Ever since 2016 and especially since 2024, I, like many like-minded, liberally-inclined Americans that have worried about the political drift of out nation and its impact on the world have tried to find ways to do our part to move towards a solution to our concerns and our state of play. I start by declaring quite frankly that for most of my adult life I have lived in a benign neglect for the political machinations. I was never unaware of what was going on but I quite secretly counted myself in the great unwashed of the population that felt I had little impact on the political landscape, so I justified my neglect of it all accordingly. Many in the banking business were more engaged than I was, but one way or the other, my focus was on my career and my family life and neither seemed too directly effected by whether the man in the White House was Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, W, or Obama. As I’ve explained before, I voted for each and every one of them except W. It never felt so polarizing for me until the Gore/W “hanging chad” incident when the race between George W. Bush and Al Gore came down to Florida.
Florida’s 25 electoral votes would determine the presidency. Nationally, Bush had won 246 electoral votes and Gore 260 — with 270 needed to win. Florida’s 25 were decisive. The networks famously called Florida for Gore, then retracted it, then called it for Bush, then retracted that too. The country went to bed with no winner. A preliminary tally showed Bush leading by about 1,700 votes. With a margin under 0.5%, Florida law triggered an automatic machine recount. That recount left Bush ahead by just 317 votes. Gore requested hand recounts in four heavily Democratic counties — Volusia, Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade. Charges of conflict of interest flew from both sides: Bush’s brother Jeb was Florida’s governor, and Secretary of State Katherine Harris was co-chair of Bush’s Florida campaign, while Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth headed the Gore campaign. Harris attempted to certify results on November 14. The Florida Supreme Court intervened, extending the deadline and allowing hand recounts to proceed. On November 26, Harris certified Bush as the winner by 537 votes. Gore sued, contesting the certification on the grounds that not all recounts had been completed. The famous “hanging chad” problem was central as punch-card ballots had been cast but not registered by machines because of incompletely punched holes, known as “undervotes.” On December 8, in a 4–3 decision, the Florida Supreme Court ordered immediate manual recounts of undervotes in all counties where such recounts had not already taken place. This was significant since it went beyond what either campaign had asked for. The Florida court said accuracy was more important than finality. Bush immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted a stay of the recount order on December 9, halting the process pending its review. The Court heard oral arguments December 11 and issued its ruling December 12 — one of the fastest turnarounds in its history, driven by a hard deadline. Under federal law’s “safe harbor” provision, a state must determine its electors six days before the Electoral College meets. In 2000, that deadline was December 12. The court held that there was no fair way to conduct a constitutional recount in the time remaining before the safe-harbor deadline, which was that very day. This was the vote along strict ideological lines that ended the election. The decision generated enormous controversy on many fronts. The popular vote gap. While Bush won the Electoral College 271–266, Gore received 500,000 more popular votes nationally — fueling lasting questions about legitimacy. It was the first presidential vote inversion since 1888. Four of the five inversions that have ever occured have benefited Republicans, and two of the last six elections produced this outcome — a frequency that has intensified reform debates. As of mid-2024, 17 states and Washington D.C. had adopted the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, representing 209 of the 270 electoral votes needed for it to take effect. That would be a workaround that wouldn’t require a constitutional amendment, but remains far short of its threshold…and perhaps even more out of reach today.
I think its safe to say that since 2000, I’ve been more engaged than before, but even then, through eight troubling W/Cheney years and eight calming, but still frustrating (in terms of effectiveness) years of Obama, I was pretty blissfully unengaged. 2016 really was a splash of cold water for me and many like me for the obvious reasons…not the least of which was the electoral inversion of Trump/Clinton. Since then, I have searched for ways to actively support a change in our collective situation. The first and foremost way that has taken shape is through political donations, something I steadfastly avoided previously. ActBlue made that very easy for people like me with their one-click protocol and their extensive donor CRM system. Somewhere along the line, I came to a decision that I would only give to candidates that took the trouble to call me personally. This started with Max Rose, a Staten Island congressional candidate. Since then, ActBlue has gotten the word out. If you want Rich Marin’s money, you gotta call him. So now I get calls from aspiring Democrats all across the country, mostly for congressional seats, but also gubernatorial and a fair share of state legislature candidates and even an occasional local office aspirant. When they call, I ask some pointed policy questions, but mostly I discuss electability…which seems like the most important Democratic differentiator these days. Most Democratic candidates share 95+% of my ideological formulation, so electability seems the operative issue to me. For California governor this year, I love Katie Porter ideologically, but wonder if Steyer isn’t more electable (I do not have the billionaire disdain that others do since I was a solid Bloomberg man). Ultimately, I favor Becerra, also for electability.
But my big concern remains the Midterms. Given what Republicans have allowed to transpire for the past 16 months, I fear for what will happen to our country between now and 2028 with all three of the branches of government aligned against the causes I care deeply about. I can’t change SCOTUS and only Congress has any chance of reigning in POTUS, so the Midterms are where its at. As judicious as I must be with ActBlue, I am still glad to see them getting candidates into my inbox…especially my local candidate. I live in CA-48, which is one of the redistricted ones due to our recent referendum. We moved here when this was part of CA-50, represented by the infamous crook, Duncan Hunter, Jr., who resigned the month after we moved and before he served 11 months in prison, which is when Daryl Issa, the deep-red Orange Country congressman who got ousted by Katie Porter, moved into the very red CA-50. Issa now does not have the stomach to lose, so he has bowed out of CA-48, leaving a bigger opening for a field of Democratic contenders for this seat. Enter Marni von Wilpert. She’s an American attorney and politician who has served on the San Diego City Council since 2020. She was born and raised locally and went to UC Berkeley, served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana, and then got her law degree from Fordham. She later served in Congress as counsel on the House Education and Labor Committee, where she helped write the PRO Act to strengthen workers’ rights, and worked as a civil prosecutor in the San Diego City Attorney’s Office. She flipped San Diego’s most conservative council district blue in 2020. On the council she’s known for authoring California’s first ban on untraceable ghost guns, affordable housing grants for teachers, and cracking down on price gouging and opioid manufacturers…all causes I strongly support. CA-48 is one of the most high-profile congressional races in the country, so when Marni called and had a Zoom with me today (I had made a substantial contribution to here a few months ago), we had a good talk about the state of the world and guess what…hello ActBlue again. I feel bad that I don’t do more, but I feel like I MUST do something and so far, Marni is the first beneficiary. The Midterms and me will be doing more dancing over the next five months.