The Fictional Mob

[Jeffrey T. Renz]

Let me get this right.  The Gore campaign, rather than engaging in a
knee-jerk response to the events in Miami-Dade, waited until they had
sufficient facts in hand---and that is supposed to be a BAD THING.

Jeff


Clanton, Brad wrote:

> Michael Froomkin wrote:
>
> "Thus, whether or not the underlying facts are true, Brad Clanton's
> 3-days-of-silence chronology is not accurate: the allegations first
> surfaced within one day of the facts, which is not suspiciously slow,
> and
> were sourced to one of the Board members.  That it may have been
> denied or
> recanted later (was it?) is not inconsistent with successful
> intimidation."
>
> With due respect to Professor Froomkin, I did not intend to claim that
> that
> the New York Times did not write about the Republican protests for 3
> days.
> My point was that the Gore/Lieberman campaign did not claim that those
>
> protests were "designed to intimidate" the board into not continuing
> the
> recount, and were conducted by a "mob," as Joe Lieberman asserted 2
> days
> later (not 3 days -- my original post was incorrect on that score), on
>
> Friday November 24, 2000.  If you read all of the news reports between
> the
> events on November 22 until November 24, you will not find a SINGLE
> claim by
> the Gore campaign that the protests had anything to with the board's
> decision, despite the fact that the New York Times piece was widely
> syndicated.  Nor will you find any allegations that a "mob"
> "intimidated"
> the board.  Instead, you will find that the Gore campaign simply
> claimed
> that the board's decision violated the Florida Supreme Court's
> decision that
> the recount must be included by Secretary Harris.  And, as I said, to
> the
> extent that anyone was criticized it was the board for trying to
> conduct the
> recount in secret in violation of Florida law.  Indeed, it's my
> understanding that the New York Times was leading the charge to stop
> the
> board from conducting the recount in secret.
>
> The New York Times piece cited by Professor Froomkin was obviously
> written
> to suggest that the demonstrations had something to do with the board
> changing its mind about the recount, but the board itself has
> repudiated
> that in a public hearing, and I can conceive of no rationale why the
> Democrats on that board would lie about it.  It is obvious that the
> Gore
> campaign conceived of the idea to characterize the protest as "mob
> intimidation" and so forth two days later and threw it into the mix to
>
> provide some support to their meritless claim that the board was
> required to
> conduct a manual recount.
>
> Brad Clanton
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law
> [mailto:froomkin at LAW.MIAMI.EDU]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2000 12:05 AM
> To: CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu
> Subject: Re: The Fictional Mob
>
> [In response to the demonstrably inaccurate claim that accusations
> about
> a miami mob first surfaced 3 days after the fact and come uniquely
> from
> Gore operatives]
>
> The New York times article describing some of the events is datelined
> Nov.
> 23. See http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/24/politics/24MIAM.html It
> describes events that are alleged to have happened on "Wednesday" (ie
> Nov.22) - one day earlier, not 3 days earlier.
>
> The lead of this article is, "The Miami- Dade County Canvassing
> Board's
> decision on Wednesday to shut down its hand recount of presidential
> election ballots followed a rapid campaign of public pressure that at
> least one of the board's three members says helped persuade him to
> vote to
> stop the counting." It states that (presumably local?) "Democrats
> accused
> Bush supporters of gathering a crowd and riling it up in hopes of
> forcing
> the board to back down."
>
> Lest non-Miami readers be misled, by the way, the event described in
> paragraph three of this NYT article -- getting radio Mambi out to
> inflame
> demonstrators -- is known to local residents as a tactic that can lead
> to
> serious violence, both mob and otherwise. If anyone used that station
> to
> call for demonstrations about me, I'd be scared. Depending on exactly
> what
> was said, I might seriously go into hiding or at least send my family
> away; we've had bombings in Miami when local groups get inflamed by
> anti-Castro rhetoric on some of the local radio stations.  Make no
> mistake: this can be (again, I stress I'm away and don't know what was
>
> actually said on the radio) a VERY intimidating tactic.
>
> Thus, whether or not the underlying facts are true, Brad Clanton's
> 3-days-of-silence chronology is not accurate: the allegations first
> surfaced within one day of the facts, which is not suspiciously slow,
> and
> were sourced to one of the Board members.  That it may have been
> denied or
> recanted later (was it?) is not inconsistent with successful
> intimidation.
> Nor, of course, is it proof of it.
>
> On Mon, 27 Nov 2000, Clanton, Brad wrote:
> >
> > Putting aside the use of terms like "hooligan," "mob," and so forth
> in
> these
> > posts, I must say that I am quite surprised that allegations as
> phony as
> > these -- allegations that have been repudiated by the Miami board
> itself
> --
> > are being repeated on this list serve.  According to press reports,
> what
> > happened last Wednesday was that the Democrat canvassing board in
> Miami
> > decided to take a number of ballots and move from one floor in the
> building
> > where the recount was being conducted  -- the floor where the media
> and
> > Republican observers were -- to another floor where observers were
> not
> > allowed.  That is what sparked the protest, and that is all it was,
> a
> > protest.  There was no violence or intimidation, and that is why NO
> ONE
> made
> > those allegations for THREE DAYS.  Indeed, to the extent that anyone
> was
> > criticized for that scene, it was the canvassing board that tried to
>
> prevent
> > its counting from being observed.  Indeed, the board immediately
> returned
> to
> > the room where the media and observers were located.
> >
> > Three days later Al Gore's campaign decided to spin that situation
> as one
> > involving "violence" and "intimidation" and so forth, and dispatched
> Joe
> > Lieberman to make those allegations.  All members of the Miami
> canvassing
> > board promptly repudiated the allegations  and made clear that the
> protest
> > had nothing whatsoever to do with their decision not to keep
> counting.
> > Despite that fact, the Gore campaign has continued to repeat the
> baseless
> > allegations.  But just repeating false allegations does not make
> them so.
> >
>
> --
>                 Please visit http://www.icannwatch.org
> A. Michael Froomkin   |    Professor of Law    |   froomkin at law.tm
> U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA
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