B efore the election, I wrote in this column that "several possible squeaker scenarios could produce some strange political dynamics after November 7" [ TAP, November 6, 2000]. Of course, I had no idea just how strange the outcome would be, though I started off with the possibility of "one candidate winning the electoral college and another winning the popular vote" and speculated that the Senate might end up tied 50-50. But where I really went wrong was in saying that if the popular vote went one way and the electoral college another, there could be a "crisis of presidential legitimacy."
Perhaps the strangest aspect of the election's aftermath is that none of what happened, nationally or in Florida, seems to make any difference now. George W. Bush had, among winning presidential candidates, the biggest losing margin in history (more than half a million votes), and he almost certainly would have lost the electoral college too if the intentions of Florida voters were...