Democrats unsure if they should revisit vote dispute (Obsession, Thy Name Is DEMOCRAT)

Miami Herald ^ | December 7, 2003 | PETER WALLSTEN

[PJ-Comix]

ORLANDO - Florida Democratic activists remain angry over the 2000 election, but as they heard from the party's major presidential candidates this weekend, a brewing rift emerged over how to approach the 2004 campaign: Fume over the past or move on?

The fuming was palpable Saturday, as thousands of delegates to the state party's annual convention erupted in laughter and hisses at the very sight of a photo of former Secretary of State Katherine Harris. They jumped to their feet when former U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek of Miami said she wanted ''revenge'' and Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said, ``Al Gore won the state of Florida in 2000 and we should never forget it.''

But, in one of the first public signs of disagreement within the party ranks, those emotions were tempered when one of the leading presidential hopefuls appealed to the activists to sing a new tune.

U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri didn't mention the recount in his address to the convention Saturday and appeared visibly uneasy when reporters later asked him about it -- prompting a grudging acknowledgement that Gore may have won and a demand that Democrats get over it.

''I'm not an expert, and I didn't study every ballot,'' Gephardt said. ``While I think it's unfortunate, we have to look to the future.''

The diverging approaches underscore a broader national debate within the party -- highlighted by the fast rise of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean to front-runner status -- over whether to excite the base with red-meat rhetoric or woo moderate swing voters who probably don't obsess about the 2000 election.

Dean makes the recount a staple of nearly every speech he delivers, including Saturday, when he declared, ``This time, the one with the most votes is going to win the White House.''

The convention marked a bit of a Florida coming-out for Dean, who has made limited appearances in the state. But he drew 2,000 supporters to pack the convention hall by spending tens of thousands of dollars and kicking his extensive e-mail network into action.

MIXED SIGNALS

Some Democrats view the 2000 election as a weapon to mobilize a base that is already angry over the war in Iraq and President Bush's environmental and economic policies.

Several new polls give the Democratic faithful hope, including a survey conducted for The Herald and the St. Petersburg Times showing that registered voters are worried about rising troop casualties and are increasingly less favorable about Bush's job performance.

Those numbers, gathered Dec. 1-3, come despite Bush's Thanksgiving Day trip to Baghdad and just as at least one liberal advocacy group, Moveon.org, has begun airing ads in Florida critical of the president's Iraq policies.

''There are people who say we need to get over it,'' said Florida Democratic Party Chairman Scott Maddox. ``Well, I'm never going to get over it. We had a presidential election stolen in my home state.''

But while Democratic activists seem unified in their anger, they must grapple with whether focusing on the recount mobilizes their base at the expense of alienating those moderate voters.

Republicans also are sending mixed signals about the recount, some eager for Democrats to make themselves appear extreme while others fear it could spur massive turnout among core groups such as black voters, many of whom felt disenfranchised three years ago.

White House officials are scrambling to dissuade Harris, the former Florida secretary of state and now a congresswoman from Sarasota, from running for the U.S. Senate next year, afraid that her name on the ballot would hurt Bush's own reelection and boost Democrats' fundraising nationwide.

The Herald poll showed Harris with a wide lead among GOP voters over her potential rivals, including the White House's favored candidate, U.S. Housing Secretary Mel Martinez.

But Republican strategist Ralph Reed showed up at the Walt Disney World convention center Saturday and called the Democrats' focus on 2000 a mistake.

Nevertheless, in a Florida crowd that was clearly happy to relive the recount fight that now makes the state Ground Zero in presidential politics, 2000 was a favored touchstone for most of the candidates.

Some delegates donned buttons that read ''537,'' referring to Bush's margin of victory after the U.S. Supreme Court halted the recount.

''That was the official Harris total,'' said Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. ``But every Florida Democrat, every Democrat in the United States of America knows that that number is nonsense. We had more votes. We won.''

VOTING MACHINES

Several candidates riled the crowd with questions about whether the new touch-screen voting machines adopted since 2000 in Florida and other states can be trusted without a paper record. Edwards and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts both took issue with the head of Diebold Election Systems, the maker of some touch screen voting machines and a major contributor to Bush's reelection campaign who wrote a letter pledging to work to keep Ohio in the GOP column.

''The touch screen machines can be as bad as the butterfly ballot,'' Edwards said, demanding that Bush return the Diebold campaign contributions.

Outside the convention hall, delegates examined a voting machine that keeps a written record -- a goal that has become a key issue for the state's Democrats wary of more problems.

''We know what happened in Florida before, and it's possible it will happen again without a paper trail that accounts for every vote,'' Kerry said.

The question proved awkward for one new Democrat.

Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, the former NATO commander, compared his work liberating Bosnia and Kosovo to the need for fixing Florida's voting problems, saying, ``I never thought the front line for democracy would be in the United States in the beautiful state of Florida. But it is.''

`POLARIZING'

After reporters asked why he didn't raise those concerns in 2000, Clark said ''I wasn't a public figure at the time.'' He noted that he was writing a book then but considered the election result ``one of the most shocking moments of my life.''

When asked why he spoke six months later to an Arkansas GOP dinner, Clark said: ``I believed that this country needed to move on, just like Vice President Gore said. It's George W. Bush who hasn't let the country move on, who's been a polarizing and divisive influence and I won't forget this election for that reason.''

[PJ-Comix]

''There are people who say we need to get over it,'' said Florida Democratic Party Chairman Scott Maddox. ``Well, I'm never going to get over it. We had a presidential election stolen in my home state.''

NURSE! Patient needs a lithium treatment to treat his his obsession!

[Libloather]

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said, ``Al Gore won the state of Florida in 2000 and we should never forget it.''

We'llmoveonwhenwe'regoodandready.org...

[areafiftyone]

Gephardt was right in saying get over it. But the Dems aren't biting. They actually like being angry and think it will bring in more votes and get people on their side. Actually it is turning more people off who want to go on. Stupid Dems.

[OpusatFR]

Don't throw me in that brier patch!

[Howlin]

Revisit?

They left?

HAHAHAHA

[areafiftyone]

Exactly. But maybe its better for us that they look like raging idiots!

[Rome2000]

``But every Florida Democrat, every Democrat in the United States of America knows that that number is nonsense. We had more votes. We won.''

Then why isn't that pyschotic dickhead algore sitting in the Oval Office.

[freebilly]

Please, Oh Please, Please, Please, PLLLLEEEEEASSSSE, let the DNC continue to hang onto the 2000 election!!!!!

[PJ-Comix]

Exactly. But maybe its better for us that they look like raging idiots!

I am convinced that after the next election when Bush is re-elected that the hardcore Democrats will go clinically insane in a very public way. We already had a hint of this when the DUmmies went bonkers after the 2002 election.

[freebilly]

But every Florida Democrat, every Democrat in the United States of America knows that that number is nonsense. We had more votes. We won.

And I proved, by geometric logic, that someone had stolen the strawberries....

[resistmuch]

I think the Dems should hit this issue hard. Their whole campaign should be one long, strident whine about an election they lost four years ago. And Hillary should be their candidate!

Yes, I would strongly advise them to do these things.

[Paul Atreides]

W is fighting terrorists in 2004 and the Dims are still whining about failing to steal the presidency in 2000. If only these people could muster 1/10 the hatred they have of our president and direct it at a pair of murdering butchers.

[randog]

Gephardt was right in saying get over it. But the Dems aren't biting. They actually like being angry and think it will bring in more votes and get people on their side. Actually it is turning more people off who want to go on. Stupid Dems.

You got that right. A prez election is decided by the independents, i.e. folks that'll vote for the candidate they feel is best suited for the office, regardless of party affiliation. Telling independents that "We wuz robbed!" does nothing to convince them to vote for your guy. Seriously, what is an independent going to say--"Oh, OK, I'll go ahead then and throw my vote your way just because you guys don't think it's fair."?

Speaking of convincing indies to vote for your guy, I really can't blame the dems for trotting out the old 'we wuz robbed' yarn. What else do they have? The economy? Nope, picking up steam and Bush is getting credit. The war on terrorism? Nope, Bush has national security locked up and the only place left to go is soft on terrorism, something that will alienate the indies. You can't talk about education and medicare anymore unless you mention Bush and republicans. Gay marriage or guns? Political suicide. The only thing the dems have left is the 'hate Bush' mantra, and that's not a political platform.

One last note.......I read an article a few days back about the political fallout from the 2000 election in Florida. Seems that the Florida R's have picked up considerably more seats in state and federal government since then. And now I read that the dems want to continue with their present course. You're right A51--the dems are stupid.

[optimistically_conservative]

And now, this blast from the past:

"After starting a judicial fight in Florida and accusing the U.S. Supreme Court, Florida Governor, and Florida Secretary of State of partisan theft of the 2000 presidential election - the Democratic electorate and poll workers in Florida proved in 2002 that incompetence, not partisanship, was really at issue."

---

In eerily related news:

Democrats also find themselves running to the Democrat majority state Supreme Court to circumvent New Jersey election law to replace their recently unelectable candidate more than two weeks after the September 16th cutoff.

---

Yup, let's re-live 2000 and 2002 in 2004.

It just get's better with age.

[NittanyLion]

Only the Democrat Party could field a slate of candidates so pathetic, so immature, and so idiotic that Dick Gephardt would be made to look like a statesman.

[PJ-Comix]

2004 Democrat Convention Keynote Address:

"We will NEVER forget how the 2000 election was stolen from us in Florida. NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! We will think about it all day and into the night even when we are sleeping. We will rage about it OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!! We will OBSESS about it no matter how much it makes us look like a bunch of whining LOSERS! We MUST defeat Chimpy or the stolen 2000 election will act like acidic bile and eat away at our insides. We MUST win in 2004 to AVENGE the stolen 2000 election and then we're gonna throw those damn smirking Republicans in jail and let them ROT! We MUST win because if we don't we WILL GO NUTS AND GO ON A FRIGGIN' RAMPAGE IN THE STREETS! WE MUST WIN TO AVENGE THE STOLEN 2000 ELECTION!!!! Never forget! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!"

"Thank you Al Gore for that wonderful keynote address!"

[Democratshavenobrains]

Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over, hoping for a different result? The Dems concentrated on this stolen election crap for the 2002 election, and look what it got them. Jeb Bush in a landslide.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Yes, DNC, make election 2000 your platform for 2004. (^:

We have a new military base at Homestead ~ bye bye Puerto Rico ~ joining the many other military bases in Florida, filled with the only real mass-disenfranchised Florida voters ~ risking their lives for even Algore's freedom.

Our local SW Fla. TV news reporters are beaming, promoting the Orlando Dem. convention.

I send 'em this: Clintons and other left-wing liars [what I KNOW about election 2000]

I e-mail the press, often. The above 2000 piece irks the press even more than my second least popular mailing:  Proud to Have Liberated Iraq ~ Barry Farber. (A British Parliament member responded to this Farber essay twice. Chirac and Hillary would have been pleased. Our war is global.)

[JSteff]

"disenfranchised"

God I am sick of hearing this. In most of America someone or some agency will come and pick you up to vote. If you didn't vote you didn't want to. No other reason.

[Go Gordon]

According to the Florida State Dept web page, here is the voter registration data for the 2000 general election, 2002 primary and 2002 general election.

2000 General Pubbies 3,430,238
2002 Primary Pubbies 3,553,349
2002 General Pubbies 3,599,053

2000 General RATs 3,803,081
2002 Primary RATs 3,898,413
2002 General RATs 3,958,910

Looks like the Pubbies picked up about 20,000 more than the RATs, but I don't think it includes the Homestead military added per your post.