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Al Gore seems to be one step closer to the Oval Office. The U.S. political system seems one step closer to Armageddon.
Late in the evening on Nov. 21, a Florida Supreme Court dominated by Democrats ruled unanimously that three state counties' disputed hand recounts of Presidential ballots can go on -- at least until an absolute deadline of 9 a.m. on Nov. 27. The decision represents a sharp setback for Republican George W. Bush, who sought to halt the recount and declare himself the victor of Florida's electoral votes, and hence, the Presidential race. And it at least raises the possibility that Gore can wind up with enough additional votes on the 27th to erase his rival's current 930-vote lead in Florida.
According to unofficial tallies, the Vice-President has already pulled back into contention on the strength of those local recounts. He has gained some 118 votes in Broward County, found 3 more in Palm Beach County, and -- most sigificantly -- picked up 157 more in populous Miami-Dade, which is just beginning a massive recount that could put Gore over the top.
But the trail of chad that leads to the White House gets more convoluted from there. Because Gore hasn't gained as many additional votes as he hoped in recounts conducted in heavily Democratic Palm Beach and Broward, county officials might be tempted to start assessing their big piles of questionable ballots -- thousands of partially punched cards that heretofore haven't been counted for either combatant. The state Supreme Court sidestepped the issue of whether such iffy ballots are eligible in the ongoing resifting of the state's votes.
RETALIATE WITH FURY? Clearly, the justices are giving wide discretion to local election officers to make that call. If the locals react by including the truly questionable ballots in their recounts, Gore could finally find a way to elbow past Bush and lay claim to the state.
"Our democracy is the winner tonight," Gore said in brief remarks after the verdict. "I firmly believe the will of the people should prevail."
Yet despite Gore's ringing declaration, the fact is that a victory under these circumstances is simply unacceptable to the Bush forces. They will retaliate with a furious round of new challenges to the federal courts -- and perhaps the Supreme Court itself. More ominously, Florida's Republican-controlled legislature will now be tempted to ramrod through legislation that directs the state's designates to the Electoral College to side with Bush, a course that would set up a huge new Constitutional collision.
True, the unanimous verdict handed down by Florida's high court injects some clarity and, for once, a meaningful deadline into the electoral fiasco. But it's the kind of awful clarity that massed armies see on the dawn of battle -- a precursor of more bloody combat ahead. It's this specter of spreading partisan conflict that has the potential to turn the face-off in Florida from political farce into something far more menacing: a political civil war that could make the '98-'99 impeachment battle look like a picnic.
Copyright 2000, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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