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Wasn't that also a thing with the first Obama election? Before that, 2000 had Gore vs Bush and the Florida recount. Is it escalating?

by desas 3y ago

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
> Is it escalating? I think so, yes. Obama's first election didn't have much - just some non-politician named Trump shooting off his mouth. 2016 had actual politicians saying that it was illegitimate. Then came 2020, and Jan 6, and it wasn't just talk anymore. So yes, it seems to be escalating. 2000 was different. The vote was close enough in one state that that there was legitimate doubt about what the actual result was. It wasn't "illegitimate because I don't like the results" the way more recent ones have been.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Obama's first election didn't have much - just some non-politician named Trump shooting off his mouth Trump wasn't even particularly notable among the Obama birthers, who were quite nunerous, except retrospectively; he also wasn't not-a-politician, having actively campaigned for the Reform Party nomination for President in 2000 (the Reform Party had qualified for federal matching funds, bringing out a lot of nontraditional contenders) before abandoning the effort in February 2000, shortly after Jesse Ventura, who had convinced him the Reform Party was the right vehicle for his political ambitions, left the party. At the time of the Obama election, Trump was a politician who hadn't succeeded looking for an in with a major party core constituency, and grabbing on to the widespread birther conspiracies as a means of achieving that.
  - skissane 3y ago
    > he also wasn't not-a-politician, having actively campaigned for the Reform Party nomination for President in 2000 (the Reform Party had qualified for federal matching funds, bringing out a lot of nontraditional contenders) In the US, if all you've (yet) done is run for a third party, failing to even win its Presidential nomination-you are really (at that point in time) more of a would-be politician than an actual politician.
- rayiner 3y ago
  I went back and looked at the 2000 election (as a Gore supporter at the time) and I think it was a step on this path. Gore tried to lawyer his way to victory in an unseemly way: https://www.law.gmu.edu/assets/files/publications/working_papers/01-17.pdf https://www.law.gmu.edu/assets/files/publications/working_pa... After losing two automatic recounts, he insisted on hand recounts—but only in precincts that had heavily favored him in the first place. The whole point is that hand recounts find more votes than machine counts (they can read votes the machine would reject). If you only seek hand recounts in precincts where each newly readable vote is twice as likely to be a Gore vote, then you can quickly close the gap Then the Florida Supreme Court completely lost its mind, doing stuff like allowing Gore to count vote gains so far in partial recounts in Gore-favoring states. See pp. 22-24 above the above. The Supreme Court agreed 7-2 that the Florida recount process violated the equal protection law. Democrats invoked that President against Trump after the 2020 election. Nonetheless, they waged a campaign to delegitimize Bush and delegitimize the Supreme Court, based on a mess that arose out of Gore’s own sneaky efforts to litigate his away around a loss in Florida.

Wasn't that also a thing with the first Obama election? Before that, 2000 had Gore vs Bush and the Florida recount. Is it escalating?

by desas 3y ago

Wasn't that also a thing with the first Obama election? Before that, 2000 had Gore vs Bush and the Florida recount. Is it escalating?

AnimalMuppet 3y ago

> Is it escalating? I think so, yes. Obama's first election didn't have much - just some non-politician named Trump shooting off his mouth. 2016 had actual politicians saying that it was illegitimate. Then came 2020, and Jan 6, and it wasn't just talk anymore. So yes, it seems to be escalating. 2000 was different. The vote was close enough in one state that that there was legitimate doubt about what the actual result was. It wasn't "illegitimate because I don't like the results" the way more recent ones have been.

dragonwriter 3y ago
> Obama's first election didn't have much - just some non-politician named Trump shooting off his mouth Trump wasn't even particularly notable among the Obama birthers, who were quite nunerous, except retrospectively; he also wasn't not-a-politician, having actively campaigned for the Reform Party nomination for President in 2000 (the Reform Party had qualified for federal matching funds, bringing out a lot of nontraditional contenders) before abandoning the effort in February 2000, shortly after Jesse Ventura, who had convinced him the Reform Party was the right vehicle for his political ambitions, left the party. At the time of the Obama election, Trump was a politician who hadn't succeeded looking for an in with a major party core constituency, and grabbing on to the widespread birther conspiracies as a means of achieving that.
- skissane 3y ago
  > he also wasn't not-a-politician, having actively campaigned for the Reform Party nomination for President in 2000 (the Reform Party had qualified for federal matching funds, bringing out a lot of nontraditional contenders) In the US, if all you've (yet) done is run for a third party, failing to even win its Presidential nomination-you are really (at that point in time) more of a would-be politician than an actual politician.
rayiner 3y ago
I went back and looked at the 2000 election (as a Gore supporter at the time) and I think it was a step on this path. Gore tried to lawyer his way to victory in an unseemly way: https://www.law.gmu.edu/assets/files/publications/working_papers/01-17.pdf https://www.law.gmu.edu/assets/files/publications/working_pa... After losing two automatic recounts, he insisted on hand recounts—but only in precincts that had heavily favored him in the first place. The whole point is that hand recounts find more votes than machine counts (they can read votes the machine would reject). If you only seek hand recounts in precincts where each newly readable vote is twice as likely to be a Gore vote, then you can quickly close the gap Then the Florida Supreme Court completely lost its mind, doing stuff like allowing Gore to count vote gains so far in partial recounts in Gore-favoring states. See pp. 22-24 above the above. The Supreme Court agreed 7-2 that the Florida recount process violated the equal protection law. Democrats invoked that President against Trump after the 2020 election. Nonetheless, they waged a campaign to delegitimize Bush and delegitimize the Supreme Court, based on a mess that arose out of Gore’s own sneaky efforts to litigate his away around a loss in Florida.