(U-WIRE) -When President George W. Bush claimed he would be a uniter not a divider, he wasn't entirely wrong. During his tenure, Bush somehow managed to unite the divided against each other. Or did he?
Is it really Bush's fault that the country has become so divided, or has he just become the fall guy for a situation that has veered entirely beyond his control?
As anyone who paid attention to the last election knows, Bush never really had a chance to get off to a good start in office. Before he was able to take his office, Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, demanded a recount, alleging voter fraud. What many might not realize is that a similar situation has happened before, albeit with a different outcome.
In 1960, there was another close call in the presidential election between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. This time, it was the Republicans who were preparing to file lawsuits in 11 states that were too close to call. Kennedy had received a popular vote victory by only 113,000 votes, which was less than two-thirds of 1 percent of the popular vote, which had approximately 68,828,960 votes. Interestingly enough, the electoral votes were not nearly as close, with Kennedy receiving 303 votes and Nixon receiving 219 votes; 15 votes went to the independent Sen. Harry Byrd.
In the 2000 election popular vote, Al Gore had secured 543,895 votes over George Bush, which was also less than two-thirds of 1 percent of the vote in a popular vote that amounted to about 105,405,100. In the electoral votes, Bush was ahead with 271 votes to Gore's 266. No independent received any of the electoral votes in the election.
If all of those numbers didn't confuse you, you might be thinking to yourself that it isn't the same. In 2000, Gore won the popular vote and lost the electoral vote, but in 1960, Nixon lost both. That's true. However, there was evidence of voter fraud in 1960, and a shift of only 4,480 votes in Illinois and 25,000 in Texas could have secured Nixon the presidency.
With this in mind, Nixon had the option to call a recount for the election. Illinois and Texas were being investigated at the time; Texas was notorious for the magical ballot box of Kennedy's running mate Lyndon B. Johnson. In Richard Reeves' book, President Kennedy: Profile of Power
he gives two examples of voter fraud in Texas and Illinois:
There were 6 138 votes cast by 4 895 voters registered in Fannin County
Texas; in the 38th precinct of Chicago's sixth ward
43 voters seemed to have cast 121 votes in the hour after the polls opened.
Nixon was prepared to contest the election in light of these instances of voter fraud, and with his experience as a lawyer, many argue that he might have been successful. He was urged by Republican leaders and his advisers to act. But he didn't. Later he told his longtime adviser Bryce Harlow, Bryce
it'd tear the country to pieces. You can't do that.
The key point is that Nixon recognized the implications of challenging a heated election. The 2000 election is an example of what challenging such a large-scale election will do to a country, and its subsequent years have shown a divided nation. We're living in a bitterly divided country, and it is the people, not the president, that will be ultimately responsible for tearing it apart.
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Dusty Higgins
