Gore must concede presidency

The Issue: Florida recount still gives Bush the edge and didn’t change, in any significant fashion, earlier tabulation.

Our View: Gore must, therefore, concede the presidency rather than waste energy scouring Florida for irregularities.

It is purely political gamesmanship for the Democratic National Committee to be scouring for irregularities in the major battle state of Florida. To file a lawsuit would place the DNC’s interest ahead of the country. Furthermore, it’s a bit too late to challenge the design of questionable ballots. The DNC should have raised this issue before the election.

To allow a re-vote in contested Florida counties brings yet another problem: Who has factual information that the exact same group of voters would be marching into polling places as they did on November 7th? Wouldn’t a re-vote encourage even those who never voted to participate when in the first place they just didn’t bother to vote?

It’s apparent that the DNC never really did its homework when it failed to examine the ballots used in contested counties. At best, is crying over spilled milk, at worse, a reflection of its inability to leave the battle field conceding defeat in a democratic exercise that has been around for over 200 years.

The head of the Florida election organization has stated that 95 out of 100, recounts have never changed the original results. So why would the DNC protract the interest of the rest of the country over an oversight that simply eluded their bleary eyes? Is it a simple excuse to cover for their inadequacies in the strict monitoring of the election?

We agree with former Secretary of State James Baker that Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore must concede the presidency in light of the results of the recount that still leaves Bush ahead however a very close margin.

With the recounts failing to bring about a shift in voter sentiments in favor of Gore, it is also appropriate for the Bush team to proceed with the transition from the Clinton-Gore administration to President-Elect George W. Bush. The question of whether the electoral college should be scrapped in favor of a popular vote is yet another matter that the 107th US Congress would have to address next year. Meanwhile, we say congratulations President Bush!