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Why should George W. Bush worry? He's sitting in the catbird seat in the tightest presidential race in history. Shrub was born on third base believing he hit a triple and now he's heading for home in the White House in an election squeeze play the fans will talk about for decades. What a career!
As the nation waits, the people still wonder when will we know for sure? Of course, everything hinges on the farce in Florida. Finally we get the word.
Ballots were distorted and mishandled, and some Bush ballots had been placed in the Gore piles to boost the numbers for the Democrat. The process "is not only fundamentally flawed it is completely untrustworthy."
The definitive word comes from Marc Racicot. Who the hell is Marc Racicot? Well, he's the obscure, undistinguished Republican Governor of Montana the Bush camp selected to hurl those serious charges that Stiff Al's folks are using fraud to steal the election and usurp democracy. Now, some of that may be true, but why Bush picked such a no-name to make the accusations is troubling and telling.
Racicot read the explosive charges from a prepared text like a third-grader sharing "How I spent my summer vacation." Whatever happened to politicians who could actually stand before a crowd and cameras without a script or notes and speak sense from the head and heart? Where was the Bush family janitor, former Secretary of State James Baker?
Well, Baker's too slick to put himself too far in front when the dirty work is done publicly. Unlike the politically unsophisticated Governor of Montana, Baker knows how to hide when he might feel the heat. He did that so well during Bush the Elder's failed reelection bid in 1992.
Barbara Bush, the smartest and gutsiest of the intellect- and courage-challenged Bush clan has Baker's number. He owed his political career and prominence to her husband, George. But Baker didn't want to leave his plush cabinet post to return to the political trenches to help Bush's faltering campaign. Babs Bush called Baker, "the invisible man." Baker, always ready to grab center stage when things are going well, kept a seriously low profile, not wanting to be associated with the doomed campaign and taint of defeat.
As soon as Baker got out front, I knew Shrub's Florida fortunes were promising, and he could redeem himself with Babs, and more importantly extend his own influence with another Bush administration.
I laugh out loud when Baker puts on his indignant crusader pose and steps before the cameras denouncing any and every move in Florida that might challenge George W.'s margin. You know darn well the family janitor would be carping for any recount he could get if the situation were reversed. And if things looked hopeless for Shrub, Baker would have been on the first train out of Florida.
Baker, with his syrupy drawl, is transparently disingenuous and, worse, he views himself as the embodiment of the oxymoronic notion of the "patrician Texan." Baker is a hack, an opportunistic politician, and he always was. But we're sure to see him clinging to Shrub's side during every fair weather moment. The Bush family's pool of friends must be pretty shallow if they have to keep turning to Baker, the janitor, to fix their problems.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch--and that's literally where George W.'s been holed up during most of this post-election period. By all reports he loves hanging out at his Crawford, Texas, spread. That's baffling to me. For my money, Texas is the ugliest place on earth. It's the domestic version of Afghanistan: bleak desolation, arid and uninviting. What's always amazed me is that Texans think it's "purdy." Houston is a humid hell and Dallas is a decadent desert. There's hope for San Antonio and Austin, but the rest of the vast land stolen from Mexico is turf I want to get out of as fast as I can.
Okay, I admit it, I'm not crazy about Texas and Texans, and under the heading of full disclosure, Shrub's terrible Texas twang will cause me more irritation than his fuzzy thinking about substantive issues of public policy over the next four years.
Gore and the Democrats in their desperation to hold onto the White House and all its fund-raising glory are not a pretty sight these days. They use their former Secretary of State Warren Christopher to speak solemnly about the degree of penetration a virgin chad should endure before being declared a conquest for Gore. That talk is hilarious. And then we see campaign manager William Daley lecturing us about vote count fairness. The shameless Democrats see nothing wrong or out of place using the son of the late vote-fixing Mayor of Chicago to demand fairness. Richard Daley used Chicago's vote manufacturing excellence to deliver Illinois for Kennedy over Nixon in the extremely tight race for president in 1960. So, now, another Daley pretends to show us the light of wisdom in counting votes. Gore and his handlers are incapable of embarrassment.
Then the sight of Jesse Jackson making an obnoxious and intrusive visit to Flordia eroded the Democrats' credibiltiy. Jackson played the race card, claiming bias in the election--a claim for which there is not one scintilla of evidence. Jackson further inflamed the rhetoric and debased a reasoned examination of the Florida vote with the claim that Holcaust survivors had been denied a voice. Another baseless charge, but it served Jackson's purposes to add religion and ethnicity to the stew. Jesse Jackson, protector of the Jewish voter; this from the same guy who once referred to New York City as "Hymietown."
The problem with the Florida vote is largely the result of people having difficulties casting their ballots. Democrats finding plots and prejudice tainting the Florida vote should bark up a different Cyprus tree. The Democrats also should be ashamed at the way, in selected counties, they were quick to toss out the military vote, which was heavily for George W.
The stench of both parties will hover over Florida long after this election is decided.
But remember the primacy of the candidates: they set the tone, and this year, we're stuck with two losers.
Camille Paglia, one of my favorite writers, notes neither of them has looked too impressive the last couple of weeks: "The negligibly talented Bush is in over his head, while the schizoid Gore is a conceited mannequin choked with his own sawdust."
Amen.