The protracted legal battle for the White House virtually guarantees that the next US president will have a weak mandate and a bumpy ride in office, politicians and pundits predict, as the outcome of the heated race remained unclear Saturday.
A US public already weary from several years of congressional gridlock and turned off by a sometimes-nasty election campaign, can expect a president hampered by more of the same.
"Whoever emerges from this process is going to be very much weakened by what's gone on ... and quite incapable of advancing a policy agenda," said Donald Robinson, professor of government at Smith College.
"The legitimacy of the electoral process is being questioned," he said. "That is a very serious crisis for a democracy."
Pundits warned that the bruising impeachment battles of the Clinton presidency were a tea party compared to the impending political strife.
"It's going to be a pretty rough four years," said Jack Rakove, professor of history and political science at Stanford University.
Americans are evenly divided between the two major political parties as they await the outcome of the presidential race, which remains deadlocked nearly one-and-a-half weeks after election day.
Republican candidate George W. Bush was clinging Saturday to a lead in Florida reported of nearly one thousand votes, some but many observers said it is likely that a recount currently underway in three heavily-Democratic counties could swing the state -- and the ultimately, the election -- to Democratic nominee Al Gore.
But regardless of whom prevails in the vote, political observers say half the country will feel that their candidate was robbed.
"If Gore presses on with weeks and weeks of lawsuits, that would affect him," said Hugh Gladwin director of the Institute for Public Opinion Research at Florida International University.
Bush, meanwhile, who garnered fewer popular votes than Gore "has been weakened by such a partial victory for him," Gladwin said.
Republicans are likely to feel that Gore litigated his way into the White House if he prevails over Bush, while Gore supporters are likely to be embittered by what they believe are voting irregularities, which could deprive him of an election in Florida.
"Many people feel like they are being cheated by this election," Gladwin added.
"For whomever gets to be president, it's going to be a very difficult time," concurred David Bohmer, head of the Contemporary Media Center at DePauw University in Indiana. "The longer it (the uncertainty over the outcome) goes on, the worse it can get."
Politicians also have noted the unprecedented level of interparty fractiousness, and a decline in public trust of politicians.
Speaking on US television earlier this week, Arizona Senator John McCain -- himself a presidential candidate during primary balloting earlier this year -- charged that the Florida recounts are "eroding the trust of the American public in the political process," and pointed to a rapidly diminishing mandate" for whomever ultimately assumes office.
The next occupant of the Oval Office also must contend with a Congress almost evenly-divided between Republicans and Democrats, reducing the chances that that body will be able to enact a sweeping legislative agenda.
"A more likely scenario is that the president will try to craft something that is a middle-ground proposal that will win enough conservatives and moderate Democrats to put together a winning combination," said Paul Gronke, professor of political science at Duke University.
Republican congressman Mark Foley of Florida suggested however that the partisan nastiness, however intense and long-lived, will die down in time.
"The emotions are running high now. But everything subsides," Foley said. "People get a life, once they've vented." – WASHINGTON (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
