It's difficult to say with certainty what the nation is going to do on November 2. There seems to be a poll that can satisfy any voter no matter his political affiliation, and nobody knows for sure if the states in play are soft red, soft blue, or soft shoe. The only sure thing, even if President George W. Bush scores decisive victories in the Electoral College and the popular vote over John Kerry, is that the Democratic Party will summon the proud legacy of Al Gore and cry foul.

Al Gore served in the U.S. military for a little less than two years. He was a member of Congress for sixteen years and Vice President for eight. Yet when his obituary is written, he will be remembered for being the first man in the history of the Republic to not only refuse to accept the verdict of a presidential election, but hold the nation hostage while attempting to find a judge or judges who would make him President. Gore, it should be noted in this particular political year, is also the first man in history to have conceded the Presidency before he didn't concede the Presidency.

Already, Democratic lawyers, hacks, and thugs are circling the wagons and stand at the ready. The Democratic National Committee has issued a memo instructing local party officials to charge voter intimidation 'preemptively.' This past Sunday on Fox News Sunday, former Clinton Justice Department henchman Eric Holder implied that the only thing a Bush win on November 2 proves is that the President has managed to steal another election. Jesse Jackson is poised, as he was in 2000, to charge that the quadrennial Jim Crow laws are in effect and black voters have been 'disenfranchised' all over the nation.

Should President Bush win again without winning the popular vote, the honorable Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will no doubt be available to lecture the ignorant public on how ancient and useless the Electoral College has become, though she was curiously silent on the subject in 1992 and 1996 when her husband failed on both occasions to win 50 percent plus one of the vote. Her great admirer Paul Begala will no doubt re—word this 2000 quote from his professional bully's pulpit on 'Crossfire,' where CNN pays him to shill for John Kerry:

"Yes . . . tens of millions of good people in Middle America voted Republican. But if you look closely at that map [showing states won by George W. Bush in red] you see a more complex picture. You see the state where James Byrd was lynched——dragged behind a pickup truck until his body came apart——it's red. You see the state where Matthew Shepard was crucified on a split—rail fence for the crime of being gay——it's red. You see the state where right—wing extremists blew up a federal office building and murdered scores of federal employees——it's red. The state where an Army private who was thought to be gay was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat, and the state where neo—Nazi skinheads murdered two African Americans because of their skin color, and the state where Bob Jones University spews its anti—Catholic bigotry: they're all red too."

Presumably, using Florida 2000 as a guide, pro—Democrat unions will again ship menacing looking men to the state or states in question to chant 'No recount, no peace' and other helpful mantras for consumption on the evening news. Cameras will no doubt capture groups of citizens standing across the street from one another, behind police barricades, hurling insults and middle fingers at their countrymen on the opposite side. Thankfully, though, we can count on objective newsmen like Dan Rather to sift the wheat from the chaff and report the news as it is, just as it was in 2000.

All of this — the hatred, the suspicion, the ridiculous spectacle of convincing a good part of the nation, and who knows how many abroad, that an American election is illegitimate and in need of observation by the United Nations — all of it is attributable to the massive ego and maniacal ambition of Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.

Say this for Gore, though — he made Nixon look like a statesman. In 1960, when Nixon truly had an election stolen from him by John F. Kennedy and Mayor Daley of Chicago, the sitting Vice President was man enough and loved his country enough to turn his back on the temptation of forcing a recount. The work of the nation, Nixon insisted, had to go on, and the world needed to see the eloquently peaceful transfer of power between partisans that was uniquely American. That spirit was destroyed by Gore. Kerry — the bizzaro JFK — is not skilled enough to pull off electoral grand larceny, so he will mimic Gore rather than his idol. 

In this uncertain time, perhaps only one thing other than whining Democrats is certain. Until the Gore/Clinton/McAuliffe power structure within the Democratic Party has been eliminated — hopefully in 2008 when Hillary is defeated in the presidential primaries or the general election itself — Democrats will continue to insist they are for the average American, but refuse to trust his vote. That is the legacy Al Gore has left behind.

Matt May is a freelance writer and can be reached at matthewtmay@yahoo.com