Best E-mails of the Week 09/26/04.
Tattoo of the Year
Some campaign stuff:
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Chris Harris is a writer for television. Eric Baker is a
graphic designer.
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Now here is a real debater.
Too bad it's about the election of 1800 between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr!
Believe it or not I finally made money from my addiction to Aaron Burr.
I was paid to deliver a speech at a New Jersey museum.
Is what happened in 1800 relevant today? Yes it is!
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Are Bush, Edwards fit to be tied?
Electoral College deadlock could bring them together
And you thought the 2000 presidential election
was wild.
How about this for 2004: George Bush is re-elected president, and your new vice president is ... John Edwards.
Yes, it could happen.
If the right states favor Republican incumbents Bush and Dick Cheney on Election Day and the rest go for Democrats John Kerry and Edwards, the result could be a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College, which chooses the president and vice president.
Under the Constitution, the new House of Representatives would then elect the president by majority vote, with each state's House delegation getting one vote.
The winner almost surely would be Bush, since the Republican Party is expected to control most delegations in the House, where it now has a 30-20 edge.
The Senate would elect the vice president by majority vote, choosing Cheney or Edwards, with each senator getting one vote.
And if Democrats gain two Senate seats Nov. 2, the body could pick Edwards, the senator and trial lawyer from Raleigh.
A dozen or more scenarios could produce a draw in the Electoral College, said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia.
"Look, 269 to 269 is far from absurd," he said. "There could be a Bush/Edwards administration. It would be fascinating. I'd pay to have that happen."
An electoral tie, while possible, isn't likely. The odds are against it by about 99-to-1, Sabato said.
But the odds also were against the 2000 election being decided by 537 votes in Florida, he said.
And applying the tie-breaker rules of the 12th Amendment could make the five weeks of uncertainty after that 2000 election seem quaint.
There's an even wilder possibility: Acting President Edwards.
The House delegations of at least 26 states would have to agree on a president. If they couldn't by March 4, the vice president -- Cheney or Edwards -- would take over as acting president until the House made a decision.
An Electoral College tie has occurred before.
In 1800, the House took 36 votes to settle a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr by making Jefferson president.
Burr became vice president -- only to ruin his political career by killing foe Alexander Hamilton in a pistol duel in 1804.
Politics today is tame by comparison but still often brutal.
And you can bet that an accidental Bush/Edwards victory would quickly turn the vice presidency from powerful to puny, Sabato said.
It also would test the limits of bipartisan cooperation.
Not to mention national barbecue policy, which could depend on who's quicker on the drawl.
For more info:
Adams vs. Jefferson
The Tumultuous Election of 1800
By John Ferling
Oxford. 266 pp. $26
Here I credit my friend Willie with making the pistols sure fire!
"Are you ready Colonel Burr?" "Yes I am!" "Present!"
I liked reading this week that the reenactment last July was the largest scale historic reenactment
ever seen by Hamilton author Ron Chernow.
Pete
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