Last week I (along with a lot of folks) had an article on Paul Krugman going off his meds regarding the 2000 election. Just another liberal who cannot get over the election. Today, he issued corrections. Sort of. (h/t to Michelle Malkin)
Corrections: In my column last Friday, I cited an inaccurate number (given by the Conyers report) for turnout in Ohio’s Miami County last year: 98.5 percent. I should have checked the official state site, which reports a reasonable 72.2 percent. Also, the public editor says, rightly, that I should acknowledge initially misstating the results of the 2000 Florida election study by a media consortium led by The Miami Herald. Unlike a more definitive study by a larger consortium that included The New York Times, an analysis that showed Al Gore winning all statewide manual recounts, the earlier study showed him winning two out of three.
Huh? As Patterico states:
Okay, stop. Isn’t Krugman saying the same exact thing he said in his correction? Paul Krugman initially said “Gore won two out of three†— and corrected that statement today to “Gore won two out of three.†Call me crazy, but this appears to be the same exact claim.
Now, it may be true that Al may have won Florida if the overcounts were counted in a statewide recount, as Mickey Kaus writes:
The mother lode of hidden Gore votes, it turned out, was in the overvotes, especially ballots of voters who "tried to be extra-clear in their choice and ended up nullifying the vote. They filled in the oval next to a candidate and then filled in the oval for ‘write-in’ and wrote the same candidate’s name again."
The discomfiting truth is that, if you also recounted overvotes, the NORC media recount, under several "certainty" standards, showed Gore the winner… What’s more, there’s strong, near-smoking evidence that if the recount had been allowed to proceed overvotes would have been counted (despite the Gore camp’s revealingly obtuse, self-defeating focus on the "undervotes").
However, if memory serves, it was the Gore camp who were pushing for manual recounts in specific voting precincts only, rather then a statewide recount. You cannot blame Al to much, since, again, there were 28 precincts with issues. Oh, and 27 were Democratically run. Ooops.
Also, I wonder if the studies would take into account the overseas military vote? You know, the votes the Gore camp didn’t want counted.
One thing, though. The overvotes may have given the election to Gore had they been counted, but, according to Florida State Law, they cannot count. Per the USA Today article Michelle cites, these were Democratic ballots that were pooched by, yup, Democrats. The Law is The Law. If they weren’t capable of voting properly, TS.
For me, I could have cared less who won. I voted for Gore, I thought he was the better choice at the time. I was a true Independent at the time. I could go into the why’s of voting for Al, but, that is old news. No matter what, Bush is the President. Whining and complaining by the Dems over that election is bordering on dementia. And, in Krugman’s case, perhaps beyond dementia.
