Imagine, If Florida Had Gone Differently

What if, in the year 2000, Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush were unable to deliver Florida to George- ensuring him the Presidency-and Al Gore won? Would anything be different? Of course! Following are some thoughts about where we might be. While it isn’t possible to guess how anything would have turned out, there are certain things we can reasonably consider.

The first thing we can imagine is that President Gore might have reacted to the actionable intelligence saying “Bin Laden determined to strike” and prevented the 9/11 attacks. Or, if those attacks still happened, might we have expected President Gore to actually pursue Bin Laden with all the resources that the United States could bring to bear? And to actually take him out? And could we have expected the President not to make a case for a war against a country that had nothing to do with the attacks, a country that was completely contained, with a weapons inspection process that was working? And maybe, even a President who would use the wide ranging support the United States enjoyed after 9/11 to build an international coalition that would truly counter terrorism all over the world? Fiscally, could we imagine that the American budget deficit would be balanced, instead of having the top blown off of it with irresponsible spending and tax cuts? Might we go so far as to think that we might have health care available to more (maybe all?) Americans? And it wouldn’t be a stretch at all to think we would have made great strides toward energy independence, and reduced carbon emissions? The list could go on and on…dare to dream……..

Of course, hindsight is 20/20, yada yada yada….and we have no idea if things would indeed be better. But answer me this-could they be much worse?