Saturday, November 19, 2005
Close attorney general race joins ranks of storied contests
From the RoundTable blog
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Barnie Day
Day, of Patrick County, is a banker and former Democratic member of the House of Delegates.
At this writing, Creigh Deeds trails Bob McDonnell by some 300 votes in the contest that will decide who will be Virginia's next attorney general.
But the gap is closing. Gee, is it closing?
On election night, the unofficial margin was 10 times what it is now -- and McDonnell was the presumed attorney general-elect.
Sometime after Nov. 28, when all the state's electoral jurisdictions have double- and triple-checked their tallies, and everyone involved has said "cross my heart and hope to die," an official recount will begin. And sometime after that, we will know who won.
Check that. We will know who is going to be Virginia's next attorney general. The word "won," used in a political context, doesn't always mean what you think it does.
Al Gore "won" the popular vote -- by more than half a million. George Bush "won" the presidency. See what I mean?
No matter what happens, this one is headed for the history books as the closest statewide contest in Virginia's long, illustrious history.
There have been close ones, for sure, but none closer statewide.
Single-digit wins have happened with some regularity in House and Senate races over the years.
My friend, Jim Scott, the Fairfax delegate, came to the House in 1991 with a one-vote margin, and has served with distinction ever since. His win, by the way, came after a recount. Initially, it looked as if he had lost by 17 votes.
Perhaps no president is more synonymous with Virginia than Thomas Jefferson. He almost didn't make it.
In the 1800 election, the Federalists nominated John Adams for president and Charles Pinckney as vice president. The Democratic Republicans put up Jefferson for president and Aaron Burr as vice president.
The problem was, though the Democratic Republicans "won" the popular vote, the party inexplicably assigned the same number of electoral votes to Jefferson and Burr, and the House of Representatives had to sort it out.
The Federalists threw their support to Burr once the election went to the House.
But the Constitution stipulated that in the event an election went to the House, the winner would be decided by a state-by-state vote in the House.
Of course, Jefferson "won" it -- on the 36th ballot.
That rigamarole resulted in adoption of the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, clarifying that if it ever happened again, House members had to designate their votes specifically for president or vice president.
They couldn't just leave it so that whoever got the most votes was president and the second-most was vice president.
It did happen again -- in 1824. Four candidates -- John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William Crawford and Henry Clay -- won electoral votes, but none won a majority.
Jackson finished with 99, Adams with 84, Crawford with 41 and Clay with 37. For a second, and last, time, the presidency would be decided by the House of Representatives. Clay would be the king-maker.
A big scandal broke when a Philadelphia newspaper published an unsigned letter alleging Clay would support Adams for president, and in return would receive appointment as secretary of state. Both parties vigorously denied the agreement.
Adams was elected on the first ballot. Did he appoint Clay as secretary of state? Of course he did!
In 1876, Democrat Samuel Tilden edged Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote, but Hayes bested him in the Electoral College by one vote -- 185-184.
That one stirred up months of riots, charges and counter-charges, investigations, and so on. A special congressional committee finally gave it to Hayes.
The closest popular vote occurred four years later when Republican James Garfield, of Ohio, beat a former Civil War general, Winfield Hancock, by 1,898 votes.
Then, in 1884, Democrat Grover Cleveland beat Republican James Blaine by less than three-tenths of 1 percent in an election in which more than 10 million votes were cast.
There is an old saw in American politics, a romanticized throw-back to election chicanery of yore: "It's not who gets the votes in an election. It's who counts them!"
I think those days are largely over now. At least here in Virginia. Mostly.
