By Tony Deyal,
Contributor
THOSE POOR people in the state of Florida condemned to counting and recounting the ballots cast in the Presidential Elections must by now be truly bushed.
In other countries, given the tension and uncertainty, people would be wading in gore. I am less concerned. Whether it is a deadheat or a deadlock, I still call it a stalemate. While some people, notably politicians, claim that the present crisis underlines the importance of every single vote, I believe instead that it shows how important it is to have candidates with real charisma, people who can shake and wake the electorate.
The US$4 billion spent on the campaign should have brought out more than 50 per cent of the vote. What generated the lack of voter fluster or the ability to muster a clear majority is essentially that both candidates, while strong on bluster, totally lacked lustre.
Whatever happens, and regardless of how much time, money, sleepless nights, litigation and investigations it takes, there will be a loser. How does one face losing such an election? Abraham Lincoln once lost an Illinois election and a sympathetic friend asked him how it felt. He replied, "Like the boy who stubbed his toe; I am too big to cry and too badly hurt to laugh." William Howard Taft, the 27th President, was a huge man with a sharp sense of humour. Once, when stranded at a country railway station, he was told that the train would only stop if a number of people wanted to board it. Taft sent a telegram to the conductor that read, "Stop at Hicksville. Large party waiting to catch train." When the train stopped, Taft boarded and then told the confused conductor who could not see anyone else at the station, "You can go ahead. I am the large party." When Taft was heavily defeated in 1912 by Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt he was still able to see the bright side. "Well, I have only one consolation," he said. "No candidate was ever elected ex-President by such a large majority."
Some people, particularly the media, lack such a sense of humour. The 1876 Presidential Elections were very hotly contested and the influential Washington Post insisted that the Democratic nominee, Samuel Tilden, was the winner. A Congressional Committee determined that the new President was Republican, Rutherford B. Hayes. The Post refused to accept the verdict. For the next four years the newspaper continuously referred to President Hayes as "the bogus President," "the acting President," and "his fraudulency."
This was not the first election where the media called it wrong. The best known previous miscall was in 1948 when the Chicago Tribune ran the headline, 'Dewey Defeats Truman.' Life magazine had sent its "President Dewey" front-cover to press and had to pay half-a-million dollars to change it. Several columnists ran stories that included why Truman had lost, why Dewey should restructure the Cabinet and who would attend Dewey's inaugural. The victorious Truman later said, "I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world of their time."
President Eisenhower agreed with Truman and read only the Sport pages of the Post. Unlike Bush and Gore, Eisenhower was a reluctant candidate who declined to run more frequently than any other contemporary President. His Vice-President, Richard Nixon, held a theory, "Those who seek the Presidency never win it. Circumstances rather than a man's ambition determine the result. If he is the right man for the right time, he will be chosen."
While we wait on circumstances and Florida to see who is the right man, perhaps we should learn from Eisenhower and the writer John Michener that there are more important people in this world than Presidents. Michener was once invited by Eisenhower to dinner at the White House. He wrote to the President explaining why he couldn't accept. "I received your invitation three days after I had agreed to speak a few words at a dinner honouring the wonderful high school teacher who taught me how to write. I know you will not miss me at your dinner, but she might at hers. In his lifetime, a man lives under 15 or 16 Presidents, but a really fine teacher comes into his life but rarely." Eisenhower wrote back to say he understood.
Tony Deyal was last seen passing on the advice of Eisenhower's grandson, David, to Bush and Gore, "The best way to stay normal is to stay away from the White House."
