Get Over It! Al Gore Was Never Going To Be President...And, Here's Why...

Megan McCardle, writing in The Daily Beast, wrote today in an article entitled 'No, Democrats Did Not Just Want to "Count All the Votes" in the 2000 Election':

'Ironically, I suspect that if Gore had simply unilaterally requested a statewide manual recount, or the Florida Supreme Court had forced one upon him, the United States Supreme Court would have probably stayed out of it. But they didn’t, and as they say, the rest is history.'

And, it still wouldn’t have made any difference.   For all of the rending of garments by Al Gore and the rest of the Left and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's recent remarks, NONE of this would have made any difference.

At the time, the Florida Supreme Court had been acting in contravention of the law on point and, in fact, claimed that the controlling law didn’t apply any longer. 

Could the Florida State Legislature have intervened and chosen the state’s presidential electors itself?

You betcha! 

…under Article II, Section I, Clause 2 of the Constitution, which states:

‘Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.’

Not could have the Florida State Legislature intervened and appointed the electors, IT WAS PREPARING TO DO SO.

If the Florida Supreme Court had continued to interfere with the election, the Florida State Legislature, which was controlled by the Republicans, had absolute authority under the United States Constitution to name a slate of electors to cast the votes for the state in the Electoral College AND THE SUPREME COURTS OF FLORIDA AND THE UNITED STATES COULD NOT HAVE DONE ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

This is the reason why Al Gore’s strategy to contest the election was never going to work.

The argument for the US Supreme Court to intervene was NOT to decide for one candidate or another. It was to prevent the Florida Supreme Court, which was stacked with left-wing hacks, from continuing to throw out controlling law and to make law from the bench, which was allowing County Board of Electors to count votes as they saw fit, count those parts of the county that they chose, count votes cast by non-citizens, etc. The Florida Supreme Court would have kept the ordeal going until it achieved the result it wanted: Al Gore winning Florida.

…And, it didn’t matter how many voters had to be disenfranchised to do it.

The US Supreme Court did not have to get involved – and, in hindsight, it probably shouldn’t have. The Florida State Legislature was about to act to stop the insanity anyway.

AL GORE WAS NEVER GOING TO BE PRESIDENT.

PS:  From PBS:  Media Recount: Bush Won the 2000 Election