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Jewish World Review Nov. 28, 2000 / 1 Kislev 5761

Adam Wolfson

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"The People's True Will" ?

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- WHAT'S TO ACCOUNT for Al Gore's relentless pursuit of victory in Florida even after losing three official vote tallies? Indeed, when George W. Bush was certified the winner of Florida Sunday night by 537 votes, the Gore camp angrily declared it would continue its fight to overturn the results.

The Vice President's inordinate ambition to be president and fear of political oblivion should he fail to get there are by themselves only partial explanations. For the Democratic party would not allow Gore to put its fortunes and reputation in jeopardy, if only one man's naked self-interest were the issue. Democrats have their own long-term interests to consider, and such efforts by the Gore camp as systematically excluding ballots cast by military servicemen will do the party no good, win or lose.

What keeps Gore and the Democrats counting votes in Florida is their belief, against all evidence to the contrary, that they won Florida. Somehow or other, they just know they won.

Consider a couple of recent quotes culled from the New York Times:

  • November 22: "Mr. Gore's advisors say he truly believes he had at least a 10,000-to-20,000-vote lead in Florida among people who intended to vote for him but were somehow thwarted."

  • November 25: "People close to Mr. Gore said that he remained firm in his belief that he had won the election."

  • November 26: Mr. Gore "believes -- no knows -- he won the election, people who deal with him daily say."

Gore "truly believes" he won by thousands of votes -- even though three official counts demonstrate he lost by at least several hundred. He is "firm in his belief, he "knows," that more people "intended" to vote for him -- even though the count itself shows otherwise. Gore somehow intuits the true intent of voters -- no matter how they voted in fact.

As Gore put it in his November 16 press conference: "This is a time to honor the true will of the people." Mark his words: Not the will of the people as expressed on Election Day but their "true will" -- an ideal, abstract will only he can discern.

Liberals keep counting votes in Florida then not simply because this will win them the White House. Rather, they sincerely feel that in doing so they are fulfilling democracy's true promise. Unfortunately, their idea of "democracy" has little resemblance to what most Americans mean by the term.

Listen to William Daley's defense of the numerous recounts (machine and hand) and various legal challenges to the election results: "What we are seeing here [in Florida] is democracy in action ... to ensure the will of people."

If you thought "democracy in action" was to be seen on Election Day, you would be mistaken. Gore and his supporters believe that elections themselves don't really measure the people's will. "Democracy In Action" takes place only after the voting is over and done. Then, lawyers and spin-artists (call them "democrats in action") divine the people's true will and true intent.

This belief in the people's "true will," as opposed to the will actually recorded, helps to explain what would otherwise be the Gore camp's laughably absurd position that "pregnant" or "dimpled" chads be counted. A dimpled chad has no perforation, only a slight indentation. Gore insists that these be counted as votes for him. From his Olympian view, an ever-so-slight indentation proves that the voter meant to vote for him.

But nothing can come from an indentation. One could just as easily suppose of a dimpled chad that the voter wavered, lightly touched the chad, and at the last moment decided not to vote for Gore. Only if you are armed with omniscient insight into voters' true intent can anything be made of mere indentations.

Underlying Gore's conviction to know the people's true intent and will is a haughty disdain for how the people actually voted. The political philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously distinguished "negative liberty," which is freedom to do as one wishes with a minimum of constraint, from the more totalitarian "positive liberty" -- which compels individuals to conform to some prescribed political ideal. In the latter conception, said Berlin, "Freedom is not freedom to do what is irrational, or stupid, or wrong. To force empirical selves into the right pattern is not tyranny, but liberation."

This antidemocratic sentiment -- that "empirical selves" with all their foibles be forced to be "free" -- is what ultimately sustains Gore's dimpled-chad ballot counters. They believe they are liberating confused or stupid voters, they are realizing the true intent and will of the people.

These high-minded defenders of Democracy In Action would start America down a path it ought not to go: Where real votes and real people are displaced by some phantasmal "intent" of the people.



JWR contributor Adam Wolfson is executive editor of The Public Interest Comment by clicking here.

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© 2000, Adam Wolfson