DREW HOLDEN: America’s Ever-Present Election Denial. A look back at ‘Big Lies’ past provides perspective ahead of the midterms:
There were presidential races that were too close to call—and even called incorrectly—on Election Day. In 1916, the race between incumbent President Woodrow Wilson and Charles Evans Hughes was so tight that numerous newspapers called it wrongly for Hughes, who would eventually concede defeat gracefully. The 1960 election between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy presented a similar fight to the finish, with allegations of voter fraud and other unsavory behavior in key states. But eventual-President Nixon chose not to contest these outcomes, conceding defeat to Kennedy.
The most contested election of the modern era came in 2000. The race between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush came down to a razor-thin margin of 537 votes in the then-swing state of Florida. Gore took the matter to court in Florida under a law that allowed him to contest the results, arguing for a review of uncounted ballots in the state. But the U.S. Supreme Court, in Bush v. Gore, ruled that the race was over: Bush was the winner of Florida’s 25 electoral votes, and with it the presidency.
That such a ruling would become the law of the land, without violence or insurrection, is a remarkable testament to the American system. But it also kicked up a new American tradition: questioning whether the President of the United States was truly legitimate.
In January 2001, when Congress convened to certify the Electoral College results, a dozen Democrats objected, denying that Bush was the rightful winner. One objector, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), is still in office. A year later, former First Lady Hilary Clinton famously declared that Bush was “selected, not elected.” Gore himself later declared he thought “if everyone in Florida who tried to vote had had his or her vote counted properly, that I would have won.” In 2013, then-Senator Joe Biden alleged that Gore “really did win” the 2000 election, but accepted defeat “for the good of the nation.” Countless other Democrats have claimed the 2000 election was “stolen,” that Bush’s victory was “fraudulent,” and more.
I’ll never forget watching Dan Rather of CBS interrupt a Sunday afternoon NFL game on November 26th, 2000 and using the most hesitant and tut-tutting language possible after Florida’s Secretary of State certified Dubya’s victory: Bush Wins? Not As Democrat Dan Rather Sees It.
Katherine Harris may have certified George W. Bush as President-Elect last night, but don’t expect the liberal media to concede this official result any faster than their friends in the Gore campaign will. Last night in live coverage on CBS, Dan Rather identified Harris as a Republican at least six times, and questioned the finality of her finding at least ten times:
● Rather began: “Nineteen days after the presidential election, Florida’s Republican Secretary of State is about to announce the winner – as she sees it and she decrees it – of the state’s potentially decisive 25 electoral votes. Katherine Harris will officially certify the state’s election returns…The believed certification – as the Republican Secretary of State sees it – is coming just hours after a court ordered deadline for counties to submit their hand count and recount totals.”
● “The reason we’re on the air right across the board nationally right now is because Florida’s Secretary of State – a Republican, as we’ve mentioned before – campaigned actively for George Bush, well-connected to Governor Bush’s Governor brother Jeb Bush in Florida, but a woman who has consistently said ‘I’m trying to do my job, right down to the letter of the law, as best I can’…She will certify – as she sees it – who gets Florida’s 25 electoral votes. Those 25 electoral votes potentially will be decisive.”
● Rather explained the signing: “What’s happening here is the certification – as the Florida Secretary of State sees it and decrees it – is being signed…After this, it will be, at least in the opinion of the Secretary of State, that the results will be final…The Secretary of State, as she has restated here, in effect believes that the election certification she gives should stand.”
The atmosphere in the CBS newsroom must have been unimaginably toxic that November; as Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal noted on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, “For activist and professional Democrats, the most ignominious day in their collective political lives occurred a year earlier—the Florida presidential recount. The 2000 election ended only when the Supreme Court resolved it in favor of George Bush. Republican and independent voters moved on, but many Democrats never did; they were now being governed by an illegitimate president. The chances that any Bush policies would retain their support were minimal, with or without 9/11.”
If Republicans alluded a similar vibe in late 2020, they acquired it from 20 years of watching the hyper-online left refuse to accept the results of any election they lost.