I'm gonna say something unpopular now

[The Magistrate]

115. There's Some Odd Things Go By The Name 'Democrat' In Old Dixie....

The ballot might as well have been designed to foster the confusion, which certainly did occur.

What the relevant official was thinking doesn't interest me, unless there is somewhere a credible account of how the layout came to be. I'm quite content with stupidity as an explanation, malice is generally unnecessary.

The point remains: the margin in Florida was close enough that Nader voters, and their heirs and assigns, haven't a leg to stand on when berated for Nader's voters in Florida having put Bush in office.

The sort of chicanery conducted by Florida officials answering to one candidate's brother, purging voter rolls, manipulating polling places and equipment, that sort of thing: these are built in to the system, they always occur to some degree. That even when these were exercised to their fullest capacity they did not suffice calls attention to the sport in the circumstance, the unusual thing: a celebrity 3rd party candidate engaged in broadcast attacks from the left against the Democratic candidate.

When normal processes don't have normal results, it's the abnormal catches the blame....