Eclectic Amateur

And I am upon the whole hopeful that the faith will recover its intimate and guiding place in the heart of Europe, so I believe that this sinking back into our original paganism … will in due time be halted and reversed.

— Hillaire Belloc, concluding The Servile State, written in 1912

Oops.

“Good for John Kerry.”

I was fully prepared for nastiness, not graciousness, in the election endgame.

So, I am happily suprised, and will therefore give Senator Kerry credit where credit is due.

Let’s see … a familiar situation: Candidate X has won the popular vote, but it looks like Candidate Y, due to a close election in a contested state, may have a chance to win the Electoral College vote and still become President.

What should Candidate Y do?

1. Concede graciously — he could never have “legitimacy” as President without winning the popular vote.
2. Call out the lawyers and fight! Don’t let a little thing like the popular vote totals get in the way of having your sorry butt warming the big chair in the Oval Office.

[Note: I am actually a fan of the Electoral College.]

The real fun: people with more free time than I (probably rabble-rousing, pajama-wearing bloggers) should be checking the various punditry for whether their answers to the above question mutate from 2000 to 2004 depending on the values of X and Y.