Mark Steyn on the Election

When you’re sick of all the tragedy of Florida, take a break for the comedy of Mark Steyn, a columnist for the London Telegraph who is keeping the UK in stitches over the Florida farce. Why should the British have all the fun?


Swingin’ Sandra Holds Key to the White House
Dec. 3, 2000: CAMPAIGN 2000 has moved on from dimpled, hanging and swinging chads to the dimpled Sandra Day O'Connor, not a hanging judge but definitely a swinging one.

Even the Angels Can’t Save Ailing Al
Dec. 1, 2000: THE strangest sight on television this week was Tom Daschle, leader of the Senate Democrats, and Dick Gephardt, leader of the House Democrats, sitting in a Florida hotel room taking a conference call from Al Gore in Washington.

Even Al’s Friends are Sick of His Dimples
Nov. 26, 2000: IN the chadlands of Florida, glassy-eyed Democratic officials work their way through the pile and hold their ballots up to the light in search of the dimpled chad: Gore. Gore. Gore. Invalid. Gore. Gore. Buchanan. Gore. Bush . . . Whoops, sorry, that was my corned beef on rye.

Fear and Loathing in the Chad Republic
Nov. 24, 2000: YESTERDAY was Thanksgiving, the day when citizens in 49 states and 64 of Florida’s 67 counties gave thanks to God that they had not - as yet - attracted the attentions of Al Gore’s lawyers. Meanwhile, the Vice-President’s determination to sue till he wins is taking its toll on his opponents. On Wednesday, Dick Cheney suffered a mild heart attack and had a stent inserted in his artery. I’ve no idea what a “stent” is but it makes a change from “chad”.

Don’t Disenfranchise Celebrity-Americans!
Nov. 22, 2000: A STATEMENT from the Emergency Committee of Concerned Citizens Concerned About Citizens Who Have Concerns About Being Citizens on the Emergency Committee of Concerned Citizens: We the undersigned couldn’t help noticing a couple of big ads in the New York Times headlined “The Election Crisis” and signed by the Emergency Committee of Concerned Citizens 2000. The ECCC comprises some of America’s leading intellectuals, as well as the kind of frothy celebrity airheads you find on the cheesier talk shows. The leading intellectuals (Robert DeNiro, Rosie O’Donnell, Bianca Jagger) and the celebrity airheads (Sean Wilentz of Princeton, Ronald Dworkin and Todd Gitlin of New York University) had come together because of a “constitutional crisis” that “must be addressed with utmost solemnity.”

Smooth Man Gore Starts to Play Rough
Nov. 19, 2000: BOB HOPE and Bing Crosby put it best in The Road to Bali: “He gets his shirts straight from Paris/ And his socks from Argyll/ Talks like a highbrow/ But he plays Chicago style.”

Gore’s Law: When You’re Beaten to the Punch, It’s the Chads that Count
Nov. 19, 2000: WELCOME back to Campaign 2000 Election Update: America’s Day Of Indecision - Day 11. The show ain’t over till the Four Chads have sung, and few vocal groups are as popular with Democrats as this quartet. There’s Dimpled Chad, Swinging Chad, Pregnant Chad and Hanging Chad. There’s also Flat Chad, but, for obvious reasons, he doesn’t get to sing with the group - so far, anyway. If you want to catch the Chads for yourself, check the Butterfly Ballot - that’s not a Florida nightclub but Palm Beach County’s now famous voting form, on which the chads are the little bits of paper you punch out next to your preferred candidate’s name.

Any Week Now We’ll Have a New President
Nov. 12, 2000: WELCOME back to Campaign 2000 Election Update: America’s Day Of Decision - Day Six. Florida’s having a recount of the recount. New Mexico’s slipped back into the “too close to call” column.

Gore Finds a Loophole
Nov. 9, 2000: WELL, here’s another first. Al Gore is the first presidential candidate to rescind his concession. He now refuses to concede that he ever conceded. It all depends what the definition of the word “loser” is.

Destiny Trips Up on Accidential Candidate
Nov. 9, 2000: IF memory serves, the first event of Campaign 2000 was back in February 1997, when the former Tennessee governor and federal education secretary Lamar Alexander came up to New Hampshire to launch his second bid for the presidency. “Lamar!”, to give him his stage name, had run in 1996 on the slogan “ABC” (Alexander Beats Clinton). When he returned to the Granite State a mere three months after the last election, most of us couldn’t help thinking, “ABCDEFGHI (Alexander’s Back Campaigning? Demented Egomaniacal Failure. God, He’s Incorrigible)”. The one letter no one was paying attention to back then was way down the other end of the alphabet: W.


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