Geof BrownPERHAPS THE most telling observation about the improbable US Presidential Elections (according to one commentator) is this: if a novelist had submitted a story with the actual scenarios of the still unfolding outcome (as I write) any publisher would have rejected it as so much trash. To hazard a guess as to the final outcome even now, one day before this article is published, might well place one in the category of writing and journalistic idiots.
Certainly a whole bunch of hitherto respected TV journalists have been cast as non-credible idiots, forever tainted by the Florida fiasco. It is back to the drawing board for those who have been using sociological models of behaviour patterns to predict voting behaviour. By and large those predictors have enjoyed a good deal of success and credibility. But their errors were fairly easily buried when the margins of victory or loss were pretty large.
The Florida caper has changed all that. For here the thin margins have accounted for the see-saw results now favouring Bush, now favouring Gore, now favouring neither; all we were finally left with was best described as a 'cliffhanger'. The only question then, despite indications of a Bush squeak-through, was which one of the candidates would fall off the cliff. And uncertainty compounded uncertainty with the Broward county ballot confusion raising the spectre of court action which could stretch the final decision into weeks instead of days.
But there is a salutary lesson arising from the imbroglio. It lies in the matter of choosing between greater and lesser evils. In a perfect world, one should choose no evil at all. And in fact, Ralph Nader with typical purity, just about made such a declaration. But the world is not perfect. Any number of purist Green Party voters who passionately did not want to see Bush elected but also saw Gore as a lesser evil not worth supporting, will now wake-up to realise that they did in fact vote for George W. Bush.
And they deserve to mourn. For ironically, it was Al Gore who historically has pushed the cause for the environment long before Nader thought of forming a Green Party. Gore even wrote a book about it, never mind that, as a pragmatic politician, his performance in office has disappointed the purists of the Nader persuasion. So if the final vote outcome delivers Bush instead of Gore, the Nader faction will have reaped poetic justice.
An olive branch
There are lessons here too for both Gore and Bush factions. That Gore won the national vote majority despite all but one of the major polls predicting otherwise, speaks to the folly of taking the political base of a candidate's support for granted. There can be little doubt that it was the frenetic, last-minute push of Gore to get out the base-support vote of blacks and Latinos, which sent him ahead. Had he not taken the traditional Democratic support for granted, Gore should have sought to energise his base much sooner and to greater effect. It could have made the winning difference.
Bush on the other hand, did a great job of energising the Republican political base, all the while holding out an olive branch to Democratic support, claiming to be a uniter not a divider. But Bush became smug in the last few days, brimming with confidence because the polls consistently showed him ahead. Like so many politicians who rely on polls and huge crowds at rallies instead of solid grass-roots work, Bush and his crew grew comfort and solace from reading the entrails so to speak. He eased up.
And so Gore eased him out of the national lead by working on the ground up to the last minute, finally taking nothing for granted. Clichés often contain pearls of wisdom. "It ain't over till it's over" is one such. Bush may well come to rue the ruse of upstaging Clinton and Gore in their home-states of Arkansas and Tennessee, neglecting the big vote catches of California and New York.
Finally, many believe that with both houses of Congress almost 50-50 in composition, nothing of substance will get done post-election. I believe otherwise. For each party will be looking at the next Congressional election to turn the tide. Each will therefore seek to bring bills and propose measures which will make it look progressive to the electorate. And each will seek to blame the other side for blocking. The net result is that each will be careful to protect its flank. It is the American public which will benefit.
That may well be the genius of the message sent by the electorate of the US in this strangest of elections.
Geof Brown is an HRD consultant who lectures part-time at the UWI, Mona. E-mail: Browngeof@hotmail.com
