Here's What It's Like To Lose An Election By Four Votes

Here's What It's Like To Lose An Election By Four Votes

There are a few means that a applicant for accessible appointment can atrociously lose an election. You can be bent in a sex aspersion -- concrete or online -- banishment you from the chase beneath an barrage of moral judgement. That absolutely isn't a fun way to ache defeat, as Anthony Weiner can adjure .

Another abhorrent way to lose would be to get bent cheating, either during or afterwards the fact. Going to bastille because you bankrupt attack accounts law is not, exactly, agreeable or acceptable for one's career goals. Jeff Smith has accounting a book about it.

Absent incarceration and humiliation, however, the a lot of acute accident that you can ache in backroom is to lose by an incomprehensibly baby margin. Abutting defeats champ on the accident candidate's anima and can advance them to epitomize assertive moments from the trail, apprehensive what the butterfly aftereffect would accept been if they'd just agape on a few added doors or kissed a few added babies or alleged third cousins and asked for their vote.

Former Vice President Al Gore to this day doesn't absolutely allocution abundant about his 2000 acclamation defeat. We know. We've approved to account him about it.

But there are others who accept suffered even afterpiece losses than Gore.

Karl Kassel ran for accompaniment abode in Alaska in 2008. Out of the about 10,000 votes cast, he came up two or four short, depending on who is accomplishing the counting. It was one of the abutting elections in American political history. And, really, there isn't abundant allowance for addition acclamation to affirmation that honor.

In his account on this week's adventure of our "Candidate Confessional" podcast, Kassel relived his run for appointment -- from the aisle to the night of the aboriginal certification, if he was down by just one vote, 5,018 to 5,017 -- and the blab that took abode after. In the process, he explained all the accompanying drama, affect and, ultimately, affliction that comes with accepting this abutting to winning, alone to abatement short.

"It was hard. It was harder on all of us," he said. "I acquainted like I let [my staff] down. That I should accept done more. I should accept agape on one added door. I should accept accounting one added letter. ... Two votes, please. You can anticipate of a thousand means to accomplish up two votes. And, you know, I acquainted like I had absolutely let down these humans who had formed so hard."

Listen to the podcast above, or download it on iTunes. And while you’re there, amuse subscribe to, amount and analysis our show. Accomplish abiding to tune in to next week’s episode, if our bedfellow will be Jon Huntsman, the above Utah governor, on his run for the White House.

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