Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
Gore never got a full state recount.
Gore didn't want a full state recount...the legal maneuvering of selecting counties favorable to a particular outcome is what sunk his case.
No. What sunk Gore was the fact that there was no statewide standard for determining what constituted a valid vote combined with the fact that it would have been impossible to do a statewide recount within the time limits imposed by the state election board. Even had Gore sought a statewide recount he would have lost, because each county had its own standards and the Republicans - using the same "equal protection" argument - would have appealed to the USSC to halt the re-count. Presumably, the USSC would have made the same decision, stated that there was insufficient time to come up with a consistent standard and perform a full recount based on that standard, and essentially awarded the election the Bush.
Gore was fvcked by the system in place in Florida, not by anything HE did.
No one thinks Coleman doesn't have the RIGHT to pursue this. But note that Republican partisans somehow think Gore was unreasonable and Coleman is the voice of reason.
And Democrat partisans believe Gore was reasonable and Coleman is simply acting to block the inevitable seating of Franken.
In retrospect, Gore's claim WAS reasonable. Under several ballot criteria, he won. Under several other criteria, Bush won. The ultimate arbiter, unfortunately, was the time limit. If Gore had had even four weeks for an eventual full-state recount (and note that we're now at six MONTHS with Coleman) with a consistent ballot standard (and that's what ultimately would have happened, regardless of partisanship), there's a very good chance Gore rather than Bush would have won.
Where Coleman's case is different is that he DID get a full recount, with a consistent standard. And ballots were accepted or rejected using a consistent standard. But Coleman wants a DIFFERENT ballot-acceptance standard, one that he doesn't have a chance in hell of getting.
All that Coleman has left now is the complaint that a few thousand rejected ballots (rejected by the election board, and upheld by the courts) should have been accepted.
In an election seperated by only a few hundred ballots, the rejection of a few thousand ballots certainly impacts the outcome...now, if the rejection of those ballots are within the domain of MN state election law, Coleman really can't appeal to retroactively fix a broken process. It is for a higher court to decide if the election board, and the current ruling, are correct.
Even partisans agree that the ballots that Coleman wants included would probably not allow him to make up the difference. This isn't about Coleman actually winning. It's about delaying Franken's seating in the Senate. Coleman knows he can't win.
And the Minnesota process wasn't broken. The standards were well defined and the process was orderly. The only "broken" thing is Coleman's insistence that HIS standard for accepting or rejecting absentee ballots (before even counting them) should be used. The court ruling just made says he's full of sh!t. How is the "process" broken?
Is it for "the good of the people of Minnesota" that Coleman deprives Minnesotans of their second vote in the Senate?
This election is not about the people of MN, and everyone knows that...this seat is for control of the Senate, and neither side is really acting in the best interest of MN.
Franken is acting out of party interest as much as Coleman. The difference is that Franken is actually the winner, and he's not trying to block the true outcome of the election.
Speaking for myself as a hard-left liberal, if the situation were reversed and Franken were behaving this way, I'd think it was outrageous.
You Sir are then the exception to the norm.
It's one thing to want one's own views to hold sway. It's another thing to delude oneself into believing that any actions and attitudes that further one's own views are reasonable. That's called being blinded by self-interest.
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