Imagine All the People

Imagine for a moment that the lawsuit filed by Jesse, the Kerry campaign, and the Greens and Libertarians did cause a recount, and it was determined that Bush actually lost Ohio.

This requires that we imagine state, local, and federal election officials working together to suppress votes or create fraudulent ones. And we must imagine all those people remaining quiet, untroubled by conscience. AND imagine the Democrats conducting themselves in a pristine way, but not, on November 2nd, watching the diabolical Republicans very closely.

(Some may suggest that we are imagining our way into the land of black helicopters and electric brain implants, but stay with me.)

Imagine John Kerry's inauguration in January, having won Ohio and therefore the electoral college, but not the popular vote. Imagine all of the people previously upset by the election in 2000 of a man who was "not their president" -- imagine them living in a world after the 2004 election where three million more of their fellow citizens (much larger than the Florida margins) voted for the other guy.

Or do we have to go back and imagine away those three million votes too? It's hard to keep the conspiratorial narrative strait sometimes, with all of this imagining.

I'm not claiming that some of the actions of local officials were not suspicious or stupid. But yes, I am suggesting that Bush won the election. Isn't it wiser to focus on mid-terms, or the possibility of election reform that will create a system where nobody, from either side, can summon the vote-fraud bogeyman?