Blogger John Emerson, of ‘Seeing the Forest‘ is raising a bet about the coming election. His (original) bet is:
I’m willing to bet $50 at 30-to-one that we’ll see problems in the 2004 Presidential election as bad or worse than those in the 2000 election. Your $1500 says everything will be OK, my $50 says that there will be major problems — as bad as or worse than 2000.
He later tightened it to:
You are betting that none of the following will happen:
1. Whoever is in office on Jan. 21, 2004 is not there because he’s been elected. Either Bush stays in, or a caretaker is appointed.
2. The November election does not take place as scheduled, but is postponed.
3. In a significant number of states (greater than the margin of victory) the vote in the electoral college is not based on a count of the votes (for example, the state legislature intervenes).
4. Some unprecedented intervention decides the election, as in 2000.
5. Major branches of government openly defy President Kerry and refuse to obey his orders.
I’ve left out the “denial of legitimacy” point because there’s a 100% chance that many conservatives will not accept President Kerry’s legitimacy. [Ed. – would have been a nice touch if he’d added ‘…as many liberals have not accepted Bush’s.’]
So what do I think? I think it’s a sucker bet, because – having seen that the courts and formerly ministerial process of vote-counting are now up for grabs – both sides are certainly making plans for their post-election campaigns.
Unless it is a blowout election (which is possible, but not likely) both sides will launch stiff administrative and legal campaigns around the voting and vote-counting process, which means there’s a significant chance that the results will be delayed, and that the decision will be made at some level in the judicial system.
This ignores the very real possibility of an election-eve terrorist attack. The U.S. isn’t Spain, and the immediate emotional reaction to such an attack is as likely to be Jacksonian as it is to be more isolationist. While I don’t think that delaying the elections in such an event is a good idea (unless critical communications infrastructure is somehow down, making it hard to actually run the election), I’ll bet that the losing side will be in court after such an election claiming that the election should have been delayed – thereby delaying the outcome.
So let’s do a four-way matrix:
Close election + attack = challenge & delay (he wins)
Close election = challenge & delay (he wins)
Blowout + attack = challenge & delay (he wins)
Blowout = no effective challenge (he loses)
So if you think the odds of a major attack are high, and the odds of a close election are high – his 30:1 odds suddenly don’t look so good. And it isn’t because of some nefarious plan by the Trilateral Commission (kidding!!) to create a theological dictatorship (anyone read Heinlein?), it’s the natural development of a litigious, rules-based political process where shame is nonexistent and voters appear to have short memories (if the political class had shame, they wouldn’t do this – think of Nixon’s response to the 1960 Chicago results, and if voters had memories they’d punish candidates who ‘gamed’ the system).
This makes the issues of voting process and vote-counting (up to now the province of true election geeks) something we need to address in a serious way in terms of the technology, the administrative procedures, and the legal wrapping around it. Hmmm…
“if the political class had shame, they wouldn’t do this.., and if voters had memories they’d punish candidates who ‘gamed’ the system”
Unfortunately, neither is even remotely true, so I agree that this would be a sucker bet even if every single islamic terrorist was summoned to heaven (or wherever) tomorrow.
“…anyone read Heinlein?)”
Do you prefer If This Goes On… or Revolt In 2100? (The former surely has the better title; as always in that era, the book had to be given an identifiably “sf” name.)
But: read him? Tiddly winks. I met him twice; in 1973 (and witnessed and wrote up at the time for Richard Geis’s Science Fiction Review a famous incident I hesitate to mention more specifically, because back in my early days on Usenet, when I last did, circa 1995, it spawned a two-year-long thread), and 1976. His official biographer, Bill Patterson, is an ancient pal of mine; I’ve known his former editors for decades. And so on. (This comes from my background in professional sf editing, and involvement in active fandom since the beginning of the Seventies, when I was about twelve.)
So, yeah, I read him.
‘-)
Position #5 is one I have been waiting for people to acknowledge. Given the checks and balances between our branches of goverment (Legislative, Judicial, and Executive) the out come of the election would be something if “Ralph Nader” were to win. I know Nader as president is a long shot and I certainly favor the current administration remaining in charge but my point is this. How much do you believe would actually be accomplished by Nader if the Legislative Branch does not change to meet his agenda? Dare we say veto vs 2/3 majority vote? The real power is in the house and senate not in the presidency.
I’ll keep lowering the odds until I get someone to take my money. I might even reduce the conditions to 1,2, and 3, since 4 and 5 are open-ended. (But maybe a sucker will come along.) I have a 10-1 offer, which I will take if that’s the best I can get.
Somewhere else people are betting whether the Electoral College will report a result on schedule in December. It’s 86-14 that they will.
I do disagree with the suggestion that some neutral “litigiousness” is the cause of impending problems. No use arguing, but if you were in a streetfight who’d you want on your side: Cheney and James Baker, or Lieberman and Warren Christopher? The Dems got their asses whipped. I expect the Republicans to play the same hardball this time, and I hope the Democrats match them.
An aggravating circumstance making the problem more brittle still is that there is no neutral arbiter to go to any more. The Supremes played that card away in 2000.
Ziska –
I know more than a few D operatives who’d spank you for implying that they’re wimps, and I think that your memory is faulty – is was the D team that pulled the litigation lever in ’00. And the notion that the Supreme Court can’t be seen as a ‘neutral arbiter’ because they decided against one side is a sad commentary on the state of legitimacy in 2004…
A.L.
Zika
Truth be known the Florida courts (with exception) including the Supreme Court did exactly what they should have done concerning the 2000 elections. They enforced the law they did not interpet the law for benefit of one side or another. Yes I know it’s painful for some people and perhaps it’s time to dredge up the truth again. Here is an Article from “The American Thinker” that sums up the “MYTH”:http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=3364 concerning a stolen election in a nutshell.
Your Dem operatives can go fuck themselves, A.L. They get paid win or lose. There’s a lot of unrest within the Democratic Party.
The Supremes carefully presented their decision in such a way that it could not be used as a precedent. That’s a question-mark right there. And the swing vote, Kennedy, explicitly stated that he voted the way he did because he feared unrest. (The Accidental President, Kaplan).
Think about it. He obviously wasn’t afraid of the Democrats. It must have been the Republicans, right? Why? Well, because there was a ton of hot air coming from the Republican side, including the “Brooks Brothers mob” which succeeded in stopping the Miami-Dade count.
The Supremes had no need to take the case at all.
But let me answer my own question. I’ll meet any one of you in a street fight, as long as I’ve got Cheney and Baker on my side, and you’re depending on Lieberman and Christopher. That’s the story.
It was obvious that the Dems and Republicans were operating under different paradigms. The Dems were looking for someone who was widely respected as honest, whereas the Reps were looking for someone willing to do whatever it took to win.
praktike –
David Boies isn’t someone who does what it takes to win?
zizka –
As someone who’s spent a large part of my life studying violence, and hanging around with people who practice it, I’m always kind of itchy when people use rhetoric like yours. I always thought the left (as opposed to the Left) was about getting away from thuggery…
A.L.
Armed Liberal, what’s your betting line on which political campaign resorted to litigation first?
Hint: It’s called Bush vs. Gore, and the plaintiff’s name goes first.
Andrew,
_Bush vs. Gore_ was the U.S. Supreme Court case that resulted from Bush’s attorneys appealing the Florida State Supreme Court’s decision. IIRC, it is not the _plaintiff’s_ name that goes first in an appellate case, it is the _petitioner’s_. (The plaintiff is the party that files the original complaint; the petitioner is the party that seeks appellate review of a case–therefore the plaintiff and the petitioner may or may not be the same party, depending on the action of the lower court.) I do not believe the facts you cite support the claim you are making.
Andrew –
I’ll bet you $14,000 (the U.S. price of a Ducati Paul Smart L.E.), but it’d be a cheat, since I already went to Google and checked.
A.L.
Also, glad to see you around, Marc. Don’t be a stranger. =)
A.L., Look again at your own Google cite. The first lawsuit filed by a campaign was on November 11. And it was filed by the Bush campaign, to stop the recount. (Luckily, Bush also had his state campaign manager using her day job as Secretary of State to delay and frustrate the recounts, as part of the stall strategy.)
Four lawsuits were filed over the butterfly ballot before November 11, but they were all filed by individual voters and were not supported by the Gore campaign, which (I guess) saw this line of attack as a legal loser.
I’m looking forward to the $14,000, which I could use.
(Incidentally, for anyone who clicks, the final summary on the Findlaw page, like much of the pro-Bush united-not-divided imitation-reporting at that time completely mischaracterizes the final SCOTUS vote as 7-2; only five Justices signed the per curiam order, but there were different dissents of varying degrees.)
BTW, for grins, I looked up the first suit in the Findlaw series above; looking at the complaint, it was filed by Henry Handler, of Boca Raton. Open Secrets shows his donations as follows:
06/27/1997 $500 Hastings, Alcee L
03/31/1997 $500 Gephardt, Richard A
06/02/1995 $1,450 Democratic Executive Cmte of Florida
Just sayin’…
A.L.
i think the guy that offered the bet is a nutcase.
how about this fun scenario:
becuase of lagging polls, cheney dumps himself….
the exciting GOP convention picks mccain or powell to replace him….
bush/powell-mccain does better in all the blue cities and in all the blue counties, but still does not pick up any blue states (because the 2000 margin in blue cities & counties was humongous; in 2004 w/powell-or-mccain they’d stay blue, but be closer)…
kerry wins florida by less than 1000 votes…
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO:
kerry loses the popular vote – by more than gore won it – but wins the electoral college…
and kerry becomes president…
and the GOP accepts defeat graciously….
and alQaeda and arafat and saddam and iran and kimhongil and chirac and kofi celebrate!!!!!
PS: Sam, you’re right, but Bush’s initial Federal case on Equal Protection grounds had lost in the 11th Circuit on December 6 on appeal from a denial of injunction in the District Court—no one had ever thought E.P. applied to recount methods before—so in the Federal case he was both the original plaintiff and the appellant. And, yes, he started the litigation before the Gore campaign did; Gore was (what a doofus) trying to work within the letter of the recount rules.
A.L., hunh?? My original post asked which campaign litigated first. Are you suggesting that the fact the original litigants were Democrats (duh!) makes their lawsuit one filed by the campaign? You can’t really mean that.
I think you misread my original bet as to whose partisans filed first. That would be Gore. I wanted to know which campaign filed first.
Andrew –
I hadn’t seen your comment when I posted mine, but I’d say mine’s pretty dispositive. If you want to make the bet, go on over to http://www.ducati.com and just order me one…
A.L.
A.L., what is the name of the lawsuit you believe the Gore campaign filed earlier than Siegel v. LePore (Nov. 11). Bush and Cheney are plaintiffs in that case.
Good luck… and I’d like you to pay for a new a/c compressor on my car. I prefer unnatural air conditioning.
Andrew, this is silly. Campaigns do many things via proxy, and without pulling a lot of cell phone records, I think the question of which ‘campaign’ opened the can of worms will be left unanswered. I can certainly testify as to which side started litigating (in this case). I’m positive that both sides will be well-prepared with local lawyers in 2004, which is why I think the bet is a sucker bet, and that things through November and December may be very interesting.
A.L.
A.L. — I think that my statement was pretty clearly metaphorical. I’m not much of a fighter and if I were, I wouldn’t invite a couple of sixty year olds along to help. I do use violent and sports metaphors a lot, which perhaps makes me less liberal in that respect. But then, what’s the “L.” stand for?
There was a lot involved in the Florida battle besides who sued first. I would guess that that particular spin of the big question favors you guys, since you’re all so eager to talk about it. But don’t quote me.
I hope the Democrats match the Republicans tit for tat next time around.
This thread wouldn’t be complete without at least one reference to the following:
“Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything.”
— attributed to Joseph Stalin
A.L., I agree that campaigns might file suits by proxy, but do you have any evidence (other than affinity of desired outcome) that they did so in the cases filed before Nov. 11? I think it’s unlikely here, because the argument looking for a remedy based on the improper design of the butterfly ballot was an extreme long shot.
I think you’ll agree that on the plain reading of my bet, I don’t owe the $14K.
Good grief, am I the only one reading this who can do arithmetic? The bet being offered, as he describes it, is not 30-to-one, it’s one-to-30. He says:
Your $1500 says everything will be OK, my $50 says that there will be major problems…
Why the blazes should I risk “my” $1500 just to win “his” $50? If he’s so confident, he should be willing to risk HIS $1500 against MY $50.
I’m not at all confident. I’m actually just trying to find out how confident other people are. The message I’ve been getting from both sides so far is that everybody thinks that there is a 1-in-10 chance, or better, that 2004 will be worse than 2000, which was already pretty bad.
The message on this site has been that everyone is confident that the Democrats will be to blame (again) this time. My reading is different, of course.
A 30-1 (or 1-30) bet is a good one if you’re talking about something you’re confident about (tomorrow’s sunrise — you’d get $50 for nothing). You will hear people saying that everything’s fine, but I don’t think anyone believes it.
I’ll keep tweaking my bet until someone agrees to take my money. #4 and #5 will probably have to go.
Ziska says:
“The message on this site has been that everyone is confident that the Democrats will be to blame (again) this time. My reading is different, of course.”
Ziska, we have enough disagreements without you making any up; I pretty clearly said:
“…because – having seen that the courts and formerly ministerial process of vote-counting are now up for grabs – both sides are certainly making plans for their post-election campaigns.”
A.L.
There was a long dispute here about “Who started it in 2000?”, with most arguing that it was the Democrats. It didn’t seem like the most important question to me, and in fact rather falsified what I believe to have happened, but whatever. Often enough “The Democrats are just as bad” is regarded as good enough an answer.
Zizka has 2 z’s, BTW.