Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Election Day 2012

Election Day 2012

It's the morning of November 6th and a few days back I called the race for the President.  Now with the stock market going up I'm thinking maybe I'm wrong but then again gold is also surging.  I've always known that the market really doesn't care which party is in office but I'm starting to think that just maybe gold does.

According to "Kramer" over the last four years gold is up 101%.  Should we all go out and buy gold?  Can't comment on that but I think it's interesting to ponder what the election means for the country and markets.

Twelve years ago at roughly 4:00 in the morning CBS and many other media outlets concluded they had really messed up in Florida and said the race was just too close to call.  The nationwide popular vote at that time was displayed as:

Gore 45,752,056      

Bush 45,943,474

Of course it all boiled down to the Florida recount.  Gore's people argued basically two things.  When someone voted for both Bush and Gore (overvote possible when using punch cards) you could look at who else they voted for to determine what the voter's intention was.  Next Gore's people argued that when no vote for president was recorded (undervote) you could also deduce who they would have voted for by looking at the other votes.

The Supreme Court unanimously rejected this line of logic and then along party lines ruled 5–4 that no constitutionally valid recount could be completed by the December 12th "safe harbor" deadline. They concluded that time was up for a recount and the certification of Florida's election was to be accepted.

The issue I had with this was even more basic.  Gore's team wanted the recount with the interpretation of voter intent to be conducted in specific democratic dominated counties like Miami-Dade and Broward.  This fight delayed the  statewide recount such that time ran out and no "meaningful" statewide recount was conducted

One thing that many Democrats refuse to acknowledge is that the exhaustive independent media sponsored recount after the Court's decision showed Bush would have won the election had the recount Gore requested been allowed to continue. However a statewide recount allowing official interpretation of "undervotes," or "overvotes," just  might have made Gore the winner but we will never know.  FYI, the official margin for Bush was recorded at 537 votes but the media coordinated recount was Bush by 493 based on what the Florida Supreme Court ordered but was overruled by the US Supreme Court.

No matter what you think about the 2012 election I hope we never go down the road of Florida in 2000 again.

PS Novermber 10th 2012 - Electoral College with President Obama 303, Mitt Romney 206 and Florida's 29 Electoral votes?  Still not officially determined... LOL