James Carville Quotes
We will soon know whether the Supreme Court choose the President of the United States or the people of Florida chose the President.
The Supreme Court divided 5-4 and all the Florida ballots were not counted.
James Carville, Presidential Campaign Strategist (Democrat), Referring to the recount of the ballots of the disputed 2000 Presidential Election, Interview, NCB Meet the Press, March 4, 2001
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The irony of this statement is that Kennedy then selected Lyndon Johnson as his running mate. Johnson, most experts agree, was able to swing Texas into the Democratic tally, and many of those same experts generally agree with Kennedy’s point but believe that his election was the only exception to the general rule in modern times.
Al Gore had substantially won the popular vote but needed Florida to win the electoral vote. There had been a series of vote counting irregularities with many people being denied the right to vote to the point that no one was sure who had won Florida. The election moved from the ballot box to the courts and the Florida Supreme Court ruled that there should be some recounts in areas where Bush had supposedly won. The Bush forces and the Republicans appealed to the Supreme Court where the judges all reversed their traditional positions to support the party who had nominated them. Liberals who usually voted to have the Federal government override the states, voted for Florida to be upheld. Conservatives who usually supported the right of the States to decide such things without Federal Interference, voted to overturn the State Supreme Court. There were 5 Republicans and 6 Democrats and George W. Bush won the election by one judge’s vote.
This is not just a theoretical possibility. It has occurred several times. The latest was on the 1990 election where Gore got half a million more votes than George W. Bush, but Bush became President.
In the 2000 Presidential Election, Gore won the popular vote, but the electoral votes were so close that the winner depended on a single state, Florida. However, that state’s election process was poor and there were many irregularities and problems in vote counting and recounting. The Republican Secretary of State stated that the Republican candidate won, but the irregularities persuaded the Florida Supreme Court to order a recount. That decision was appealed to the Supreme Court which decided to stop the recount, giving the Presidency to Bush. All nine Supreme Court Justices were unhappy that they had to decide a case which determined who the President would be, but if they had refused to hear the case, the raw politics of Florida would determine the President. Stevens wrote this quotation in his dissent, and ironically it was about the only thing that the nine justices all agreed to—that the nation’s confidence in the Supreme Court and the legal system was the loser. There was no way for the court to win, unless they could have mustered an overwhelming majority for one side or the other. That proved impossible, so all the justices tried to make the best of a bad situation in which they had been placed.
Chester James Carville Jr. is an American political consultant who has strategized for candidates for public office in the United States, and in 23 nations abroad. He is also a media personality with expertise in U.S. elections who continues to appear frequently on cable news programs, in podcasts, and in his public speeches.
