How They Blew It SO WHAT, EXACTLY, had gone wrong? The bad Gore call was not because of flaws in the exit polls or a data entry error, despite dozens of inaccurate media reports to that effect. Experts agree there was no bias in the exit polls, as there had been in New Hampshire. And the Duval County mistake, made an hour after the Gore call, played no part in the blunder, VNS Editorial Director Murray Edelman explained in a confidential November 14 memo to members. Nor were other errors to blame, such as one made by a VNS staffer who inaccurately recorded figures for Lake County at 9:01 p.m. and again at 10:47 p.m., coming up with totals larger than was possible. By 11:59 p.m., the errors were corrected. Nor was it due to a VNS operator shortchanging Gore by 4,000 votes in Brevard County, punching in 93,318 instead of 97,318 at 10:13 p.m., though that error may have played a role later in the evening since it wasn't corrected until 3:51 a.m, according to a VNS memo. "http://ajr.newslink.org/ajrlisajan01.html

A War on Poverty Subtly Linked to Race The shift in antipoverty policy, though sold in race-neutral terms, is central to the racial legacy Mr. Clinton leaves. At times he spoke explicitly, even eloquently, about racial justice; he defended affirmative action; and he appointed record numbers of blacks and Latinos to positions of influence. Yet much of his work consisted of more subtle efforts to reshape racial perceptions. "Clinton understood that welfare had become a racially stigmatized program," said Theda Skocpol, a political scientist at Harvard University who studies programs for the poor. "He ended the most controversial aspects of welfare, but at the same time, he built up supports for working families. And he certainly did see this as an effort to quiet racial disputes about social supports for the vulnerable." http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/26/politics/26CLIN.html?pagewanted=all

Economic Engine for Foreign Policy "Bob came in and essentially told us that Mexico had 48 hours to live," recalled Samuel R. Berger, Mr. Clinton's national security adviser. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/28/politics/28CLIN.html?pagewanted=all

A War on Poverty Subtly Linked to Race "Clinton understood that welfare had become a racially stigmatized program," said Theda Skocpol, a political scientist at Harvard University who studies programs for the poor. "He ended the most controversial aspects of welfare, but at the same time, he built up supports for working families. And he certainly did see this as an effort to quiet racial disputes about social supports for the vulnerable." Citing initiatives from urban tax breaks to college scholarships, Hugh B. Price, president of the National Urban League, put it this way: "He has attempted to do things that have been of enormous benefit to communities of color, without labeling them that way. The idea was that you could build a stronger consensus for public policies that were cast in race-neutral terms." http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/26/politics/26CLIN.html?pagewanted=all

The Wisdom to Let the Good Times Roll Mr. Clinton's fiscal policy served as a laboratory for a change in economic thought. For decades, governments had operated in the belief that running deficits was often good because it would stimulate activity and employment in an economy running at less than its potential. But that traditional assumption, based on the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes, has been turned on its head, at least in the United States. Deficits are now considered growth-sapping, draining capital from the private sector, pushing up interest rates and creating uncertainty on Wall Street. Balanced budgets � or better yet, surpluses � are believed to hold down interest rates, free capital for the private sector and reassure investors about long-term economic stability. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/25/politics/25CLIN.html?pagewanted=alll

An Interview With Bill Clinton http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/24/politics/24CTEX.html?pagewanted=all

Failing Farmers Learn to Profit From Federal Aid "So maybe it is time we had some intellectual honesty in farm policy," Mr. Glickman said. "Nobody talked about this during the presidential election. And you rarely hear it spoken in Congress. But these farm payments have become truly rural support payments." http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/24/national/24RURA.html?pagewanted=all

The Clinton Legacy: Striking Strengths, Glaring Shortcomings Mr. Clinton has lived more lives than most politicians ever dream of having, and skirted more deaths, only to rise again. Throughout his tenure, voters consistently said they did not particularly trust Mr. Clinton personally, but they trusted him to look out for their interests, and his job approval ratings seemed to rise with his legal bills. He used surpassing gifts of innate empathy to find a new presidential style of relating to the public, and to forge an extraordinary connection with ordinary Americans, especially minorities. If the Constitution had not barred him from running again, polls suggest he might well be preparing for a third term. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/24/politics/24CLIN.html?pagewanted=all

The 2000 Election "I was not elected�" were the truest words from Mr. Bush. Will he really serve your interests? Does he expect our respect without respecting us? http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/politics/14BUSH.html

News Analysis: A Balancing Act of Sorts And even as Mr. Bush was hailing Mr. Ashcroft as a man of rectitude "guided by principle, not by politics," his opponents were already turning to issues like Mr. Ashcroft's role in persuading the Senate to vote last year against Ronnie White, a nominee for a federal judgeship, to question Mr. Bush. Mr. Ashcroft described Mr. White, the first black judge on Missouri's State Supreme Court as "pro-criminal" and as an "activist" jurist. President Clinton at the time called the Senate vote as a "disgraceful act" tinged by racial considerations. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/23/politics/23ASSE.html?pagewanted=all

A Stalwart of the Right: John David Ashcroft Mr. Ashcroft is Mr. Bush's most conservative appointment so far and, if confirmed by the Senate, in what could be bruising confirmation hearings, he would be the most outspokenly ideological attorney general since President Ronald Reagan's era of social conservatism at the Justice Department. A pro-death-penalty, anti-abortion Republican senator from Missouri who lost a re-election campaign last month, Mr. Ashcroft's selection raises the possibility of potentially serious fights over the myriad flash points of legal policy, like judicial selection, civil rights, criminal justice and antitrust matters. Mr. Ashcroft shares Mr. Bush's admiration for Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court. Mr. Ashcroft praised Justice Thomas in a recent article in the law review of Regent University, which is operated by the evangelist Pat Robertson. He said that Justice Thomas was a leader on the court and a powerful defender of respecting the limits of federal power. "Too many judges believe they can legislate from the bench," Mr. Ashcroft complained. In contrast, he said that Justice Thomas subordinates his personal views to the Constitution. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/23/politics/23ASHC.html?pagewanted=all

New Privacy Rules Are Challenged Leaders of the health care industry said today that they would immediately ask President-elect George W. Bush to revise new rules issued by President Clinton to protect the privacy of medical records. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/21/national/21PRIV.html?pagewanted=all

The Powell Perplex I had mixed feelings. One was relief: Mr. Powell's answers to reporters' questions demonstrated a sharp and intuitive grasp of global issues. Whether you agree with him or not, this is a serious man. My other feeling, though, was: I sure hope Colin Powell is always right in his advice to Mr. Bush � because he so towered over the president-elect, who let him answer every question on foreign policy, that it was impossible to imagine Mr. Bush ever challenging or overruling Mr. Powell on any issue. Mr. Powell is three things Mr. Bush is not � a war hero, worldly wise and beloved by African-Americans. That combination gives him a great deal of leverage. It means he can never be fired. It means Mr. Bush can never allow him to resign in protest over anything. It will be interesting to see who emerges to balance Mr. Powell's perspective. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/opinion/19FRIE.html

Transcript of a Live Discussion With Rev. Jesse Jackson Reverend Jesse Jackson joined a live online audience to answer reader questions and discuss the rifts between African-Americans and the Republican Party. A transcript of this event follows. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/18/politics/18TRAN.html?pagewanted=all

Florida Ballots Are Getting New Scrutiny, by the Media While at least one news organization said it wanted to count the ballots and see which candidate would have won, other news organizations said they had no intention of going that far. The goal for some here is to provide detailed descriptions of the untallied ballots for their readers and viewers and let them decide how to add them up. With 67 Florida counties and tens of thousands of uncounted ballots, the process that began here today may take several weeks. "What we want to do is show the general public what is on these ballots," said Martin Baron, executive editor of The Miami Herald, a newspaper represented here today. "I don't think we are going to count ballots as such, but we will record, document and tabulate them. Readers can draw their own conclusions about what qualifies as a vote." The reporters and editors who inspected ballots today included representatives of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post. They started in the warehouse here because Broward County election officials became the first in the state to open some 6,600 ballots for public examination. The ballots, stored in metal boxes stacked in the county warehouse, included only those that did not register a choice for president, those known as the undervotes. The undervotes were at the core of the post-election struggle between President-elect George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. Representatives for Mr. Gore argued that vote- counting machines around the state ignored votes legitimately cast for each candidate, while spokesmen for Mr. Bush argued that standards for counting such ballots were too varied and too subjective for accuracy. Mr. Gore believed that the uncounted ballots might have cost him Florida's 25 electoral votes and hence the election. Canvassing boards in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and other Florida counties hand-counted all or some of the undervotes, but the United States Supreme Court stopped a statewide hand count of undervotes, saying among other things that the standards used to count them differed too much from county to county. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/19/politics/19BROW.html?pagewanted=all

Armed to Send Chads Into Voting Oblivion Americans have quibbled over voting methods since landowners in the 13 colonies first spoke their candidates' names to an election officer. By 1888, voters were marking their first secret ballots. Like voice votes, the paper ballots still used by 1 percent of voters are vulnerable to misreadings or mischief. The modern voting machine industry was born in 1869, when Thomas A. Edison patented a mechanical device intended for members of Congress. In 1892, Lockport, N.Y., held the first public election using a lever- operated machine, made by a Rochester safemaker, Jacob H. Myers, according to Sequoia Pacific Voting Equipment. Sequoia inherited the company that Myers created in 1895 to "protect mechanically the voter from rascaldom." A Century later, the rascaldom and error-prone systems persist. The counties and municipalities that oversee elections in the United States have patched together a quilt of varied voting systems. Each has problems. The most- often reviled culprit in the 2000 election was the punch-card ballot used by one in three voters. Voters pick candidates by poking out pencil-point sized holes � or chads, in election parlance � in the ballot. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/17/technology/17ELEC.html?pagewanted=all

Chicago Tribune | News - Columnists - Clarence Page TURNING `EQUAL PROTECTION' UPSIDE DOWN Al Gore sounded so gracious. Even though he did not agree with it, he said he would abide by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that virtually handed the presidential election to his opponent, George W. Bush. Well, not so fast there, Mr. Future Former Vice President. You can be as gracious as you want, but some of us still have a quarrel with the way the Supremes arrived at that monumental decision. http://chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/page/

U.S. to Free Palestinian Held 3 Years on Secret Evidence The release of the immigrant, Mazen Al-Najjar, a Tampa resident and a former adjunct professor at the University of South Florida, is the latest in a string of terrorism cases that have unraveled and exposed justice officials to charges of bias against Arab or Muslim immigrants. The case has also brought new scrutiny of the anti-terrorism bill approved by Congress in 1996 after the World Trade Center bombing, which allowed the Immigration and Naturalization Service to arrest or detain noncitizens, without identifying either their accuser or the evidence against them. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/16/world/16SECR.html

Medal of Honor Well, Wednesday night, in his concession speech, Mr. Gore took a bullet for the country. The shot was fired at the heart of the nation by the five conservative justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, with their politically inspired ruling that installed George W. Bush as president. The five justices essentially said that it was more important that Florida meet its self-imposed deadline of Dec. 12 for choosing a slate of electors than for the Florida Supreme Court to try to come up with a fair and uniform way to ensure that every possible vote in Florida was counted � and still meet the real federal deadline, for the nationwide Electoral College vote on Dec. 18. The five conservative justices essentially ruled that the sanctity of dates, even meaningless ones, mattered more than the sanctity of votes, even meaningful ones. The Rehnquist court now has its legacy: "In calendars we trust." http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/15/opinion/15FRIE.html

Chicago Tribune | News - Columnists - Eric Zorn

WE'LL HAIL THE NEW CHIEF WHEN WE'RE READY

Speaking for those of us who have not been cutting out recent Tribune editorials on the Florida mess and happily affixing them to the fridge with magnets in the shape of little elephants, let me say this: George W. Bush will be the president of the United States. But we will not be badgered, belittled or soothed into accepting him, uniting behind him, granting him legitimacy or respecting Tuesday's ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, no matter how many contemptuous, argumentative e-mails we get or how many political leaders, ours and theirs, suggest that we take the high road. We're mad as hell. Just like U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, we pointedly decline to affix "respectfully" to our dissenting view--that powerful partisans abused their authority and discretion in order to make sure that possibly decisive ballots were not examined and counted (the name as published has been corrected in this text). http://chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/zorn/

The 2000 Election

Not Selected, Perhaps Elected Gore Chooses America

Mr. Gore said, "I do have one regret, that I didn't get the chance to stay and fight for the American people over the next four years, especially for those who feel their voices have not been heard. I heard you and I will not forget." He added: "I've seen America in this campaign and I like what I see. It's worth fighting for � and that's a fight I'll never stop." http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/politics/14GORE.html?pagewanted=all

The 2000 Election

Not a President-elect, but a President-select!

Mr. Bush must live with the knowledge that he won Florida by just 537 votes out of 6 million cast, with a manual recount abandoned, thousands of ballots short of completion, at the order of a court split 5 to 4. Many people noted today that he would take office as the 43rd president by a margin of a single judicial vote, and some people, politicians as well as journalists, vowed to complete the recount on their own. If such a recount showed Mr. Gore the "winner," it could destabilize the Bush administration to a degree. But the historical record shows that narrow victories can grow into commanding political power; Lyndon B. Johnson's entire subsequent career rested upon the shaky base of a tainted Senate victory in Texas by just 87 votes. Rev. Jesse Jackson, � compared Mr. Bush's tactics to those of Slobodan Milosevic and the court's decision to that in the Dred Scott caseof 1857, which held that slaves were not citizens. "Illegitimacy clouds his presidency," Mr. Jackson said of Mr. Bush. "Legitimacy comes from the consent of the governed, and he lacks that." http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/politics/14ASSE.html?pagewanted=all

The Bloom Is Off the RobeGarbage by any other name still stinks.

By Single Vote, Justices End Recount, Blocking Gore After 5-Week Struggle Justice John Paul Stevens said the court's action "can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land." His dissenting opinion, also signed by Justices Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, added: "It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/13/politics/13SCOT.html?pagewanted=all

SUPREME COURT ELECTS THE PRESIDENT! Orchestrates "Velvet Legal Coup" "However, even as I accept and will abide by the decision, I also -- with every bone in my body and every ounce of moral strength in my soul -- strongly and vigorously disagree with it. In third world countries when democratically cast votes are not counted, or the person who most likely lost wins in a highly questionable manner, we usually refer to that as a coup d'etat -- the overthrow of a government, usually by a small group of persons. All legal votes in Florida were not counted. If they had been counted, there is at least a strong possibility that Vice President Gore would have received the most votes in Florida as he did in the country -- which is why the Bush people did not want the votes counted. Even more important than partisan politics, the votes should have been counted in the name of democracy in order to give the maximum amount of credibility and legitimacy to the eventual winner. What we have just witnessed is a Supreme Court that was used as a willing tool of the Bush campaign.

The Supreme Court of the Republican Party declares George W. Bush President-select.

Raising the Stakes That is what has now been thrown into question: the public belief that the court is "detached, dispassionate and trustworthy." The court's order stopping the recount of ballots in Florida � a 5-to-4 decision along ideological lines � looked to many Americans like a partisan intervention to save the day for Governor Bush. The Bush forces had worked for a month to prevent a manual recount of doubtful ballots, evidently in the belief that counting them would put Mr. Gore ahead. Now, just after recounts had begun, the five more conservative members of the Supreme Court stopped the process. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/11/opinion/11LEWI.html

To Any Lengths Mr. Bush and his party have made it clear to the country and the world that their greatest fear � the scenario they dread above all others � is that somehow, someway, all of the votes legally cast in Florida would actually be counted. They have demonstrated their willingness to go to almost any lengths to prevent that from happening. And that resolve was given the unfortunate imprimatur of the nation's highest court on Saturday when, in a 5-to-4 decision, the court ordered the hand recounts in Florida to stop. But the Bush team's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments this morning, is just one prong of the G.O.P.'s dangerous assault on the spirit of democracy that has served this nation so well for so long. The truth is that while Mr. Bush and the Republicans will be more than happy to accept a final Supreme Court ruling in their favor, they are already prepared to take extraordinary steps to circumvent a ruling that goes against them.

Many Charges Are Dismissed In G.O.P. Convention Protests Essentially it was a war on free speech

Many Charges Are Dismissed In G.O.P. Convention Protests Lawyers for the protesters arrested during the convention said the court results confirmed their complaint at the time that the arrests by the Philadelphia police were a pre- emptive street-sweeping tactic designed to stifle lawful protest and head off distractions from the convention agenda. Most of the protesters, who were interested in a variety of causes, including capital punishment and labor conditions in a global economy, spent a week or more in jail and were released after the convention, said the R2K Legal Collective, the main defense group for the demonstrators.

Many Charges Are Dismissed In G.O.P. Convention Protests the city of Philadelphia's criminal cases have been collapsing against many of the 391 people arrested last August as they gathered for protests and civil disobedience outside the Republican National Convention. Sixty-nine cases have been dismissed in the last two weeks as prosecutors and the police have failed to convince the courts that there was any evidence tying those arrested to crimes. In one mass trial, 38 of 43 cases were dismissed when the prosecution failed to prove misdemeanor charges by submitting videotapes of crowds of protesters. The court demanded specific testimony from arresting officers about witnessing each person's alleged wrongdoing.

The 2000 Election Justice Stevens identified three principles he said the order today had violated: respect for rulings by state courts on questions of state law; the cautious exercise of the United States Supreme Court's jurisdiction on matters that largely concern other branches of government; and declining to exercise jurisdiction over federal questions "that were not fairly presented to the court whose judgment is being reviewed." "The majority has acted unwisely," he said.

Text "All Americans can live with votes counted for Gov. George W. Bush. But our democracy cannot live if the votes of the American people are not counted. An uncounted vote says to the American people that THEY don't count. "If the Supreme Court's actions -- whatever that may ultimately turn out to be -- in the end, prohibit all votes cast from being fully, fairly and inclusively counted (to the degree humanly possible), then the Supreme Court will have discredited itself, lost much of its moral and legal authority, the Justices themselves will have contributed mightily to undermining the very institution they represent, and undermined the rule of law that they are sworn to uphold on behalf of the American people,"

An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera Instructions concerning ballots ... Hartford, Conn., 1898. -- Piece 1 of 2, Full Text

Fair and Square Since the Civil War, all states have chosen electors by popular vote. And the 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, refers to state elections of presidential electors. Even if a legislative decision to choose the 25 electors stood up legally, it would surely have grave political consequences � and embarrassing ones for Governor Bush. He would be asking to be named president, though he lost the popular vote nationally and in Florida, because a legislature controlled by his party and a governor who is his brother overrode the voters. Longstanding Florida law has expressly given to the voters the choice of the state's presidential electors. To change that law after the election would look grotesquely partisan. Republican tactics before, during and after this election already have a rank odor. For example, the secretary of state hired a private company to list "possible felons" and others who should be struck from the voting rolls � and thousands were struck though they were not felons. Blacks maintain that some of them were intimidated out of voting by a police roadblock on Election Day.

U.S. Supreme Court Orders Florida Recounts to Stop About 15 minutes before the Supreme Court order, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, denied a request by the Bush lawyers to halt the recount. But the court said said that the Florida secretary of state could not certify the results of the recount until the Supreme Court ruled in the case.

All the political stuff is moving here.

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