Like Clinton before him - Gore rallies Democrats for one last push

publiziert: Dienstag, 28. Nov 2000 / 09:25 Uhr

Washington - Democrats have symbolically rallied around Vice President Al Gore for one last push to hold on to the White House for the next four years despite seemingly insurmountable odds in their effort to overturn the election results.

Much like when they came to the aid of an embattled President Bill Clinton two years ago as he fought off a vigorous Republican effort to remove him from office for the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Democrats have a new battle to wage on Gore's behalf over the Florida ballot contest.

Democratic stalwarts wavered but did not crack following Clinton's dramatic admission in August 1998 of his White House affair with Lewinsky. They face a similar task this week in backing Gore's decision to go forward with a legal challenge of the certified Florida vote count giving Republican George W. Bush victory in the state and all but ensuring him the presidency.

Much like Clinton did in the months following his blackest day, Gore will need first to shore up his own political base to be certain no prominent Democrats openly call for him to concede the election. American public opinion is less important than winning their case if the Democratic leadership determines no permanent political damage is being done to the party.

Gore's latest speech to the nation was an effort to claim the moral high ground in lodging his legal contest in Florida while also giving his lieutenants talking points to combat the Republican claims of sore loser. The Democrat continued to cast himself as the defender of the people - this time it is of the people's right to have their votes heard.

"Ignoring votes means ignoring democracy itself," Gore said. "If we ignore the votes of thousands in Florida in this election, how can you or any American have confidence that your vote will not be ignored in a future election?"

The Gore legal team filed official contests to the Florida election in three counties in an effort to have the statewide vote tally giving Bush a 537-vote advantage overturned. The action is unprecedented in any U.S. presidential election and Gore needs to be extremely careful that he does not go down in U.S. history for having soiled the process.

Gore believes he won the election - nationally he gained more than 50 million votes, beating Bush by nearly 340,000 - but he still has to prove he can win the vote count. Democrats have begun to rally to Gore's cause in recent days for much the same reasons they carried the burden of Bill Clinton's sins not so long ago. They view the Republican efforts to stymie Gore as overly partisan, thuggish and borderline criminal.

High profile survivors of the Clinton impeachment battle, including House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and his Senate counterpart Thomas Daschle, have been deployed to Florida to state their public support for Gore's legal action. They also moved to denounce the Republican tactics of claiming the presidency and setting up a transition team as premature.

"The American people need to have confidence that the presidency goes to the candidate who got the most votes," said Gephardt, a former rival of Gore's. "It's premature for either side to declare victory or concede defeat because the fact is, all the votes are still not in."

Democrats were particularly incensed by harsh Republican attacks on the Florida Supreme Court after its ruling last week that the hand recounts in the state could go ahead. They felt the integrity of the legal system was under assault because the judges were Democratic appointees.

A mob demonstration by Republican activists inside the Miami-Dade County canvassing offices last week further piqued Democrats and the Gore team, which was dealt a fatal blow shortly after the near riot when the board voted to halt its manual recount in the county. If that recount had gone ahead, Gore likely would have had more votes than Bush at Sunday's certification deadline.

How long Democrats will remain behind Gore is an open question. The stiff vice president has few of the gifts Bill Clinton could use during his public tribulations to ignite the faithful or soothe the concerns of a sceptical public.

(la/dpa)

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