Chris,

>>>>IMO, regardless of who wins, it sure seems to me that Mr. Gore is dangerously close to elevating his own desire to win above four balot counts, all of which have concluded that Mr. Bush has won the popular vote in Florida.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Where do you get four? The ballots were counted on Election Day. By Florida law, they were recounted. In a few counties, they were counted a third time - this time manually. I'm not aware of anywhere that counted them a fourth time and most places didn't do a third count.
>>>
>>>Tamar
>>
>>Tamar,
>>
>>Here's a reference to four counts: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2000/11/26/213852.shtml
>
>Hard to argue with objective news articles with the title of:
>
>"Sore Loser Gore Throws Hissy Fit"
>
>Did he write the article in crayon < g >?

<g>

Nahh.. He's not a Democrat.

< BG >

Hey.. All kidding aside...

I just read a column in the NY Times by William Safire and he postulates an interesting theory (along with Rush Limbaugh - where I got the link).

Essentially it goes like this: Typically, the party out of power picks up seats during the mid-term election. If Gore wins the Presidency (and he still could I suppose but I wouldn't bet on it) then it would be the Republicans who would tend to pick up seats. Additionally, if Gore wins that means Lieberman ditches his Senate seat and the now 50-50 split would go 51-49 Republican as the Connecticut governor is a Republican.

If Bush wins then there's a better than even chance the Democrats could pick up one Senate seat and perhaps the 20 or so House seats they'd need.

So.. If you are Dick Gephardt, who doesn't really like the pompous Al Gore, would you really mind it if Bush won now - particularly if you could marginalize him (in your onw mind if nowhere else) beforehand?

I'd think not.

Look for the phrase, "Et tu' Dick?" soon. <g>