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UNITED NATIONS — A hard fought and contentious Presidential election campaign has ended inconclusively with a photo finish -- and a blizzard of contradictions and accusations prompting rollercoaster emotions. As importantly, the still awaited outcome has rocked Stockmarkets and indeed elicited a smirk to two overseas.
While the candidates are separated by a razor-thin margin in both the popular vote and the final electoral tally to win, political passions have gone into overdrive, bypassing civility, propriety, and dangerously perhaps, the will of the American people.
Faced with the Florida fiasco, both Democrats and Republicans have opened a political Pandora's Box which will be hard to close. This is to say that recounts, legal wrangling, and "revelations" will add up to mistrust, misinformation, and ultimately misgivings over whatever the outcome. As to the numerous Florida recounts--especially in selective Gore stronghold counties--one should not underestimate the opportunity for mistakes, shenanigans, and foul play in a process easily flawed.
Given the white heat emotions, the accusations and mean spiritedness initiated by the Gore campaign in the wake of Governor Bush's narrow Florida win, no matter who emerges the victor and goes on to the White House, he goes under a black cloud. For the loser, a plethora of conspiracy theories of "who stole Florida" (aka Chicago's Cook County 1960) will emerge as a theme replacing the endless scandals plaguing President Clinton.
But don't rush to blame the voters. Throughout election night, the TV networks first mistakenly called and awarded Florida and its 25 electoral votes to Vice President Gore, thus causing a chain reaction pileup of statistical errors in the other networks. The careless miscalls caused not only a mood swing, but clearly suppressed Republican voter turnout in the Florida panhandle, in the state's other time zone.
Two hours later, the networks in their infinite wisdom pulled Florida from the Gore column and put it back into play--thus placing the elsewhere gaining George W. Bush into striking distance of winning the White House.
As the evening progressed, between 2:22-2:30A.M. the Networks proclaimed Governor George W. Bush the President-elect, having won Florida! Incomprehensibly, Americans awoke the next morning only to discover to their chagrin or jubilation that the Sunshine State had yet again swung back to undecided and the Presidential race was yet again in play! Let the true games begin!
A seesaw of political emotions, caused largely by media miscalls triggering expectations, caused collective angst. Now demagoguery, squalid street theater tactics, and sour grapes whisper campaigns are aimed to disparage if not demonize the Bush team as somehow trying to "steal" the vote. The left eagerly prepares to use classic agitprop tactics to cast a shadow of political illegitimacy on Governor Bush.
Elections can be close. Forgetting Florida's small margin favoring George W. Bush, other states such as New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin have a similar statistical dead-heats. People tend to forget, whether a candidate wins by one, ten, one hundred, or one thousand votes, he wins. One candidate must win and one must loose.
Overseas elections can been extremely close too--last year in Austria, national elections saw a 200 vote difference from the party which would form the government and the junior partner. In Israel, elections often produce agonizingly close results.
Interestingly at the UN a few days after the inconclusive outcome, Cuban diplomats were circulating an editorial from the communist daily Granma branding the U.S. a "Banana Republic" and hinting that the hidden hand of the Cuban Americans were manipulating the results to avenge Elian!
Britain's Sunday Telegraph stated editorially, "This farcical impasse would be nobody's business but the American people's, or rather the mere 51 percent who voted, were it not for the unique role which the U.S. plays in world affairs."
The Electoral College, while glibly criticized, has proven its efficacy and enduring brilliance. The Constitution established the Electoral mechanism precisely to allow smaller states equal representation and weight in voting where a "tyranny of the majority" could otherwise swamp them. New York Senator-elect Hillary Clinton, in a puff of arrogance, made, as her first priority when going to Washington, to Change the Constitution and abolish the Electoral College!
The U.S. faces political turmoil but not yet a constitutional crisis. After what seemed like an endless Presidential election campaign, Americans still await the verdict from the Pandora's Box.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
