Leonard Gray / L’Observateur / November 18, 2000

Had enough of this election mess, yet? Obviously, the national press corpsdon’t believe you have, since they insist on hourly “updates” which promisemore and deliver nothing new.

The media haven’t had this much fun in Florida since Elian Gonzalez. Look howlong they dragged that item out.

My take on this? Tell one story that there’s a problem, another story thatthe problem will be solved by such-and-such a date, and then present thesolution.

Meanwhile, the late-night talk show comics are having a blast.

One growth industry has developed out of this Bush-Gore brouhaha, andthat’s jokes.

Of course, it’s been recommended that Bush become president of the bluestates and Gore president of the red states. Perhaps we could amend thatto give Oregon to Nader and Wyoming to Buchanan. That’ll help those peskytree-huggers and survivalist freaks in our multi-insanity society.

If this starts sounding like a Dennis Miller rant, please stop me.

Already on the internet, a couple of entrepreneurs are offering for sale (nolie!) “Electoral College” T-shirts and “athletic department” sweatshirts. Salesare said to be brisk.

It’s also said that Louisiana considered sending some of our voting machinesso that Florida could vote again. It was nixed when it was realized that, withthose machines, the next president could be Edwin Edwards.

Even a “co-presidency” has been proposed, with Bush and Gore takingalternating time-periods. Hasn’t the WWF taught us enough about tag-teaming to tell us that sooner or later, the wrong one will be in when the bigbruiser slams us into the mat?

But think how comforting it must be to Louisiana, to be held up to the rest ofthe nation as virtual paragons on how to properly run an election. That is ascary thought, now isn’t it? If we’re that terrific, how bad is it in the rest ofthe country?

Oh, yes. Missouri did elect a dead man as governor. Never mind.

However, Louisiana has much to brag about here, especially with elections.

This is an equal-opportunity state, where anyone can be elected insurancecommissioner. Of course, the penalty is the federal charges which invariablyfollow.

Yes, Louisiana has it good. After all, we do have the most civic-minded deadvoters than any place in the country. They vote early, and they vote often.

Honestly though, and I’ll try and keep it straight for the rest of the column,the way we run elections here could be duplicated throughout the country tothe better.

Absentee votes are received by election day, or they are not counted. Thevoting machines (not pull-tabs or whatever they use in Florida) are verified intwo days and the final results are announced. End of story.

What’s so hard about that for the rest of America to figure?

LEONARD GRAY is a reporter for L’Observateur.

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