Candidates play wild game
of tag
 Well,
today is Nov. 13 and we still don't know who our next president will
be. Stopped caring? I have.
In the past week I've watched more CNN and MSNBC
than I have in my entire life. I've been on the edge of my seat eagerly
awaiting the newest election news.
After paying close attention for the past week,
I have been able to assemble a rough timeline of what happened on election
night.
At 8 p.m., the networks claimed that Gore had won
Florida. Two hours later, the networks moved Florida back into the "too
close to call" column. At around 2 a.m., the networks give Bush the
victory in Florida and declare him president-elect.
At 2:30 a.m., Gore, who has been watching CNN for
most of the night, calls Bush to concede the election. Bush, who was
watching cartoons, accepts the concession.
Then at around 3:30 a.m., Gore calls Bush to retract
his concession. In what many political pundits would refer to later
as a brilliant, if belated, strategic move, Bush attempts to call a
"no take backs." Gore then claims that his retraction came before Bush's
call and therefore is a valid move. Bush then allegedly tagged Gore,
causing him to be "it." Gore disputes the validity of the tag, claiming
that Bush only touched his shirt and that Bush was still "it." Bush
then chased Gore around the playground before an extended discussion
of what constitutes a real tag ensued. Meanwhile, Florida election officials,
due to the extremely small margin of votes, decide to have an official
recount of the votes.
There is brief period of calm from Nov. 8 to 9
while votes in Florida are recounted. After the recount, the race in
Florida was still too close to call and the Florida officials are now
waiting for absentee ballots to arrive.
At 4:42 p.m. on Friday, the American people officially
lost interest in the presidential election and turned from CNN and MSNBC
to ESPN and "Days of Our Lives."
As far as I can tell, that is what happened last
week. There may be some small discrepancies with the exact times, but
for the most part I believe them to be accurate.
I also noticed that the networks were "declare
the president-elect" happy. First Gore had won Florida, then it was
undecided, then Bush, then undecided, then Nader had won (just making
sure you were still paying attention).
I should also clarify that while many television
stations declared a winner in the race prematurely, several did not.
BTV, the Weather Channel and WBAA did not declare a winner in the race.
I would like to applaud these organizations for their dedication to
accurately reporting the news and their informative, up-to-date coverage
of the weather and "Jazz Cornucopia."
So to sum things up, it is five days after the
election and we are still without a president-elect. I, for one, just
want to get this election nonsense out of the way so we can all get
back to our lives.
As you probably already know, I like lists. Even
more so if they are bulleted lists, so here we go:
I have come up with a few suggestions on how to
resolve this very, very close presidential race.
• A World Boxing Council-sanctioned fight
between Gore and Bush, promoted by Don King and held in lovely Las Vegas.
They could show it on pay-per-view and make some money to pay off the
deficit. (Probable winner: Gore, who has the edge over Bush in weight
and reach.)
• A World Boxing Council-sanctioned bake-off,
promoted by Martha Stewart. (Probable winner: Bush. No reason really;
I'm sure neither one has been in a kitchen in quite some time.)
• A special version of the smash ABC hit,
"Who Wants to be President?" hosted by Regis Philbin. (Probable winner:
Gore. Do I really have to explain?)
If this goes well, maybe we can start deciding
all elections this way. I mean, who really cares what the people want
anyway as long as it's entertaining and on TV?
Nick Giordano in a senior in the School of Science.
He can be e-mailed at opinions@purdueexponent.org.
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