush's VP.
The result of not following the CLEAR AND UNAMBIGUOUS directions of Article II, Amendment XII, and the Electoral Vote Counting Act was prolonged bitterness and social conflict, all of which could have been avoided by simply following the rules.
Actually, Sideshow Bob there is wrong. He isn’t why Bush won. Bush won because he got more votes in Florida.
Every recount, even by the liberal puke media, showed that to be the fact.
So this crybaby who is being published by the failed rag “Salon” is wrong.
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