Contesting elections is part of the Democrat playbook

Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president began on a huge lie – her use of a private server for her emails was approved and no emails were classified. It closes with two more - “Donald Trump is “threatening our democracy” and “the Russians are coming.”

In the last presidential debate moderator Chris Wallace asked Donald Trump whether he would accept the results of the election. Trump essentially said, “Check with me later.”

My God you would have thought that Trump was mounting a military coup. Hillary Clinton pounced on him insisting that his position was “horrendous.” This is about the end of democracy!

Setting aside the fact that we are not a democracy but a constitutional republic, let us examine the threat that Trump made on the peaceful transfer of power.

(Getty Images/Spencer Platt)

He said that he would wait to comment until the votes were counted. I thought the entire matter was just silly. Contesting elections is part of the Democrat playbook.

Twenty-six years ago Robert Caro wrote “Means of Ascent” in which he detailed how Lyndon Johnson defeated Coke Stevenson for the U.S. Senate in Texas in 1948. Going into the election Stevenson had a huge lead and the counting of ballots election night showed that he won. Johnson didn’t concede. He and his team held back ballots from areas they controlled until they knew how many votes they needed.

A week after the election Johnson ally George Parr reported the vote totals from his counties in the Valley and Johnson won 93 percent of those votes with 99 percent in Duval County. That respect for the sanctity of the democratic process stole the election for Johnson and ultimately put him in the White House.

Just 16 years ago the presidential contest came down to Florida. The media declared Al Gore the victor an hour before the polls closed in the heavily Republican panhandle causing many Republicans to decide not to bother voting.

Later the media reversed itself and declared Bush the winner. Gore called George W. Bush and conceded. Then Gore’s staff told him that it was too close to call and Gore called Bush back to rescind his concession.

An automatic recount found Bush to be the victor and the secretary of State certified his election. Gore sued.

The fight was on. Gore demanded a hand recount limited to four counties that were reliably Democrat.

Meanwhile Democrat lawyers moved to stop the counting of military absentee ballots. All of this was, of course, in the spirit of the sanctity of our democracy.

The constitution gives the legislatures of the states the authority to determine how their presidential electors would be chosen. The Florida Supreme Court overruled the statute and ruled that the date for certifying electors could be delayed until another recount could be accomplished.

The United States Supreme Court found that the Florida Court’s decision was not within their power under the U.S. Constitution. They were overruled and Bush won. Subsequent recounts of the entire state confirmed that Bush won.

Two years later Hillary Clinton said that Bush was “selected not elected.” So much for the sanctity of our “democracy.”

The second lie that Clinton’s campaign is hoping you’ll fall for is that the thousands of incriminating emails that have been released by WikiLeaks are bogus because the theft of the emails was the result of an illegal Russian hack. She does not dispute the accuracy of the emails that have been disclosed.

All governments try to steal other government’s communications. Some are better at it than others. Mrs. Clinton knows something about this since she was sent on an apology tour as secretary of State over our government’s listening in on foreign leaders’ communications.

To add insult to injury, President Barack Obama said that it is unprecedented for a foreign government to involve itself in another nation’s elections.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would find that claim a bit over the top since the Obama administration sent cash and consultants to Israel in a failed effort to defeat Netanyahu in his last election.

It comes down to this. If the election is very close on election night the candidate behind is going to wait to concede until all avenues have been explored regardless of whether that is Trump or Clinton.

But then, you knew that didn’t you?

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