Looks like Al Gore is going down in a big ball of flames. This is what would have been a full election special except it looks like a pretty anticlimactic end to the whole ball of wax. I voted for Gore not because he's any good but because of the ol' lesser of two evils thing. I prefer to have a president who doesn't complain that court rulings use too much "legalistic language," OK? And all of my liberal friends can start sending hate mail, but I'm too much for free trade to countenance going along with Ralph Nader's pie-in-the-sky posturing. I've said it before, I'll say it again: if the Democrats aren't progressive enough for you, take over the party from the grass roots. That's what the religious right did to the Republican party in the 80s without fatally damaging the chances of that party for federal office. It's pretty well documented that Nader's failed quest to get his federal money cost Gore the election.

What Gore is really pissed about and why he won't give up is that more people showed up on election day in Florida to vote for him than George W Bush. Whether he can legally prove it looks extremely doubtful.
Support for this claim:
1. Statistical analysis shows without the errors and screwups Gore would have had a comfortable margin.
2. The largely ignored problem of the blacks in Florida denied the right to vote.
3. That damned butterfly ballot cost Gore thousands of votes, and there is nothing to be done about that. Yeah, yeah, the voters were stupid, blah blah blah. Tell that to the 90 year old grandma who couldn't see the ballot.
4. Another statistical analysis answers why all the recounts have favored Gore: the original count was done in a way that favored Bush.

Sure, I know what Twain said about being three types of lies (lies, damned lies, and statistics), but I think my point is made. Unfortunately for Gore he can't prove it and is going to lose. That may not be such a bad thing, because:

1. Bush is an idiot. Refutation attempts to this claim are welcomed. The only reason he's going to be elected is because he's the anointed tool of the money behind the Republican party. Check out the transition. Cheney and Baker are running this show and will likely continue to do so.
2. Recession is likely. Despite Bush's team's preemptive whining about how any recession would be Clinton's fault, we know that voters always blame the president in office when the bad economy starts. Ha ha. The Republican president=recession link should be well established in the public's mind by 2004.
3. At least Gore is probably going to disappear off the radar following this one. It would be nice to have a nominee that wasn't a spineless, flip-flopping, hypocritical, wooden, condescending, poll-driven jerk like him, although I'm not holding my breath. It would be nice also to not have a stupid, will-lacking, antiprogressive stooge for a president, but I can wait 4 years. One comfort is the knowledge that neither of them had a snowball's chance in hell of actually getting their agenda passed.

As previously noted, I believe the Onion is consistently the funniest spot on the web, but I was truly amazed when I saw this story about a black guy photoshopped into school catalog pictures for diversity's sake. The reason it was so weird is that this has actually happened. The story was fairly well documented so I'm surprised they didn't add any funky twists to it.