Numbers game - WHY AND WHY NOT By Nelson A. Navarro

NEW YORK – The US presidential fight that almost put the nation to sleep has finally gained everybody’s attention.

As I write (5 a.m. Thursday, Manila time), the unprecedented vote recount in Florida has put in grave doubt who exactly has won the presidency, Vice President Al Gore or Texas Gov. George W. Bush. The networks are saying the process could take three more hours or longer to finish. But whether the results would be acceptable to whoever loses is another question.

This is after all the closest and perhaps most heartbreaking presidential race since John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon in 1960. Nixon did the honorable thing by conceding the elections against the advice of most of his advisers who were urging him to dig his heels and demand a probe into alleged pro-Kennedy voter fraud in Richard Daley’s Cook County stronghold in Illinois.

Gore may not be disposed to emulating Nixon’s class act. In fact, he has recalled his earlier concession statement. One factor that sticks out is that Florida’ s Governor happens to be Jeb Bush, George W’s brother and most of the reported irregularities seem to be at Gore’s expense.

But regardless of who comes out the winner, one thing is crystal clear: There is no real mandate to talk about or shout from the rooftops. The results show Gore winning the nationwide popular vote by some 200,000 votes, but the ultimate result depends on who wins Florida and grabs its all-important Electoral College votes to clinch victory.

Should Bush carry Florida, his victory will be haunted by the fact that he, in fact, received less votes than Gore. As for Gore prevailing in the end, the experience could only be like winning by the skin of his teeth.

And given the hair-thin Republican victories in the Senate and the House of Representatives, the next President will surely need all the goodwill and persuasive skills to push his agenda. A victorious Bush could be stymied by the Democratic opposition as effectively as President Clinton was raked through the coals by the Republicans all through-out his eight-year presidency.

As Clinton’s heir and more upfront exponent of social welfare reforms, Gore is guaranteed Republican opposition from Day One.

From start to finish, both candidates never quite connected with the electorate. Bush was always regarded as an intellectual lightweight trading on his father’s (President George Bush) legacy. Gore never shook off his wooden and boring image, which, in turn, took another beating from the moral sleaze (i.e., Monica Lewinsky) attached to the Clinton presidency.

So unpromising was the race for the Republican nomination that Arizona Sen. John McClaine came out of the blue to practically derail what had been ballyhoed as a Bush presidential express.

Gore had an even stronger lock on the Democratic nomination as Clinton’ s two-term Vice President, but Bill Bradley, an ex-senator from New Jersey, almost knocked him out of the race.

Bush and Gore followed the same cynical strategy of rallying party regulars to beat back their "outsider" or "reform" challengers. Finally crowned by their parties as early as last spring, there was little else to do but crisscross the country, resort to one gimmick after another, and hurl charges after charges against each other.

Nobody was listening, it was said by just about every commentator in the nation. More than that, nobody was committing. Except the already committed, of course.

The Nov. 7th election tabulations suggest that all the two men really did was to preach to the choir, so to speak. They mainly appealed to and got their votes from the party faithful and focus groups that have always been their core constituencies. When it came down to independent voters, the result was evenly split. Neither made a better impression than the other.

What does this boring exercise only made exciting by the unexpected Florida numbers game have to say about American presidential politics at this juncture of history?

The oft-repeated observation is that American politics has become too expensive, too manipulative and too alienating.

Estimates put total election funding beyond $1 billion, much of it from "soft money" sources like big corporations, lobby groups and other vested interests.

More and more, elections are media-driven and played in accordance with the slickest public relations and advertising strategies. Everything is canned – from the candidate’ s regulation dark suit, white shirt and red tie to the picture-perfect family poses and, yes, down to "The Kiss" Al Gore planted on Tipper’s quivering lips on live TV.

Candidates run like horses preparing for the derby or athletes competing for Olympic gold. Yet Americans also insist that democracy and elections are not primarily about winning but about making society more human and meaningful. How this can be achieved by playing politics the casino way every four years boggles the imagination.

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Nelson A. Navarro’s e-mail address: <[email protected]>