NOT ALL THESE questions have easy answers. But here’s a guide to some of the frequently asked questions about the legal challenges still roiling the race for the White House.
What will the U.S. Supreme Court hearing decide? The U.S. Supreme Court heard an appeal from the Bush campaign over the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to extend the deadline for hand recounts of the state’s votes by nine days–from Nov. 14 to Nov. 26. If the court agrees with the Bush camp’s arguments, the results of some of the manual recounts could be thrown out. So far, the manual recounts have narrowed Bush’s lead against Gore in Florida from 930 to 537.
Who are the judges who will be deciding the case? There are nine Supreme Court justices, ranging in age from 52 to 76. Seven were appointed by Republican presidents; two by Democrats. Click on our interactive picture below to learn more about the judges and their voting records.
What options does the Supreme Court have? The Supreme Court does not have to choose an outright winner. It could decide to uphold or overturn all or part of the Florida Supreme Court’s decision. It could also decide to send the case back to Florida, with guidelines for a new decision by the state Supreme Court.
When will the court make its decision? The court does not have any legal deadline, but, because of the urgency of this case, many legal observers believe it could come early next week.
If Al Gore loses this case, is it all over for him? Legally, no. Both campaigns still have several lawsuits still pending. Politically, though, he may find it hard to continue the fight if the Supreme Court does rule unequivocally against him.
What other election-related lawsuits are still outstanding? The Democrats still have two major cases outstanding. One is its contest of Florida’s certified results in Miami-Dade, Nassau and Palm Beach counties. At the Bush team’s request, 1.1 million ballots from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach were delivered to Tallahassee while the Leon County Circuit Court listens to arguments about whether to proceed with hand recounts that may pick up votes from ballots rejected by machines. That hearing is scheduled for Dec. 2.
In another case, local Democrats have sued the Seminole County Canvassing Board, accusing it of fraudulent practices in connection with absentee ballots. A trial is scheduled for Dec. 6. The Gore campaign wants 15,215 absentee ballots to be rejected. If they win, Gore will have a lead of more than 4,000 votes in Florida.
title: “Is It Over Yet " ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-06” author: “Roberta Sultan”
But what exactly is there to be excited about? For weeks, Edwards has been thundering about how “the South is not George Bush’s backyard, it is my backyard, and I will beat George Bush in my backyard!” Yet on Tuesday night, he lost to Kerry 52-27 percent in Virginia and 41-26 percent in Tennessee. He has won only one of 14 primaries and caucuses, and that was in his birth state of South Carolina. And he confronts the seemingly unremitting momentum of what his strategist David Axelrod calls the “Kerry front-runner tsunami.”
Edwards, however, insists that he has plenty of reasons to feel heartened. Most important, he met his goal of finishing in the top two in both contests, thereby ejecting Gen. Wesley Clark from the race. (Clark abandoned his quest for the nomination Tuesday night after finishing third in the day’s two primaries.) That edges Edwards closer to his preferred scenario: a head-to-head match-up with Kerry. “The war of attrition is about narrowing the field down to two” and “winning delegates as we go forward,” Edwards told reporters at the University of Memphis last weekend. (He now has 165 delegates, compared to Kerry’s 516, of the 2,161 needed to win.) The next step: to knock out Howard Dean in the fiercely disputed Wisconsin primary. “We’ve seen time and again,” says Axelrod, that “when [Edwards] has had time to focus on a state, because of his superior communications and campaign skills, and message, frankly, he does well.” After Wisconsin, the primary schedule–which has challenged Edwards with its compressed run of contests until now–will offer some breathing room until Super Tuesday on March 2. “The voters are going to pause,” predicts Edwards campaign manager Nick Baldick, permitting them to scrutinize the candidates more closely and make a “conscious decision” rather than a “momentum decision.”
But Edwards hasn’t exactly been aggressive about drawing distinctions with Kerry. Though he made some uncharacteristically barbed comments about his rival on the eve of the South Carolina primary–coming close to criticizing Kerry’s long tenure in Washington, his acceptance of contributions from lobbyists and his support of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA–he has dialed back his rhetoric ever since. Perhaps he judged such statements unbecoming of his candidacy’s “positive” theme. But by renouncing ample opportunities to highlight Kerry’s seemingly cozy history with lobbyists, Edwards has failed to contrast himself with his rival as sharply as he could have. He has instead saved his most acid remarks for Bush. “I know what’s going on in rural America,” he told an audience in Jackson, Tenn. “I’m not like George Bush walking around on his ranch down there in Texas with his big belt buckle pretending that he knows what’s going on in the world.”
Rather than emphasize his differences with the other candidates, Edwards constantly stresses his similarity with voters–to sometimes syrupy excess. Consider his exchange with a group of factory workers in Morrison, Tenn., who just lost their jobs because of their employer’s decision to relocate to other states in the United States and Mexico. “I grew up in a family where my father worked in the mill all his life,” he said after meeting with the group at a coffee shop. “I see in the eyes of these families what they’re going through … They deserve [a president] who understands them, who knows what their lives are like, and who knows personally what it means when a plant that they’ve been working at almost their entire lives closes.” That populist message may resonate with voters, but it doesn’t necessarily help them decide why they should choose him and not the other guy.
Edwards’s mostly cordial treatment of Kerry may position him well for a possible vice-presidential nod. Before bounding on stage at his primary-night party, he called Kerry to congratulate him–as he did after the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. But there was no talk of a joint ticket, says Edwards’s press secretary. While speculation about his vice-presidential ambitions provokes spasms of aggravation among his campaign staff, Edwards has subtly adjusted his comments on the topic lately–a recalibration worth noting in a former trial lawyer accustomed to using language precisely. The day of the New Hampshire primary, Edwards responded to a question about his interest in the vice presidency with irritation: “You should be asking [Kerry] that question, whether he’d consider a vice-presidency with me,” he said. “No, the answer to that is no.” But in the past several days, Edwards has changed his tune. Replying to the same question on CNN on Tuesday night, for instance, he said, “I am completely focused on being president of the United States. I’m not even considering or thinking about anything else.” Not exactly a rejection. Which should delight voters who continually cite a Kerry-Edwards ticket as a dream. “If they had that combination,” said one voter in Portsmouth, N.H., “I think they would just cream [Bush].”
For now, though, Edwards plans to campaign vigorously in Wisconsin. Recent polls show him trailing Kerry by more than 30 points (although these numbers may change now that Clark is out of the race.) But Edwards has ramped up his staff to 25 and just expanded his ad buys in five major markets, including Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay. He vows to campaign in Wisconsin every day, despite a planned fund-raising trip and an appearance on “The Tonight Show” that will take him to Los Angeles two days this week. He’ll criss-cross the Badger State, with special emphasis on the sort of rural and blue-collar towns that have delivered for him in the past. And he’ll continue to promote an anti-NAFTA, pro-job-creation message that he’s been honing since South Carolina–one he hopes will reverberate in a state that he says has lost 75,000 jobs during the Bush administration.
Edwards has already won one convert. As JoAnne Kender awaited his appearance at the primary-night party in Milwaukee, she recounted her roster of woes. She lost her customer-service job at a lighting company last October because the economic downturn squeezed sales. She has searched fruitlessly for new work. She’s rapidly depleting her savings to cover her mortgage payments. She can’t afford to pay for health insurance. And she’s enduring what she considers the indignity of collecting unemployment. Before hearing Edwards speak, Kender wasn’t completely convinced that he deserved her vote. Afterward, she was sold. “I can’t explain it, but I feel like I can trust him,” she said. “He doesn’t seem as distant from reality” as the other candidates. Still, she held a sober view of Edwards’s prospects. “I just wish he had a better shot,” she said. “I feel that on Tuesday, I’ll be voting for John Edwards, but in November, I’ll vote for Kerry.” Maybe if they team up, she’ll get to vote for both.
