Al Gore earned top civilian honor for conceding in 2000, but what if he refused to lose?

[Uncle Joe]

In 2000, Al Gore accepted his presidential election loss after a prolonged legal fight without violence. He did the right, civil thing and he is deserving of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

(snip)

“After winning the popular vote he accepted the outcome of a disputed presidential election for the sake of unity and trust in our institutions," Biden said. "That, to me, was amazing what you did ... history’s going to remember you for many reasons, among them will be your honesty, your integrity, and the legacy of your service."

This was a clear rebuke of his 2020 and presumed 2024 Republican opponent, 45th President Donald Trump, who still refuses to accept his loss nearly four years ago; who promises to pardon the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to stop the certification of presidential results; and whose surrogates decline to say whether they will accept the 2024 election results, such as, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, who played this game Sunday, May 5, on "Meet the Press."

But what if Gore chose to rebuff the U.S. 2000 U.S. Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision to stop the recount of the vote? What if he employed the discredited theory that he as vice president wielded the power not to certify the election results for his opponent as Trump hoped his former Vice President Mike Pence would do for him in 2021? What if Gore used his influence to extend his time in power for as long as he could?

(snip)

But he did the right thing to accept his loss, as difficult as it was for him, and as antiquated as the Electoral College seems in today's politics. He exemplified a core tenet of the original meaning of civility, which is about upholding society over self.

(snip)

https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/columnists/david-plazas/2024/05/07/tennessee-native-al-gore-presidential-medal-freedom-bush-biden-trump/73585619007/

[Hope22]

1. But the weirdest thing

Up until the day Gore conceded he collected money from his supporters for legal fees to fight for the office. I will never understand that. He should have fought or returned the money.

[GoreWon2000]

6. Gore did all he could

to have the uncounted Florida votes counted. I know this having spent 15 years volunteering on election campaigns all the way to the Presidential campaigns when I lived in Florida. He had no idea when the SCOTUS would rule on the case. What else do you think he should he have done, start a civil war?

[Hope22]

7. No need to attack me.

I paid into his legal defense fund and less than 24 hours later he conceded. No refund for that. Months later when they finally counted, he had the most votes. Go figure. Your civil war comment was unnecessary. My observation is valid Dem or Republican. I stood with 100 people on the steps of the Ohio Statehouse those cold days in December. The message was ….COUNT THE VOTES. Not sure where the rest of the country was but few people cared enough to make the stand. Lots of people out here are active in elections and speaking. I’ll save you my history! We had Blackwell screwing the pooch here. We never take our eyes off politics!

[GoreWon2000]

8. Blame Bushthief not Gore

My comment was based on my experience of 15 years of working on election campaigns when I lived in Florida. I worked on local state legislative campaigns all the way to Presidential campaigns. I know the Florida laws that the Bushthief campaign and their rethug surrogates broke and the disputed territory like the back of my hand. I also donated to the Gore campaign and worked on the Gore 2000 campaign as well. I take offense and exception to out of state carpetbaggers who've never worked on election campaigns in Florida who think they know what happened in Florida by attacking the victim of the election theft instead of the crimminal who actually stole the election. FYI, you don't know. You should be focused on blaming the Bushthief and all of the illegal acts he and his campaign surrogates committed in order to thwart the will of the people in Florida and steal the election. It was the Bushthief who was the coward who couldn't stand all of the votes being counted because he knew he would lose. Talk about anti-democracy. Where's your outrage about that?
Again I ask, what was Al Gore supposed to do, start a civil war? You don't seem to understand that the rethugs controlled the SCOTUS, the Florida Governor, the Florida Secretary of State, and both chambers of the Florida legislature and they weren't going to allow all of the votes to be counted no matter what. In addition, it was the U.S. Senate dems who refused to co-sponsor the Congressional Black Caucus's challenge to the fraudulent Florida vote count which killed any possible Congressional action. The Senate dems couldn't abandon Al Gore fast enough. What about that ugly truth?
I'm curious if you make a habit of blaming crime victims for the crimes committed against them by the criminals? I'm absolutely passionate about this because of my many years working on campaigns in Florida. I used to know a number of the Florida Gore 2000 campaign people.
You need to stop blaming Al Gore and put the blame where the actual facts shows that it belongs which is with the anti-democracy Bushthief.

[Walleye]

2. Wouldn't have worked, he wasn't already in the White House like trump was

[enough]

3. That conflict was not about the electoral college.

It was about the Florida Secretary of State stopping vote counting and the Supreme Court ratifying that action.

Yes the Electoral College voted, but the setup was provided by Republican state politics, dirty tricks, and blatant SCOTUS partisanship.

[Uncle Joe]

4. You make a good point enough

[GoreWon2000]

5. Several hundred thousand votes sit uncounted in the Florida archives

This article is just another example of the pro Bush media refusing to tell the truth about the 2000 election. It completely ignores the fact that several hundred thousand legal votes sit uncounted in the Florida archives because W couldn't tolerate the fact that he knew he would lose if all of the uncounted Florida votes were counted. Saying there was no political violence in 2000 is wrong. The Brooks Brothers riot that attacked Government Center in Miami on 11/22/00 illegally stopped the legal vote count in Miami-Dade County. This attack is the precursor to tRump's 1/6/21 attack on the U.S. capitol. The Palm Beach county butterfly ballot violated Florida ballot design law at every turn. There's much more to this story. Suffice it to say that the many illegal and anti-democracy acts of the Bush/Florida 2000 Presidential election theft formed the roadmap that tRump is now using.

[Farmer-Rick]

9. Gore should never have conceded

He was very wrong to concede. That's a boatload of Bull Crap that he did the right thing. The right thing for the right wing but not for democracy.

Gore won, he won the popular vote and he won Florida. Florida refused to count accurately and Daddy Bush's Supremes elected W. We the people did NOT elect the idiot W.

By conceding he lost standing in any possible future court case or action.

What could he have done? I don't know but the moment he gave up and conceded the rigged election was acceptable to him, he lost all chance of future claims.

No, Gore was very very wrong to have given up on democracy so easily.

I'm sorry I'm blaming Gore for giving up because he was the victim of the Bush Cheney election fraud. But by conceding, he ensured practically no one would fight for him and sent our democracy further into Supreme Court fascism.

[Uncle Joe]

10. From your post, that's the fundamental question.

"What could he have done? I don't know but the moment he gave up and conceded the rigged election was acceptable to him, he lost all chance of future claims."



You don't even have an answer.

To my way of thinking, that's the same mentality as blaming the rape victim.

The Supreme Court was against him.

Florida's Governor, Secretary of State, and legislature along with Bush the least's other confederates were the power of that state.

The corporate media had been against Al for the better part of two years prior to the selection of 2000 as they had been slandering/libeling him since March of 1999 in their "War Against Gore."

"Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet" etc. etc. etc. it wouldn't have been close enough to steal had that one sided propaganda campaign by a monopolized corporate media not been going on.

They trashed Gore and democracy precisely because he was the preeminent champion of both the Internet directly and democracy indirectly via magnifying the people's 1st Amendment power.

That motivation is as ancient as Zeus punishing Prometheus for stealing fire and giving it to humanity, all the corporate media cared about was the potential loss of power, influence and money

The corporate media also knew that Gore was the preeminent political champion against the threat of global warming which threatened their heavy commercial buying fossil fuel corpse.

Al Gore; respected if not loved our democratic republic too much to rile his supporters up to attack the Congress or Supreme Court.

[Farmer-Rick]

11. I never said he should rile up attacks

I said he lost all chance of future claims by conceding.

Maybe he could never get justice at that moment, but later when our Supremes come to their senses he could. Or maybe a civil claim filed down the road. Or maybe it would show he would never give up.

Just because you can't imagine what he possibly could do, doesn't mean there is, or was, no other possibility down the road. Your lack of imagination does not mean there isn't something that can be done.

Yeah it's a shame to blame the victim in a fraudulent election scandal like that but conceding and saying I accept what happened to me is not the answer either.