Bush v. Gore Recount Veteran Reflects on 2020 Presidential Election

As a veteran of the Bush/Gore presidential election recount in 2000, where I spent 32 days in nine cities across Florida, the still-unresolved 2020 presidential election is eerily familiar.
The day after election day this year, I was standing in the brilliantly sunny white-marbled plaza of The United States Supreme Court having a series of existential moments. Exactly 20 years ago, upon departing Florida after those punishingly-exhaustive days, a campaign colleague of mine quipped, “Despite the craziness of it all, look on the bright side: you will never have to experience something like this again.”
I am sure I nodded in agreement. Two decades later, that conversation is still ringing in my ears. Here we go again.
There are, of course, significant differences between the Bush/Gore recount and this year, and they are worth mentioning. In 2000, the national focus was on one state and not seven states. Then, the lawyers and hanging-chads and general hub-bub were centered solely on whether the question of whether a recount should proceed or halt across various Florida counties. This time, it is matrix-combination of a possible state recount, possible vote-halting, and layered lawsuits of both federal and regional flavors.
What both have in common, though, and the thing that should deeply concern every American citizen, is the question whether we still really have a national presidential election or whether, in fact, we have devolved into a kind of national plebiscite. If the latter, we should decide whether as a nation we really want to continue down this fraught road. Here’s why.
In a large, complex, continental nation of 330 million souls like the United States, it is important, relatively speaking, that we are all voting within the same reasonable timeframe, and within the same relatively-shared environment of information that helps to inform our votes. Voting within the same period of time gives us national cohesion.
There have been, and always will be, reasonable and lawful reasons that people need to vote early ranging from health-concerns to work-related matters. This election, inside a year defined by its highly-lethal pandemic, especial precautions need to have been taken about in-person voting versus other methods.
Yet we have become so sadly unmoored from the concept of a national election that it is more accurate to acclaim ours is elementally a system now of various mini-elections that eventually flow into a kind of national result. What I am describing is in reality a voting season which has devolved into a yawning chasm, stretching across weeks and months. My grandmother used to employ a phrase that fits this new frustrating voting paradigm: “It is no way to run a railroad.” No, it isn’t.
There is one major silver-lining in all this. The fury of polarization, deepened by an election day that comes and goes with no winner, causes all us, Left and Right, to ask an elemental question: what matters ultimately? Presidential elections really matter, to be sure. But what matters more are God, our friends and families, and the concept of the nation. These are the timeless verities that ultimately define a healthy nation.
As we await the answer to who will be our 45th president, it is worth revisiting the great words of our 16th president Abraham Lincoln; his observations of 1865 seem more apt than ever. Hours before his murder, he wrote of a vision he had for America: “ … a Union of hearts and minds as well as of States.”
He was using simple words to paint an elegant picture of inspired national unity. It is sage 19th-century wisdom we are starved for in 21st century America. Lord, may it be so.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tim Goeglein champions God’s welcomed role in the public square. His years of public service and private initiative have been devoted to faith, freedom, and family. Tim is the Vice President for External and Government Relations at Focus on the Family in Washington DC. He served in high-level government posts for two decades. He worked as Special Assistant to President George W. Bush, where he was the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison from 2001 to 2008. He was the President’s principal outreach contact for conservatives, think tanks, veteran’s groups, faith-based groups, and some of America’s leading cultural organizations. He was a member of the President’s original 2000 campaign and White House staff, serving for nearly 8 years. Also, he has served as a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a professor of government at Liberty University. Goeglein is the author of the political memoir THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE: FAITH AND POLITICS IN THE GEORGE W. BUSH ERA (B and H Books) which was published in September, 2011. His second book is AMERICAN RESTORATION: HOW FAITH, FAMILY, AND PERSONAL SACRIFICE CAN HEAL OUR NATION (Regnery, 2019), in which he offers a roadmap to national and spiritual renewal by examining American culture. His new book is TOWARD A MORE PERFECT UNION: THE MORAL AND CULTURAL CASE FOR TEACHING THE GREAT AMERICAN STORY (Fidelis Books, 2023). From 1988 through 1998, Tim was the Deputy Press Secretary, and then Press Secretary and Communications Director, for U.S. Senator Dan Coats of Indiana (who was in the Senate for a decade). Between his time with the Senate and Bush campaign, Tim served as Communications Director for Gary Bauer in his presidential bid. Tim was an intern for then-U.S. Senator Dan Quayle in 1985, and for then-Representative Dan Coats and for NBC News in 1986, during his college years at Indiana University’s Ernie Pyle School of Journalism. When he graduated in 1986, he was the Richard Gray Fellow in his senior year. Tim’s first job upon graduation was as a television news producer for the NBC affiliate in his hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana. During high school and college, he produced a show for WOWO Radio, then owned by the Westinghouse Broadcasting Corporation. The program was heard in 28 states. Tim holds Honorary Doctorate degrees from Concordia University, New York City; and from Faith Evangelical College and Seminary, Tacoma, Washington. Tim is the secretary of the Coalitions for America board, a member of the board for the National Civic Art Society, a member of the board of Family Policy Alliance, and a member of the board of governors of the Young America’s Foundation which owns and operates the Ronald Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, California. Tim also serves on the Institute for American Universities Advisory Board. Goeglein served as Board Secretary of the American Conservative Union Foundation. Also, he is a member of the Council for National Policy, the Philadelphia Society, and the Capitol Hill Club. Tim serves on the Sanctity of Life Commission for his church body, the 2.5 million-member Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod; is a board member of The Lutheran Center for Religious Liberty; and has served as a deacon in his church in northern Virginia for 30 years. His hobbies include reading, tennis, swimming, biking, and the fine arts. The most important thing to know about Tim is that he is married to the love of his life, Jenny, of 31 years, and they have two sons Tim and Paul -- one in public policy and one in the fine arts and music.
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