LJ: Now, about this election

Personally, I love it. This is precisely what I was hoping for. Ask my roommate. He'll tell you that I expressly wished for an even split in the House and Senate (I got one right on the money), and I wanted a deadlock in the Electoral College.

I was a very happy man that Wednesday morning, when Tim Russert and Jeff Greenfield and the rest of that crew were almost crying in the corners and mumbling quietly to themselves, "I just don't know, I just don't know, I just don't know...". It was great.

Apart from the fact that, for a couple of weeks at least, almost utter chaos (at least around news cameras) was the only sure thing, there's one thing that I particularly appreciate about Election 2000: Ralph Nader.

My boy Ralph. If it hadn't been for him, and the three million folks who voted for him, we'd have never discovered just how truly mucked up this whole farce we call an election system is. And from where I'm sitting, it's not really a problem with the College itself. Sure, I'd like something a bit more representative - for instance, I wouldn't really see a problem with splitting up the electoral votes within states. If Joe Schmoe wins Pittsburgh & Philly, but Joe Blow wins the rest of the state of PA, then Schmoe and Blow should get the electoral votes of the districts they won, and the winner of the popular vote within the state takes the two Senatorial votes for that state as well. Of course, that idea has just as many flaws as every other one someone else came up with - you thought gerrymandering was bad now...

I don't regret one iota giving my vote to Nader. In my opinion, Nader did NOT cost Gore the election. Gore cost Gore the election. Gore truly alienated a decent portion of the truly progressive wing of the Democratic party this time around, by never downplaying Tipper's involvement in the PMRC; by having as a running mate one of the few truly conservative Democrats serving today (Lieberman's past record on Hollywood makes Tipper look like ODB); by never settling on a personality, or even a shade of make-up (see the debate Al Gore, revisions A, B, and C); and just by being such a smarmy, pompous jerk.

PS: I've never liked Al Gore, which made it real easy for me to not vote for him. The way he treated Bradley in the primaries sealed the deal for me.

Personally, at this point, I want GWB to win. Whoever's gonna be in there for the next four years is going to be so stymied by congressional gridlock and the cloud of illegitimacy (no matter which one of them it is) that it truly will be a lame-duck presidency before it event starts. And, if Bush wins, the historical prescedent is for the party that lost the White House in the electoral college but won the popular vote to make large-to-enormous gains in the next Congressional election.

So I am prepared to put up with two years of Bush parading around the South lawn practicing his handshake with the azaleas and hiding under the desk whenever someone's looking for him to make a tough decision, because in 2002, we won't have to worry about dealing with Armey, Lott, Hastert and Delay anymore.

I'm done pontificating.