At holiday parties, Republican political operatives boasted freely about their success in snaring the White House. A common refrain, told in a joking style, was: “We stole the election fair and square.”
This high-level Republican bragging is, of course, in marked contrast to what the Republican rank-and-file are expected to believe. For the followers of Rush Limbaugh and the conservative media, the message is
still that Al Gore and Joe Lieberman were the ones trying to steal the election by “inventing” votes.
In the weeks after the Nov. 7 election, this propaganda theme whipped the GOP foot soldiers into a near frenzy, helping to create a climate of crisis that added to the rationale behind the five conservative justices settling the election in Bush’s favor.
But high-ranking Republicans now acknowledge, at least privately, that many legitimate votes favoring Gore were tossed aside in Florida to preserve Bush’s tiny victory margin.
