I've long intended to write something semi-substantial about the election debacle of 2000, but never managed to write more than fragments. I've wanted to write about it in part because it was one of the political turning points of my own life, and in part because I think that, despite the massive amount of ink that has been spilled over it, too little has actually been said.

I'm certainly not the most qualified person to write about it, but I'm not the least qualified, either. From November 8th 2000 until December 18th, I basically did nothing but read newspapers, watch the news, and surf the 'net for information on the recount. I slept a little, but not much, and teaching takes up about nine hours per week. So that left a lot of time for me to try to absorb information about what was going on.

Let me start by saying that I was a lukewarm Gore supporter, and that I did work for the Charlottesville Democrats at a very low level--working the phone banks, mostly. But I was torn about my decision, and every night I drove down to Democratic headquarters I had the same heated argument with myself about whether I was making a mistake. If McCain had won the Republican nomination, there is a good--but not quite 50%--chance that I would have voted and worked for him.

After the election, however, my position began to change. After about a week of almost non-stop observation of the election deadlock, something extremely unpleasant slowly began to dawn on me. There was something very different about the ways the two sides were conducting themselves. By nature and by training, I'm the sort of person who second-, third-, and fourth-guesses most of his judgments. At first I surmised that it was simply my (relatively weak) pro-Gore bias manifesting itself. But the evidence mounted. And mounted. The Republicans were, to say the very least, playing hardball. The Democrats were, to say the very least, not.

Now, a few Democrats had made some terribly injudicious comments soon after the election, and the Gore campaign's initial reactions were purely strategic rather than principled. But the Democrats--presumably under the direction of Gore--quickly fell into line and began acting, more or less, like civilized members of a liberal democracy. Not so the Republicans. Their rhetoric, initially perhaps somewhat less vituperative than that of the Democrats, quickly pegged the invective meter. Gore was a sore loser. Gore was a cheater. Gore was trying to steal the election... In the face of the patently obvious fact that we simply had no idea who had won the election, the Republicans labeled Gore a sore loser--which, of course, presupposed that he had lost. And because he asked that the votes actually be counted, they accused him of trying to steal what, for all we knew, was rightfully his. The irrationality and immorality of it all made me feel physically sick more than once.