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• Saturday, June 3, 2006 10:39 AM

  Leave the Electoral College out of it

  Unlike rtanner, [We could have been hoisted on our own petard], I do not believe that the “notion of the popular will being thwarted” in 2000 is what still most bothers a majority of Gore voters (I include myself among these, though I voted absentee); though it does make the Bush usurpation an all the more bitter pill to take. When some pre-election polls indicated Kerry might win the Electoral College but lose the popular vote (which would have been the outcome with a narrow Kerry win in Ohio), I did not think it would be “our due,” but I did suggest it would be a delicious irony – much to the horror of some of my fellow Democrats Abroad who saw the need for an unambiguous victory. They were right, of course, but I have always been a sucker for irony.

  The pros and cons of the Electoral College are a fascinating discussion but totally irrelevant to the Kennedy and Manjoo articles, which deal only with the conduct of an election in a single state. As for rtanner’s hunch that “we” would be less concerned about dirty elections in Ohio if Kerry had won, that no doubt would be true of some people, but I would like to believe that many of “us” would be concerned about dirty elections regardess of who wins, and of who is dishing out the dirt. Surely in the long term the health of a democracy depends more on the integrity of the system and those who administer it, than on who does or does not win one given race, be it by means fair or foul. But I surely would be a lot less concerned about the country if Kerry had won.

  PS: Thanks to T. Middleton for the kind words

  —Air Force Vet in Amsterdam Read Air Force Vet in Amsterdam's other letters
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