SACRAMENTO, CA - It has always been in the cards that if Gov. George W. Bush won a narrow victory over Vice President Al Gore, there would follow a vigorous campaign from the Left to de-legitimize the Bush victory. All along, there was the prospect that Bush's victory would be said to have been based on a deception, or on his
winsome personality, or on the Nader vote, or on Gore's defective campaign, or all of these factors. Now, if
Bush holds on in Florida and ekes out an Electoral College majority while losing the popular vote (as
seems likely), the campaign to de-legitimize his election will take on a ferocity not seen since the
election of 1860. Now it will be said that Bush didn't even win. He will be called "the accidental president."

It is not clear as of this writing (early Thursday morning) how far and how long Vice President Gore may
carry on a challenge to the election results, but it may become a full-fledged crisis of the regime, as the
people may come to doubt the wisdom of our Constitution. Even if a challenge is ultimately unsuccessful, as is probable, many liberals will see a protracted challenge to the election as payback for Clinton's impeachment, and as a way of crippling a Bush presidency even before he takes office. For Dick Cheney, it will seem like deja vu all over again: he went through something like this during the Ford administration.

The silver lining of this dark cloud is that it provides an opportunity for conservatives to make constitutional arguments that the public is normally uninterested in contemplating. The inevitable ruckus over the Electoral College will stimulate consideration of whether the Electoral College worked exactly as intended by the Founders. One of the purposes of the Electoral College is to make sure that a candidate's majority is spread over the nation, and is not concentrated in one or two sections of the country where a large population or sectional interest is at odds with the interests and opinions of scattered minorities.

In other words, to win the Electoral College, a candidate cannot afford to go against the opinions and interests of voters in small states. Gore's liberal views on gun control, the environment, and government activism clearly cost him support in heartland states, including even his own home state of Tennessee. Take away Gore's large margins in New York and California, and Bush would win the popular vote easily. The genius of the Electoral College is that a candidate cannot win simply by carrying the big cities and the big states; he must be acceptable to a broad range of smaller states, too. But Gore was not. With Florida, Bush will have carried 31 of the 50 states.

And so, to borrow the overused cliche, we have arrived at a defining moment. More than just the legitimacy of
a prospective Bush administration is at stake. The legitimacy of constitutionalism is at stake, too.

- By Steven Hayward