An Election Reflection

By Bruce R. Andrews

In our fall issue on politics, Bruce Andrews, Robert Blaine Weaver professor emeritus of political science, predicted that George W. Bush would emerge victorious. But he was as surprised as a political novice by the way in which the victory was achieved. In this election follow-up, Andrews examines a few of the factors related to the historic outcome.

The Media and the Masses
As I explained in these pages two issues ago, the mass media’s influence on politics is substantial. The Bush triumph can be explained, at least in part, by the media’s attempt to achieve fairness through “balancing” the two candidates in a way that fatally undermined Gore. On the key test of governmental experience, Bush was only rarely made to appear a less plausible candidate than Gore, since other criteria for comparison were moved to center stage.

For example, the three presidential debates were crucial to Bush’s success but not because he showed depth of knowledge about the nation’s problems. Bush’s more casual, affable style seemed to outstrip Gore’s more intensely presented substance as a basis for voter decision. Despite Gore’s attempt in the second debate to moderate the intensity of his presentation in response to the media’s criticism of his hyperactive performance in the first debate, he was met by another barrage of fatuous media commentary. Pundits pondered why Gore had seemed so muted or even whether he had undergone another personality change! Gore’s strongest advantage—his wealth of experience in domestic and foreign federal governmental affairs—was largely neutralized through media interpretations presenting Bush as a sufficiently knowledgeable candidate with a persona more acceptable than Gore’s.

Finessing in Florida
Most observers have concluded that more Floridians intended to vote for Gore than for Bush. Gore should have gained the more than 500 votes necessary to win Florida and the election in Palm Beach County alone, where more than 3,400 people voted for Pat Buchanan (not likely, as Buchanan conceded the day after the election), probably due to the “butterfly” ballots that apparently deceived many voters. Other anomalies working against Gore included restraints on African-American voting in some Jacksonville precincts and a large number of machine-read ballots in Dade County not given recount scrutiny.
But for the most part it was the array of pro-Bush institutional forces—including his brother the governor and GOP control of the state machinery, legal efforts led by James Baker, and GOP operatives’ disruption of recount efforts that enabled Bush to win the crucial battle for the Sunshine State’s 25 electoral votes.

Adding to the momentum fed by the media was the frequent reiteration of the GOP mantra that it was Gore (not Bush) who was trying to steal the election. Finally, the five most conservative justices on what some have since characterized as the Supremely Political Court delivered the coup de grace to the Gore campaign.

This combination of forces overcame any advantages the Democrats might have achieved through the services of their brilliant lead attorney, David Boies; Gore’s popular vote majority; the fact that all seven members of the Florida Supreme Court were Democrats; the presence of some major Democratic party luminaries flown in to provide moral support and a resistant public opinion that placed as much weight on getting a fair vote count as on a speedy completion of the process.

Nader no spoiler
Many pundits have blamed Gore’s defeat on the presence of Ralph Nader on the ballot. If Nader had not been one of the minor-party candidates, Gore almost certainly would have captured the electoral votes of Florida and New Hampshire. Yet, most discussions of Nader’s “spoiler” role have not addressed the impact of the Buchanan vote on Bush. Gore carried Wisconsin and Iowa by very narrow margins, but if Buchanan had not been in the race as a right-wing alternative to Bush, it is likely that Bush would have received most of the Buchanan votes in these two states, giving him their electoral votes.

Electoral Arrangements
One of the most important reasons for the electoral quagmire of 2000 was that a very narrow margin separated popular and Electoral College voting for Bush and Gore and the contrasting result that each produced. This has produced calls for the elimination of the Electoral College. But don’t count on significant changes in this venerable institution soon! Linked as it is to core concepts of federalism and protection of lower-population states, the Electoral College is not likely to be abandoned. Proposals to modify it might be approved within a decade or two, but the lengthy process of amending the Constitution guarantees that change will be slow.

What can be done now to eliminate practices that produce voter frustration or confusion in the balloting process? Florida, in particular, may take the most publicized lead on the state level. A national commission also could provide general guidelines that states might adopt. The results should produce simpler, clearer ballots, equal voting arrangements in rich and poor precincts alike and the end of long delays in counting absentee ballots. The legacy of election 2000 may then be positive and remedial rather than negative and alienating. •