Bay Buchanan, who managed her brother Pat's Reform Party presidential campaign, Thursday called it "ridiculous" for George W. Bush's campaign aides to label Palm Beach County "a Buchanan stronghold."
The candidate himself also sided with the Democratic Party's interpretation of the 3,407 votes that he received in Palm Beach County--suggesting they were most likely cast by voters who were confused by a now-infamous butterfly ballot and punched the hole for Buchanan when they meant to vote for Vice President Al Gore.
"We do not believe they are all ours," said Bay Buchanan. "We think there was clear confusion and we understand the confusion since we've looked at the ballot ourselves."
She said she was startled to hear Bush strategist Karl Rove argue Thursday that Buchanan has strong support in a county where his campaign never bought an ad and never paid a visit.
"That is ridiculous. The vote there basically represents 20% of the votes we got in the entire state and it's not our natural base," she said. "We only got 5% of our state vote there in the 1996 Republican primary."
And she said she believed her brother did the right thing by telling CNN and NBC on Thursday that he believed a mistake had been made.
He's Said to Have Made 'Honest Assessment'
"This is not the time to spin. It is too important," she said. "He knows they aren't his for several reasons. He's heard people who testified they voted mistakenly, he's looked at the ballot himself and so he's made an honest assessment. He doesn't know how many are not his but it looks like a lot of them belong to Gore."
Palm Beach County is in the sights of the nation this week as its disputed votes are the focus of two campaigns trying to resolve an election that remains undetermined. Florida's vote has not been certified and a recount underway Thursday evening indicated Gore trailed Bush by a couple hundred votes.
The Bush campaign came out swinging Thursday on the issue of the Buchanan votes, armed with numbers about independent-minded voters in Palm Beach County, which they said proved the vote for Buchanan may have been intentional. Rove, Bush's chief strategist, argued there was no discrepancy between their characterization of Palm Beach County as a Buchanan stronghold and the county's tradition as a strongly Democratic enclave.
(In the county's initial tally Tuesday, Gore led Bush by 26% of the vote).
