Will Florida Change the Election Outcome (Again)?

Hilary Clinton hopes that the DNC Rules Committee meeting on May 31st will decide to let Florida's primary vote count after all so that she will have a chance to become the Democratic Nominee for President.

Hilary should know that this is not the first time a Democrat candidate hoped that counting votes in Florida would make a difference to an election outcome. In 2000, Al Gore would've become the 43rd President of the United States of America IF Florida had actually recounted their ballots as required by state law (and actually hand-counted the ballots which their counting machines failed to process). We just watched HBO's weekend movie Recount which was all about the Florida Recount which was not completed. Near the end of the movie, Kevin Spacey playing Ron Klain says, "We should have asked for statewide [recounting] from the get-go; that was our biggest mistake." And his friend replies, "And Ralph Nader should've [realized how he was preventing the only viable Left Wing candidate from being elected]. Elian Gonzalez should've never left Miami. And Gore should've campaigned with Clinton.... Katherine Harris should've thought twice from purging 20,000 voters from the rolls. And George Bush Jr. should've never quite drinking. But HE DID. It is what it is, pal."

I've often wondered what goes through Al Gore's mind. He not only could've been the President, the reality is that a media-run recount of Florida ballots in 2001 showed that he should've been the President. Even though he's moved on and has campaigned for the environment and produced An Inconvenient Truth, I'm sure he must have had and probably still has moments of wondering what might have been.

I have found myself having moments like that a lot lately. I think about what might have been had I not fallen from grace and lost my ministry as a pastor. Sure I'm rebuilding my life and there are many very good things in my life, but still, I miss what could've been. It makes me sad. This is not really productive. These thoughts when they become obsessive are actually quite destructive. When we get stuck on what might have been rather than what actually is we are impairing our ability to make the best of the circumstances in which we now find ourselves. After all, it is what it is and wishing for what might have been will change nothing.

It turns out that there's great truth to the Little Texas song "What Might Have Been."

We can sit and talk about this all night long
And wonder why we didn't last
Yes, they might be the best days we will ever know
But we'll have to leave them in the past...
So try not to think about what might have been
Cause that was then
And we have taken different roads
We can't go back again
There's no use givin' in
And there's no way to know
What might have been

Good advice for me, for Al Gore, and perhaps one day soon for Hilary Clinton, but for now I do hope she defies the odds and wins! This time, let Florida's votes count!

Perhaps "The Way I See It" from my last cup (actually my last two cups) of coffee from Starbucks explain why in the last couple weeks I have been switching from my own sadness of what might have been to Hilary Clinton's election drama:

Politics is about getting outside of yourself and your own problems for a little while and fully immersing yourself in the lies and deceit of others.
—Stephen Elliot (author)