Source:
The Daily Telegraph...UK
http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk:80/

The liberal elite's plan for a second civil war
http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk:80/dt?ac=003819790762734&rtmo=VkjjPGlx&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/00/11/14/do02.html

By Janet Daley

WHEN I was in America recently, watching Al Gore strut around during his
last television debate with George W Bush - waving his finger in his
opponent's face and generally behaving like the most obnoxious smart
a - - e in the lower fifth - I thought to myself, "What kind of person

thinks that this is the way to behave when he is running for the
presidency?" Well, now we know. Mr Gore is the sort of person who is
prepared to set fire to the stadium because he has lost the game.

I am what is known in official diplomatic terms as a "dual national",
having both British and American citizenship, so I view these startling
events with a peculiar kind of double vision. (The American authorities
took my passport away at one point when I became a naturalised Briton, but
gave it back when the Supreme Court decided, in a characteristic resurgence
of American reason and fairness, that US citizens could not so easily be
deprived of their nationality.)

When I can peel myself away from the CNN coverage on my television screen,
I take a look at the parochial wittering that constitutes so much of the
British commentary on this great political spectacle. Being immersed, as I
generally am, in Britain's own political discourse, it seems odd to see it
shrink before my eyes into this irrelevant, largely ignorant and obviously
self-interested babble.

Does no one in this country - including the American correspondents of our
broadcasting networks - have any real understanding of the political
culture and history of the United States? Do the British Left-liberal
commentators who want to see Mr Gore elected at any price have any idea of
the logical consequences of what they are saying?

The opening shot of the British "Gore was robbed" school is usually the
popular vote case. If marginally more people voted for Mr Gore than for Mr
Bush in the national vote, then he must be the moral winner. Surely the
less popular candidate cannot be rightfully elected president? Ergo, the
entire electoral college system is antiquated rubbish which should be
junked in favour of strict majoritarianism.

What this would mean in practice would be that all future presidential
elections would be determined by a few densely populated urban
conurbations: New York, Chicago and Los Angeles would have an unbreakable
stranglehold on the presidency. The great mass of rural and small-town
middle America, virtually the whole sweep of the continent from north to
south between the two coastal fringes, would be effectively powerless.
This is precisely what those few Democrat hotheads in the United States who
have dared to suggest "a rethink" of the electoral college system would
like: the absolute dominion of urban liberal political tastes.

To institute such a thing would be to reignite the American Civil War,
which was settled - uneasily - on the understanding that metropolitan
interests would not be allowed to run untrammelled over local ones. The
United States, unlike those foppish dilettantes in New Labour, takes its
devolution very seriously.

And what would the pundits' sudden passion for national majority rule mean
if it were applied to Britain?
Well, pretty much permanent Conservative government.
The vastly more populous South-East, which is usually far more Tory than
the country at large, would dominate the election. Our constituency
system, which gives disproportionate weight to votes in less populated
areas, corrects for this tendency, just as the electoral college system
does in America.

If the total national vote were to be all that mattered here, voters of the
South-West and East Anglia would be largely disfranchised, and those in
northern Scotland and Wales should scarcely be bothered to get out of bed
on election day. Presumably the majoritarian concept of democracy doesn't
look quite so attractive put like that. In the United States, the
metropolitan liberal hegemony would be only too happy to write off the
hicks, but would the Left here want to disempower those reliable knee-jerk
Labour strongholds in the Celtic fringe?

Then there is the business of spoilt ballots. Again, much of the British
media are allowing themselves to be whipped into a lather by the pantomime
which the Democrats have managed to create over ballot papers whose design
was considered uncontroversial even by their own party officials until Mr
Gore lost the election.
What with all the concern about the Palm Beach voters (now known as "Gore's
morons") who didn't seem to know how to punch a hole that corresponded to
an arrow, we seem to have lost sight of our own stringent attitude to
spoilt ballot papers.

I expect you are aware - and, certainly, all those commentators who are
fretting about the poor confused voters of Palm Beach, are aware - that
Britain takes no prisoners on this issue. According to law, there are
three categories under which your vote may be rejected in a British
election: "uncertainty" (when it is unclear how you have voted); voting for
more than one candidate (as seems to have occurred in Palm Beach); and lack
of an official stamp on your paper. Generally, your vote is acceptable
only so long as it is clear and unambiguous. Once a vote is declared
"spoilt", it is permanently out of play, even in a recount. And that,
rigorous or ruthless as it may seem, is the way it has to be.

Elections involving millions of people and votes must be governed by strict
rules if they are not to be open to abuse and infinite disputation. Mr
Gore's self-serving opportunism in opening this litigious chasm should be a
lesson to us all. Can you imagine the feast that a bunch of eager-beaver
human rights lawyers (like the ones who now run New Labour) could make of
spoilt ballot papers in multi-ethnic constituencies in some future election
which failed to go their way?

Mr Gore will be remembered - even if he should become president - as the
man who didn't know how to lose like a gentleman. British liberals should
choose their heroes more carefully.

News: Judge blocks Bush attempt to halt recount
http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk:80/dt?ac=003819790762734&rtmo=aCKhquXJ&atmo=rrrrrrrq&P4_from_link=/00/11/14/do02.html&pg=/Offsite/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et%3Fac%3D002549632124328%26pg%3D/et/00/11/14/wpres14.html

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