Volume 07 - Number 3 - December 2000
Pages: 101 - 178
Kalfus, M. (2000). From the eye of the hurricane: The view from Palm Beach County. Clio’s Psyche, 7(3), 160-161.
From the Eye of the Hurricane: The View from Palm Beach County
Abstract
In this article, written from Palm Beach County, Florida, days before Thanksgiving 2000, the author recounts how the county’s butterfly ballot, which he characterizes as misleading, came to light on election day through a poll worker in his own household. He reports figures of nearly 20,000 discarded ballots and 3,500 votes for Buchanan. He describes the street rallies, court challenges, and on-again, off-again manual recounts that followed. He reports that local Democrats believe Republicans are trying to take an election they lost, and he supposes Republicans elsewhere feel the reverse. He notes conspiracy theories circulating on both sides, including one linking Governor Jeb Bush to the ballot’s design. Writing as a citizen and a psychohistorian, he cites Lincoln’s 1860 counsel to consider opponents’ arguments from their own position, and he fears lasting damage to the national psyche. He contends that partisans experience the apparent loss of a chosen candidate, whether Bush or Gore, as a kind of political assassination, and that paranoid fantasies and behavior follow. He asks whether such fantasies will remain among the most partisan groups or spread widely enough to undermine the new president’s legitimacy. He also criticizes liberals who withheld votes from Humphrey in 1968 and Carter in 1980, attributing Nixon’s and Reagan’s victories to them. He describes their preference for the perfect over the good as a group fantasy, and he alludes to local Democratic feeling toward Nader and his voters.
Al Gore, Pat Buchanan, George W. Bush, poll workers, psychoanalysis, psychobiography, psychohistory, U.S. presidential election
My wife, Alma, was one of the first to know there was something seriously wrong. For 10 years she has worked at a local polling station on election day. This was the first year they had a major problem—and she encountered it bright and early (they opened at 7 a.m.) with one of the many, many elderly people who vote there. Once she became aware of the misleading “butterfly” ballot, she and a colleague (both Democrats) were able to warn all those who signed in at their desks about the proper way to mark the ballots for President. The other poll workers—all Republicans—did not alert those who came their way. My wife came home late that night extremely upset, and exhausted. By the next morning, we were aware of the scope of the problem—across Palm Beach County nearly 20,000 discarded ballots and 3500 votes for Buchanan, who should have received very few.
Television has undoubtedly made all of you aware of what we have been living with down here ever since. It’s just several days until Thanksgiving. People have been marching in the streets and holding rallies with Jesse Jackson orating and leading the way. Court challenges have been piling up and manual recounts have been on-again, off-again, with those that have taken place finding more votes for Gore. A nation already divided along fiercely partisan lines seems to be ready to divide even more heatedly. Where is Josiah Bartlett of “West Wing” when you need him? What’s a psychohistorian who’s emotionally involved to the eyeballs to do? To think? To write?
Everybody’s worst nightmare seems to be coming true. Both candidates are fiercely disliked by partisans on the other side—and anything anyone says only fans the flames and inspires the meanest of group fantasies. Speaking from Gore country (Palm Beach County), the Democrats think
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that the brothers Bush and the Republicans are trying to steal an election that they know they lost. No doubt in Bush country the feeling runs just about the same, in the other direction. Each accuses the other of bad faith.
Conspiracy theories abound. One has Republican Governor Jeb Bush conspiring with Palm Beach County Superintendent of Elections Theresa LePore, a Democrat, to create the confusing ballot. Republicans are merchandising tales of fraud and falsification during the manual recounts. Each day brings new twists and turns that only add to the general anxiety, frustration, and anger. Everyone longs for it to be over. Everyone fears a “stolen election.” As psychohistorians, we have to remember Lincoln’s admonition to his followers in 1860, when he said that the Southerners were only making the arguments that “we (the Northerners) would make were we in their situation, and we are making the arguments they should make were they in ours.”
However, as both a citizen and a psychohistorian, I fear the lasting scars that a bitterly partisan fight can cause in the national psyche. After all, each of us is engaged in selecting—in identifying with—the single most important “delegate” in American life: the President. To see our chosen leader (whether Bush or Gore) deprived of what he seems to have rightfully won, is to witness an assassination of sorts—a political assassination. And we are going to be asked to accept the empowerment of the “assassins.” To feel cheated out of what you believe is rightfully yours, and to have to watch the “cheaters” enjoy the fruits of their “ill-gotten gains,” is too much for partisans to bear. It is no surprise, therefore, that paranoid fantasies—and behavior—abound. The question is whether paranoid conspiracy fantasies will remain the provenance of the most partisan groups on either side, or whether they will spread through the populace at large—destroying any chance of legitimacy for the new President.
As far as what local Democrats feel about Nader and those who voted for him—don’t ask! I’ve been through this twice already. I remember all those liberals who wouldn’t vote for Humphrey in 1968, and they helped to give us Nixon. And they wouldn’t vote for Carter in 1980, and helped to give us Reagan. There are group fantasies of all sizes and shapes—and being members of an elite group that would rather lose the good in pursuit of the perfect is apparently a pretty powerful one.
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How to cite this article
Kalfus, M. (2000). From the eye of the hurricane: The view from Palm Beach County. Clio’s Psyche, 7(3), 160-161.
