USTIN, Texas - The whole idea of elections is to change the country. The 2000 election is still in overtime, but the changes it has wrought in the nation are apparent already.
Just as the 1932 election gave Americans new faith in the ability of government to soften the hard edges of life, and as the 1960 election propelled America into an era of idealism and international commitment, the 2000 election will change how we think about the machinery of democracy, and our individual connection to it.
Along with testing the public's patience, the impasse of Election 2000 is also certain to create other durable transformations in the nation and its politics in ways we cannot yet see, and which may not be evident for months or years to come. No event this astonishing, this frustrating, this unsettling can move across the American landscape without doing so.
But for now, here is what we know of the legacy of the Election That Wouldn't End. It leaves us with:
A refreshed interest in politics, elections, and the Constitution. No one would argue that this was anything but a snoozer of a campaign, but neither would anyone argue that the drama that began on Election Day has been anything short of riveting. In fact, this election may have come along just in time - just in time to refocus the nation on the serious business of governing and to jolt Americans out of their politics-as-usual complacency.
Because there is nothing usual about the limbo and legal maneuvering that have filled the days since only one voter in two trudged to the polls on Nov. 7 to choose between Al Gore and George W. Bush - oh, and Ralph Nader - or, fatefully, marked an absentee ballot. A New York Times/CBS News Poll taken last week showed that 90 percent of Americans were following the election results very closely or somewhat closely. In a year that has had a surfeit of polls, that is perhaps the only poll result that doesn't trivialize the nation's politics - or its people.
In the last several days, Americans have been reminded of many of the high school civics lessons they forgot only hours after the final exam. Once again, they know something about the origins and rationale of the Electoral College, and they know who chooses the president if the electors don't, or can't.
Most years, such knowledge is useful only on TV game shows, but the intensive political science seminar the nation has been enrolled in has yielded more than a series of arcane details seldom applied. It has yielded a fresh appreciation of the simplicity and suppleness of the American system, and it has inspired a series of debates - about the meaning of democracy, for example, or the nature of justice, or the value of participation - that has been breathtaking in its depth and inspiring in its fairness.
An intimate, new awareness of the imperfection of our institutions - and of our own senses. Once we thought elections were a pretty efficient business, guided by ironclad rules, won and lost by factors not subject to individual interpretation. We don't think that anymore. Our innocence has been shattered by hanging chads, swinging chads, and tri-chads, the technical terms that describe the way tiny dots of paper sometimes cling to ballots after they have been marked by a voter. Those tiny dots in Florida hold the balance of power between the two candidates.
Now we know that tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of votes are discarded every election, that even in 2000, one-man-one-vote is a theory and not a reality. But we know one other thing, too, and that has expanded our appreciation of the complexity of our fellow Americans and the limits of our own intelligence and intuition: Even in a vote-by-vote hand count of a pile of disputed ballots, it can be almost impossible to determine fully and finally the intentions of other people.
Call it the Lesson of the Chad, but it is one of the most profound lessons of the 2000 election. Even when another person believes he is making himself unmistakably clear, it is still possible to make a mistake in interpreting what he tried to say.
An enhanced sense of the shortcomings of old American institutions, and of their enduring value. The first impulse of many Americans, including Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, was to talk about scrapping the antiquated Electoral College system that caused this mess and held the nation hostage for Florida's 25 electoral votes.
The Electoral College was never easy to explain and is harder still to rationalize at a time when it seems to be the leading impediment to a swift, crisp resolution of this presidential campaign. But not so fast. The college is not dead yet. Consider this: Without the Electoral College, an election this close would have to be decided not by a recount in Palm Beach County but by a recount in every county and parish in the nation. Last week's consensus (that the Electoral College belongs in the trash heap of history) has been replaced by this week's consensus (that it saved us from disaster).
An affirmation of the value of the individual. Since 1960, diminishing portions of Americans have bothered to vote, in part because of skepticism that their one vote matters. This skepticism was the first casualty of the election impasse. At one point, the margin between Bush and Gore was as small as seven votes in the entire state of New Mexico. For days, the difference in Florida between them could be measured in fewer than 300 votes - in short, in a universe smaller than the size of an introductory Poli Sci course at a big state university.
Now everyone knows: Voting matters, and a single vote could make a difference. And it matters at all levels. The glimpses of some of the colorful local officials whose decisions, long ignored, suddenly possess great meaning was chilling to some Americans. Now it matters not only to vote for president, but to learn a little something about the people who occupy the down-ballot positions. In 2000, they made many of the decisions that could make the difference in the national election.
A sobering reminder of the limits of technology. Perhaps the most jarring episode of Election Night came after Florida was awarded to Vice President Gore, then put into limbo only to be awarded to Governor Bush, and then to be put in limbo once again. Modern computer sampling methods failed the television networks, which in turn failed the public.
This only added to the distrust Americans already feel about many of the nation's news outlets, be they big or bigger. By blowing the biggest story of the year, the media blew much of its already diminishing store of credibility. The stampede to crown Bush president and then to snatch away that crown was not a pretty sight. The result is that many Americans came to conclude this of the people charged with informing them of the world around us all: They have no idea what they are talking about, and no sense of independence whatsoever.
New insights into the limits of politics. Early in his career, Shakespeare's dramas were largely about politics, but the deeper he looked, the more alienated he became, in the end turning his back on the political world as a place where the human spirit could find an outlet for expression in its finest form. Shakespeare still wrote about kings, of course, but he turned his attention to royal households and royal families, emphasizing human connections and love over the struggle for power. Right now, the drama of our own struggle for power seems compelling. But if it lasts much longer, Americans could turn away from the political world in even greater numbers with even greater skepticism than before.
A window into the terrifying conflict between destiny and ambition. In this phase of the conflict, Gore and Bush are both assuming that their destinies and their ambitions are the same. But for one of them, this assumption will turn out not to be true. The opportunity for each of them, or for both of them together, to take the high road has not disappeared, however, and the suspicion that one of them might do so is one of the hooks that keep our attention as Thanksgiving and the launch of the holiday season approach.
A reminder of the ability of the ordinary to become extraordinary. Contested votes, foolish ballots, deceived voters - all have been part of the American scene for two centuries. For most of that time they neither mattered nor grabbed anyone's attention. Now they matter, and now they have our attention.
