The accidental president

The accidental president

SELDOM has so much power been awarded to one man by such a narrow margin—and with quite so many Supreme Court justices at each other's throats. Al Gore's gracious concession, more than a month after the actual election, means that George W. Bush will finally be America's next president. But Mr. Bush steps up to the victor's podium a shadow even of the fortunate figure who first appeared to have sneaked to victory on election night His presidency begins on an accidental, even damaged note. Can he recover from such a terrible start?

America was always going to greet the final decision with relief rather than joy. The manner in which the final result emerged, though, could hardly have been more unfortunate. The final three courts to intervene all did so in ways that either defied common sense or reeked of partisanship (and sometimes managed both). First, Judge Sanders Sauls ruled in Mr. Bush's favour, denying further recounts, but he did so partly on the ground that Mr. Gore had not properly demonstrated that recounts could change the result (an absurd idea, when there were thousands of disputed ballots but Mr. Bush's majority was only 537). Next, the Democrat-dominated Florida Supreme Court reversed Judge Sauls's decision, allowing the recounts to go ahead, but with no clear standards about which ballots to count (prompting a furious dissent from its own chief justice).

Then the Supreme Court weighed in. First, on December 9th, a mere three days before Florida was due to choose its electoral college votes, it temporarily stopped the recounts, just when Mr. Gore seemed to be catching up. Then, late on December 12th, the justices gave their ruling. By a majority of seven to two, they sent the case back to the Florida court to son out the question of standards. But by a majority of five to four they upheld the December 12th deadline (then only two hours away), rather than extending it to December 18th when the electoral college actually meets.

In practical terms, this was the judicial equivalent of asking Mr. Gore to complete a marathon in five minutes (having earlier stopped him a quarter of the way round the course). As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a blistering dissent, "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the law.” And that confidence may be further shaken if independent full manual recounts by the press (allowed under Florida's sunshine laws) decide that Mr. Gore did indeed "win".

For all these reasons, it will be impossible to disprove the argument that the whole thing was a stitch-up. All of the supreme justices who backed Mr. Bush were appointed by Republicans; the wife of one is helping the presi­dent-elect choose his staff, Florida is governed by his brother, its election was certi­fied by his campaign chairwoman.

But it is surely better to see the past month in terms of accident As another hearing in the long running case of Cock-up v Conspiracy most of the evidence, as usual, suggests the former is to blame. To take but one example, if a county election official (a Democrat as it happens) had not selected those hard-to-understand "butterfly" ballot designs, Mr. Gore might well be president

That said, there are clearly things that America would be wise to fix. These begin with its creaky voting technology and its dubious practice of appointing politicians to oversee elections. Then there is the law itself. Much of the legal debate in Florida centred on two contradictory clauses in the state's laws and, at the local level, there seemed to be wildly different procedural standards. The Economist called originally for a full statewide manual recount as the fairest solution (a cause that Mr. Gore belatedly embraced). But it sadly became increasingly clear that any such recount would be a farce, with ballot-counters, many of them partisan, trying to guess voters’ intentions.

Many Americans will protest that such local variation lies at the heart of a federal system. Yet it is hard to imagine that the Founding Fathers envisioned the presidency being de­cided on an arbitrary choice between dimpled, pregnant and hanging chads. No voting system is perfect, and an election as stunningly close as America's would have tested democracies everywhere. But, after any accident happens, it is common sense to try to stop it happening again.

By the skin of his chad

The man who must lead the way in cleaning up this mess, though, is its chief beneficiary. For many people, Mr. Bush has always been an insubstantial figure. Now the danger is that events could overwhelm him. Common sense suggests not just a full and frank inquest into his own election, but also a conspicuous attempt to reach out to his opponents—to appoint Democrats to his cabinet and to moderate his own proposals, particularly his tax cut.

There are some grounds for hope. Mr. Bush worked well with Democrats in Texas. Steps to lower prescription-drug prices, which both parties desperately want, are being discussed. Less heartening are the increasing sounds of fury from minority groups about evidence that it was disproportionately difficult for black people to vote in Florida. At the Republican convention in Philadelphia, Mr. Bush tried to present himself as the champion of a more inclusive, multicultural form of conservatism. He needs to recover that voice quickly: the expected appointment of Colin Powell as secretary of state may be small comfort.

The feeling that Mr. Bush has arrived in the White House by accident may take time to wear off. But beginnings are not everything. Bill Clinton won the presidency under far more auspicious circumstances; eight years later, he hardly departs as a failure, but many already talk of his presidency in terms of wasted opportunities. President Bush, at the least, will begin with expectations low. But, as he showed during the campaign, such circumstances can rebound to his advantage.