Not content to let the Gore team have the field of PR gaffes all to itself, the Bush team has stepped up to the plate with a few missteps of their own. The first, and potentially the most serious, was to question the patriotism of Vice President Gore and Democrats in general. The military ballots, disqualified according to Florida statute, have become the weapon of choice in this campaign.
To disenfranchise members of the military, they say, is un-American and unpatriotic. They argue that statutory technicalities should not be construed as meaning that people should be arbitrarily denied their constitutional right to have their vote counted.
Oh, really?
Isn't this the party that argued that - while it was too bad that so many votes went uncounted in Palm Beach and Broward Counties - the Secretary of State had no discretion to alter the statutory technicalities that prevented their votes from being counted? Sounds a little hypocritical. Bad move, guys.
The other major gaffe of the last few days was the brilliant idea to bus in "demonstrators" from around the country to storm the Miami-Dade county canvassing board, while they were attempting to determine the procedures under which they would conduct the recount. Duly intimidated, the board voted not to do the recount at all, citing the obstructionism of the Republican observers as part of the reason they did not believe the recount could be completed within the time allotted by the Florida Supreme Court.
ABC News reports that this apparently spontaneous demonstration of outrage was "neither spontaneous, nor local. It was an organized Republican Party protest, run by 75 party operatives out of a headquarters in a motor home in Miami." Members of the media have recognized some of the people from the "spontaneous" Miami demonstration in the crowd now raucously protesting the recount at the Broward county courthouse. Recognized too, was the motor home which housed the Miami operation, when it showed up at the courthouse at 8 a.m. Friday. It would have been hard to miss: According to ABC News, "they came in honking and shouting, and about 100 people poured out of it and other vehicles" and started yet another "spontaneous demonstration."
Com'on, guys. If you're going to fake a spontaneous demonstration, at least have the common sense to use different people. Using the same vehicle to deliver the same people who participated in the "local spontaneous demonstration" 200 miles away the day before, is probably not the best way to preserve your credibility. Sheesh.
~Karen~
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