You know that old saying about those who fail history being doomed to repeat it?

In that spirit, I’d like some clarification of something. Many people continue to complain about George W. Bush “stealing” the election of 2000. The legal process, like it or not, put him in the White House. No matter who won, the other side was naturally going to be unhappy considering how close the results were. (Wasn’t the official count less than 600 votes?) I’m curious about exactly how George W. Bush personally stole the election.

Likewise, I’m wondering what constitutes “theft” of an election in general.

I ask for a good reason: if the election returns this November are as close as some of the recent polls suggest, it’s possible that we’ll have another close race. Given the volume of whining about the 2000 election, a close race here could very well spawn another four years of whining from which ever party loses this time around.

I think it would be nice if we might be able to set some guidelines that might avoid this. Three and a half years after the fact, it’s more than a little tiresome. Perhaps if we can’t put the 2000 election to rest, we can at least nip 2004 election complaints in the bud in advance.

No, really…

I’m promise I’m not just trying to be funny when I ask what is to be accomplished by these continual claims that the election of 2000 was stolen. To whom is this message aimed?

Not to the Republicans, who aren’t going to sympathize with anyone who feels that Bush stole the election, since their man is in office.

Not to the Democrats, either, because the only logical way to interpret the argument is that the Democratic voters did what they were supposed to and voted for their man; it was the electoral process, not the voters, who stand accused of screwing things up. If the process is really that screwed up, it seems to suggest that Democratic voters shouldn’t bother to show up, since they don’t have a chance, anyway.

And I can’t imagine that it’s making much headway to those voters who are still undecided. For one thing, Al Gore isn’t running, so it’s not like anyone has the chance to witness a true “rematch” in which things can be made right by giving Gore a landslide victory to make up for the one taken from him four years ago. Moreover, if, this close to the November election, this “stolen election” argument hasn’t swayed the undecided voters away from Bush, isn’t it just possible that it’s time for a better strategy to insure they’ll side with Kerry?

Just a thought…