Winners and Losers

The strange saga known as "Indecision 2000" has come to an end tonight, with AlGore giving an incredible concession speech.  His speech was so good, in fact, that I wonder why we have not seen or heard THIS man for the last two years.  It's the best speech I've ever heard from him, and had this been the AlGore of the campaign trail, there would have been no stopping him.  But it wasn't.  

So tonight we officially know that George W. Bush is the winner, and AlGore is the loser, in the Presidential race.  But there are other winners and losers in this one.  Here are some of them in my mind:

The Winners

• Dick Cheney (A nontraditional pick for Veep, Cheney saved the day by insisting that James Baker be dispatched to Florida rather than Bush's first choice, the bumbling Karl Rove, who would have been a disaster heading the operation.  Make no mistake: Had Cheney not insisted on Baker, Florida would have been stolen and so too the election)

• James Baker (The longtime Bush-family savior took charge in Florida, assembling a legal team, making strategic decisions, and generally rolling heads, despite being outgunned and outplanned for at least a week after the AlGore lawyers descended upon the state. Baker was perhaps the only living Republican who could have pulled it off.)
  Barry Richard (The Floridian who headed the Bush legal effort at the state level has been the most effective lawyer -- both in the courtroom, in briefs, and in public -- of all the high-priced lawyers in the fray in Florida. It's rare for me to be impressed by an attorney.  He has impressed.)

• Theodore Olson (Olson handled the Federal portions of the Bush legal effort including oral and other arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, and was unflappable.  Look for Olson to be offered the post of Solicitor General in the Bush Administration, a likely stepping stone to a Supreme Court nomination)

• Judge Sanders Sauls (Portrayed as a "country bumpkin" by the elite press, this plain-speaking, whimsical judge early on demonstrated that he -- not the lawyers whose fame seemed unknown to him -- was in charge of his courtroom, and he also proved to be a strict constructionist of statutory law, much to the chagrin of the AlGore lawyers.  A Democrat, Judge Sauls probably destroyed any chance of future promotion with his detailed, tightly reasoned decision -- which was quickly picked apart by the Four Partisan Kangaroos, and later vindicated somewhat by the U.S. Supreme Court.  Men like Judge Sauls who stand on principles and integrity are winners)

• Robert Dole (An undeniable patriot, Bob Dole answered the call once again when AlGore lawyers attempted to manufacture a victory via "dimpled chads" and exclusion of absentee military ballots in Florida. The image of Bob Dole amidst Republican protestors in the streets in Florida was striking.)

• Katherine Harris (Most people would call her a loser in this one, considering all of the negative coverage she's gotten.  What I saw was something different: a powerful, poised, confident, attractive, yet supremely FEMININE woman who exercised the discretion granted by statute to her under Florida law assertively.  This woman epitomizes to me what feminism should be.)

• Pat Caddell (A former McGovernite and a key Carter strategist, this self-avowed liberal  was one of the AlGore team's most vocal -- and honest -- critics, lamenting that the Democratic Party has been taken over by "thugs."  I probably disagree with almost every political view this man holds, but his honesty has not played well among Democrats and has likely damaged his career. 

The Losers

• David Boies (An extremely impressive man in the courtroom and in public, Boies probably took on even more than he could handle this time, relying on his forceful presence and amazing abilities in oral argument to carry the day, which was indeed the case during his first FL Kangaroo Kourt appearance.  Then he met up with a country judge who was not at all wowed in Sanders Sauls, whose ruling represented probably the worst legal beating Boies has ever taken.  Despite essentially writing the opinion of the Four Kangaroos, Boies found the going much tougher in the second Supreme Court argument, especially with Justice Kennedy)

• Bill Daley (Any Presidential candidate who would send the son of the man who stole enough votes to help beat Richard Nixon in 1960 to try to do the same thing in broad daylight in FL deserves to lose.  Bill Daley is "the son" of that man, and he is a loser by association.)

• The Florida Kangaroo Kourt (The members of this court -- and particularly the Four Kangaroos in the majority of the second case -- showed themselves to be old-style liberal activists willing to run roughshod over clear statutory language in order to effect their version of "justice."  Even worse, their oral questioning showed them to be poorly prepared legally, and their written decisions were embarrassingly rife with grammatical errors, legal errors, and bad style.  Their first opinion was so poorly done, in fact, that the US Supreme Court, unable to make sense of it, vacated their order and remanded the decision back to the Kangaroos for clarification, with very strong instructions. Only a true collection of idiots would willfully ignore those instructions only to be slapped down again, and hard.)

• Investors (Every time AlGore took to the air or found a new legal strategy to pursue, the already-weak markets reacted negatively, making everyone who has a 401k or stocks or bonds losers through no fault of their own.)

• Martin and Seminole County Officials (Republican and Elections officials in these two counties misbehaved in absentee ballot application procedures with only the best of intentions.  These folks came under vicious attack in trial, and when all the high-priced lawyers go home, these people will return to their homes and neighbors with reputations destroyed.)

• Laurence Tribe (I'm not entirely sure I should list Tribe in the losers column.  In the first U.S. Supreme Court case, Tribe was responsible for the brief and oral argument in a very tough case to argue.  I thought he did as good a job as anyone could representing that side. Thus, I was a little shocked when Tribe was dropped for the second U.S. Supreme Court case.  I disagree with Tribe on constitutional interpretation and many other matters, but I recognize him as a brilliant -- if sometimes misguided -- constitutional scholar and advocate for his views. The Gore team was the real loser when it dropped him, because he would not have fallen in Justice Kennedy's traps, or engaged in sharp disagreements with Justice Scalia, who will always prevail in such exchanges)

The Irrelevant

• Jesse Jackson (What if Jesse held a rally and nobody cared?  This happened to the increasingly irrelevant race-baiter on 29 November, when students chose to go to class instead of listening to the rhyming fool.  However, plenty of journalists were on hand.)

• Warren Christopher (AlGore brought this guy out of deep freeze, he stuck around just long enough to introduce David Boies, and has been missing in action ever since.  Some have suggested the stately Mr. Christopher found stealing an election to be too disgraceful, and bailed on AlGore for that reason.  Had he announced this as his reason before disappearing, he would move to the Winners.  Instead, he remains irrelevant -- maybe even dead?)

• Alan Dershowitz (Dershowitz so badly wanted to be involved in every aspect of the AlGore legal efforts, but was instead completely frozen out of the state-level trial proceedings by David Boies, and completely frozen out of the federal-level trial proceedings by Laurence Tribe initially, and then by Boies.  His whining on talk shows has not rendered him any more relevant to anything or anybody but Orenthal.)  

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