The Week

National Review, Dec 4, 2000

Vice President Gore, in preelection CNN interview, on "the real possibility that we could have a situation where one candidate wins the popular vote and another candidate become president because he's won the electoral vote": "We are fortunate as a people to have a Constitution that resolves all doubt as to what would happen in that situation. . . . If it did happen, I think the Constitution would be respected, as it always is." . . . Sen. Robert Torricelli (D., N.J.), in New York Times: "There is going to have to be a very compelling case for anybody to take this into a court of law. . . . It may begin in Florida, but it can go to other states and ultimately the presidency of the United States should not be decided by a judge." . . . Sen. John Breaux (D., La.): "Count the votes and respect the decision." . . . Bill Bradley: "My personal view is that when the votes are counted, that should be it. It is a perilous course to try to delay in the expectation that things will be turned around by lawyers. Unless there is something fraudulent or a flagrant violation of law, this should end on Nov. 17." . . . In USA Today poll, 61 percent of Gore voters and 66 percent of George W. Bush voters say they would accept other candidate as legitimate if he is inaugurated. . . . George Will, on Gore operatives' postelection maneuvers: "Their actions demolish the presidential pretensions of the dangerous man for whom they do their reckless work."

Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R., Utah), in Washington Post: "For the second time in my lifetime, a Chicago politician named Daley is trying to steal a presidential election." . . . Herb Klein, press secretary for Richard Nixon in 1960, on Gore campaign chief Bill Daley, in Wall Street Journal: "We felt that his father stole an election and here he is talking about contesting it and we didn't." . . . Hillary Clinton proposes abolishing Electoral College. . . . Sen. Phil Gramm (R., Texas), in Houston Chronicle: "If you eliminated the Electoral College, presidential candidates would never campaign outside the 20 large metropolitan areas." . . . Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), on Meet the Press: "The message to the voters of New York is clear. Mrs. Clinton wants to use the Senate seat as a stepping stone to the presidency." . . . In Polling Company survey, 56 percent say they would vote against Hillary Clinton if she ran for president. . . . Rick Perlstein writes in American Prospect that in Amazon.com's reader reviews, conservative books garner 80 percent five-star ratings; pro-Clinton books get 80 percent one-star ratings.

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D., R.I.), in preelection speech, according to Voter.com: "If you want to know what happens when people don't turn out, all you need to do is look at Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott, Dick Armey, Tom DeLay, because this is the crowd that gets elected when working people don't show up. This is the right-wing crowd that does get elected. If you're a student of history, as I am, you study history. The fact of the matter is, we've always battled the right wing. There's always been a fascist kind of crowd in every society who's reactionary, that scapegoats people, who's more interested in power than the exercise of power for the good of the common will. So we have that battle today." . . . Eron Shosteck in The Hotline: "If Sens. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R., Colo.) and Richard Shelby (R., Ala.) had not switched parties [after the 1994 elections], the Dems would effectively control the new Senate." . . . Sen. Chuck Hagel (R., Neb.) considers running for a Senate leadership post. . . . Princeton professor Cornel West blasts Electoral College as racist on HBO's Chris Rock Show. . . . Susan B. Anthony List, pro-life counter to EMILY's List, wins in 17 of its 22 congressional races, spending over $3 million.

Gore, on the campaign trail: "In my faith, I am taught that good overcomes evil if we choose that outcome." . . . Gore: "When my opponent, Governor Bush, says that he will appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Court, I often think of the strictly constructed meaning that was applied when the Constitution was written, how some people were considered three-fifths of a human being." . . . Tipper Gore: "I think that a vote for my husband is the last best hope for everybody." . . . Gore, asked on CNN if Bob Dylan should become poet laureate: "That's really an excellent question. . . . I think it's actually something that's worth considering. How does that work? Doesn't the poet laureate change every so often? I think we just got a new one, didn't we? Someone in his 80s." (He is Stanley Kunitz, age 95.). . . The World Wrestling Federation sues Media Research Center president, Brent Bozell, calling him "a self-appointed zealot whose extremist views are so repugnant. . . ."

Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in London prepares figures of both Bush and Gore. . . . Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez, in Washington Post, on an end to U.S. economic sanctions against his country: "closer than ever before." . . . North Korea returns remains of 15 soldiers believed missing since Korean War. . . . In Manchester, England, court-ordered separation of Siamese twins kills the weaker twin. Parents could not afford to appeal decision. . . .Taiwanese legislator Lo Fu Chu: "When I beat people up, it's because I'm trying to get legislation approved."