WASHINGTON -- Perhaps you wonder why principled conservatives, who have spent
their lifetimes advocating states' rights and local control, might suddenly
urge the opposite of their convictions and recommend federal preemption of
state authority simply to get their guy into the Oval Office.

Perhaps it's confusing why a conservative state government, elected in part
to protect community prerogatives, might toss its convictions and try to shut
down the legal counting of election results by counties while it is ongoing,
simply to get their presidential candidate Florida's 25 electoral votes.

And perhaps it's also hard to figure why much of elite opinion in the country
is more inclined to accept this conduct than to contest it, why you are more
likely to get invited to all the right salons by urging ''Give it up, Al''
than ''Give it up, Junior.''

Actually, it's not that complex.

For our current political mess to be properly understood, it is necessary to
appreciate the key, cultural difference between those who lean toward the
left and those who lean toward the right.

Toward the left, you get bleeders, hand-wringers, process freaks, and
genuinely weird people who confuse ''the good of the country'' with the
avoidance of tough judgments.

But toward the right, you get straight-ahead, Patton-like dedication to
victory and disciplined advocacy even of contradictory positions.

The number of departures from the reservation is vastly fewer, partly because
such departures are punished severely and partly because the focus on victory
over process is so intense.

And among the elites, who still can shape more of public opinion than is
realized, you have the right's natural patsies, preferring the false comity
of acquiescence over conflict.

The perfect example occurred at the end of last week.

When the Gore campaign began raising the possibility of joining lawsuits
targeting the legality of the famous butterfly ballot in Palm Beach, the
Bushies spun like tops: no lawsuits, no lawyers, closure, good of the country.

Within hours ''Give it up, Al'' Democrats had bought into this, joined
shortly by editorialists for The Washington Post and The New York Times.

But having lined them all up, the Bush crowd then humiliated them within 24
hours after Gore used Florida law to request recounts by hand in counties
where he thought his total was anomalously low.

Bush could have done the same, but his campaign was too dumb and too slow.

Within 24 hours, Bush faced the realistic prospect as defined by his own
political advisers that a full recount - not just in the four Gore-selected
counties but statewide, if that should ever be permitted (and it could be) -
would give Gore the plurality.

At that point, the spinning went in the exact opposite direction: Yes to
lawsuits, yes to lawyers, no to closure.

The Bush campaign's abortive maneuver into federal court yesterday to stop a
process that might result in Gore having more votes than Bush sets the stage
for a more overtly corrupt attempt by Secretary of State Katherine Harris to
stop the counting today.

Incredibly, she will seek to certify results before they exist - to stop
counting while it is continuing. Incredibly, the Bush campaign will support
her arbitrary acts under a state law the Bush campaign also argues is
unconstitutional.

Harris's astonishing abuse of authority comes on the heels of her revealing
comment that she might extend certification deadlines for a hurricane, but
not for an election with international repercussions.

For perspective, Harris is not just the co-chair of the Bush campaign in
Florida. She also campaigned door-to-door for the Texan in New Hampshire, was
a delegate in Philadelphia, tried to use Bush surrogate Norman Schwarzkopf as
the spokesman for state-funded voting ads this fall, and is seeking a Bush
administration diplomatic job because the voters have terminated her elected
position (she blew $100,000 on foreign travel last year and this).

It will be be interesting - and dispositive - to see how the ''Give it up, Al'' crowd
and the elite opinion formers handle all that.

The meek ostriches among us will inherit much, but not the presidency.
 

Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is oliphant@globe.com