Florida, then and now

Now that there's another, to paraphrase Dan Rather, tight-as-a-tick race in Florida it's irresistible to think back to the contested election in 2000 and reflect on what's changed. There was such an assumption after the disputed election that Democrats would be galvanized and would express their anger with increased black turnout. But, sure enough, Jeb Bush got easily reelected in 2002, Bush won the state handily in 2004, and Charlie Crist, became a fantastically popular Republican governor. It's a reminder that life is impossibly unpredictible and anyone who thinks they know what's going to happen is trying to fool themselves or others.

And so we have new fallacies: That this is make or break for John McCain and Mitt Romney. But there's no reason each can't go on to next week's Super Tuesday contests and continue to fight into the Spring. There's no reason Hillary Clinton won't be seen, come this summer, as having a good week. She'll win Florida tonight, claim a kind of victory, and, I would guess, succeed in having botht he Sunshine State and the Michigan delegations seated at this summer's Democratic Convention in Denver. In other words, just as we all thought Hillary was a goner after Iowa, there's no certainty about what happens from here.

If I'd been asked in 2000, after the Bush victory, what would happen to Katherine Harris, I never would have guessed that she'd become an enemy of the Bushes. (She earned their wrath by refusing to drop out from the 2006 Senate contest.) I would have guessed that the anti-Castro, pro-embargo politics would have faded by now and they have to some degree. Obama's talked a bit about softening the embargo, but eschewed calling for its repeal. But the Republicans presidential candidates remain as adamant as ever that we should continue our oh-so-successful six decades old policy of boycotting Cuba to rid it of Communism. So going into today, I'd be skeptical of broad prognostications. No one really knows where this thing is going.

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