Analysis: Election Shows the Disunited States
Wes Vernon
Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2000
"Two countries occupying the same North American land mass" is the way one TV commentator summed it up Election Night as he looked at the Electoral College map.
The Bush states in red occupied the great swath of Heartland America from Virginia to the California border, barely skirting the Rust Belt states of the Upper Midwest. "Fly-over country" is the way the coastal elites describe the Heartland.

The Gore states occupy the Northeast tip, with the notable exception of New Hampshire (where crusty New England Yankee Republicans still have influence they’ve lost elsewhere in the region), the Upper Midwest Rust Belt, where labor union influence is still strong, and the West Coast.

Looking at a county-by-county map published by USA Today, Gore’s land mass support is amazingly tiny. It reflects an urban vs. rural divide.

The West Coast blue is a mere urban sliver right along the Pacific Ocean. And even the Northeast and Upper Midwest are spotty. Gore does pick up some urban blotches of support in some Heartland states, but not enough to wipe out the predominant pro-Bush sentiment.

This map shows that Al Gore won 677 counties, whereas Bush took almost four times as many, 2,434. In land mass, we’re talking about more than four to one in square miles for Bush.

Beyond the map colors are analyses of what it all means. There are those who point out that this represents an ideological and cultural split that is as pronounced as at any time since the Civil War.

They cite one side, the Coastal/Rust Belt, as consisting of cultural Marxists who champion the causes of "diversity" and identity politics, environmentalism and multiculturalism.

The opposing side, represented by the Heartland that has been urging George W. Bush to "hang in there" against attempts by the Gore campaign to steal the election, is the America where gun rights, color-blindness, the "Main Street" free enterprise ethic, and Judeo-Christian values prevail.

What bothers those who argue the Heartland’s case is the perception that the Coastal/Rust Belt America seeks to bully Heartland America, not only in imposing elitist cultural values, but in property seizures such as land grabs in the West during the Clinton administration. Moreover, the Coastal elites dominate much of the media.

The resulting resentment has prompted Middle American commentators to rally the Heartland populace to fight back.

However, if this is to be done, Heartland America will have to clean out some of its own stables.

In looking over the membership roster of the U.S. Senate for the upcoming 107th Congress, NewsMax.com counted 16 liberal senators from Heartland America. This does not count the two liberals from Bush state West Virginia, where Robert Byrd is a local legend and where a former governor named Rockefeller has a moneyed leg up for almost any office. Moreover, West Virginia most often has gone for the Democrats in past presidential races. And we did not count Missouri, where a dead man won in unusual circumstances.

The Senate liberals from Heartland are Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Zell Miller and Max Cleland (Ga.), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Mary Landrieu and John Breaux (La.), Max Baucus (Mont.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Harry Reid (Nev.), Jeff Bingaman (N. Mex. – a state where Bush and Gore have been nip and tuck), John Edwards (N.C.), Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad (N.D.), Ernest "Fritz” Hollings (S.C.), Tom Daschle (This is Heartland mentality?) and Tim Johnson (S.D.).

Now let’s look at the "good guys" (right or center-right) in the Coastal/Rust Belt states that went for Gore. Peter Fitzgerald (Ill.), Rick Santorum (Pa.) Charles Grassley (Iowa), and Gordon Smith (Ore.). Only four, which means the liberals do a better job of following through with their base than the conservatives do with theirs. (We did not count the decidedly liberal Republicans in Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont.)

Conservatives can be thankful for the two traditionalist senators in the Bush state of New Hampshire. And of course, the addition of George Allen (Va.) and John Ensign (Nev.) adds to other conservatives from the Heartland to make traditionalist America a formidable force. But not formidable enough.

The presidential race is the only contest where Americans can focus on the "big picture," where they want the country to go. And their electoral votes clearly show that many voters who cast their ballots for Heartland values fail to do likewise farther down on the ballot.

If the Heartland wants to fight back against perceived Coastal/Rust Belt cultural Marxist tyranny, there will have to be a concerted effort to reflect their sentiments in the Senate, where every state, no matter how big or how small, has two senators. Theoretically, this should protect smaller population states from the tyranny of the majority. But it can’t work unless that power is used.

That will mean an uphill battle to fight outside Hollywood money, union money, trial lawyer money and national liberal media influence. It will also require an effort to persuade the folks back home to focus less on the impression a senator makes at Rotary luncheons or that "we need his clout to get a new post office built" or the fact that "he’s a good guy who used to date my cousin," or whatever, and concentrate instead on where that senator or would-be senator wants to lead the country. He or she may be a good person at heart but, once in office, will be swept away by party discipline.

Sixteen more conservatives would give the Heartland a cloture-proof and possibly veto-proof majority. Otherwise that map shows a disconnect.

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Wednesday November 15, 2000; 9:23 AM ET

N.Y. Times Poll Bombshell: Voters Now Back Bush Over Gore

After a week of high-stakes wrangling over Florida's photo-finish presidential election, more Americans would rather see George W. Bush become president than Vice President Al Gore, a New York Times/CBS News poll has found.

Though Gore won the nation's popular vote on Election Day 49 percent to 48 percent, his conduct in the days since has apparently prompted some of his supporters to jump ship. The 1,720 adults surveyed Friday through Sunday for the Times/CBS poll picked Bush over Gore by a margin of 44 percent to 40 percent.

The Times reported that another 14 percent said they "don't know" who should be president and 3 percent said neither should go to the White House. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.

Unlike other post-election surveys conducted by Newsweek and CNN/Time, New York Times/CBS pollsters used the same sample in this survey as they used in pre-elections polls, which were comprised of registered and likely voters.

The New York Times/CBS poll also showed that Bush supporters remain adamant that their man won, while support among Gore backers is weakening.

Ninety percent of Bush voters say the Texas governor should go to the White House while just 74 percent of Gore voters want the vice president to do the same.

Eighty-six percent of Bush voters approve of their man's handling of the post-election crisis while just 73 percent of Gore voters say the same thing about their candidate.

The stunning poll results first appeared in the Times' Tuesday edition, where editors camouflaged the pro-Bush news by headlining the least-newsworthy aspect of the poll's findings. Nowhere in the paper's accompanying report are the new presidential preference numbers noted.

But statistical charts and graphs under the Times' yawner headline "Americans Patiently Await Election Outcome" revealed the paper's biggest discovery: the popular majority that voted for Al Gore on Election day is deserting the vice president in droves.

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Wednesday November 15, 2000; 3:50 PM ET

Judicial Watch to Conduct Florida Recount

As reports of Florida election irregularities continue to spread, a Washington, D.C., legal watchdog group has stepped into the fray.

As of Wednesday, Judicial Watch had amassed a small army of 210 volunteers and had won permission from 32 of the state's 67 counties to do its own Florida ballot recount.

"What we're doing is a call to action to get volunteers," Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman told the Tallahassee Democrat on Tuesday. "We're very skeptical of both the Democrats and the Republicans."

Judicial Watch intends to retain a "big eight" accounting firm to help in its recount effort.

Under Florida law, ballots are public records and may therefore be viewed by anyone. Klayman said he wants to begin by Thursday, starting with the most controversial Florida counties.

So far, only two counties have refused to grant access to Judicial Watch, Osceola and Volusia, both heavily Democratic.

Coincidentally, Volusia was the only county to complete its manual recount by the state's legally mandated 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline. Volusia found enough new Gore ballots to reduce Bush's lead by 98 votes, nearly a quarter of the margin he previously enjoyed.

Any county that continues to deny Judicial Watch access to its ballots will be sued, Klayman said.

The legal watchdog group is also probing reports that the Clinton-Gore administration may have rushed the naturalization process for immigrants in battleground states like Florida as part of an effort to boost Democrat voter turnout.

Under the Florida INS's "Backlog Reduction Program," agency examiners and clerks were rewarded with bonuses and paid time off if they exceeded goals for naturalizing new citizens.

"This sounds like another illegal 'import-a-voter' program by the Clinton-Gore administration," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.

In 1996, the White House tried to naturalize up to a million new immigrants - including 75,000 with criminal records - in time to vote in that year's presidential election.

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Current Status 11.15.00 11:00 pm

Popular Vote Electoral Vote
Bush 49,165,595 (48%) 246

Gore 49,396,044 (48%) 225

Unassigned:
Florida 25
Wisconsin 11
Iowa 7
Oregon 7
New Mexico 5

Total 55


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