THOMAS WALKOM

A crisis of legitimacy is brewing in America. The divisions inside the U.S. between supporters of President George W. Bush and challenger John Kerry are so deep as to be almost irresolvable.

No matter who wins in Tuesday's presidential vote, the outcome seems destined for rejection by almost half the country — particularly if the results are close.

Each side accuses the other of encouraging voter fraud. Both have hired legions of lawyers ready to contest the results as soon as they are known.

Far too many Democratic voters assume that Bush stole the last election and is out to steal this one.

Far too many Republican voters assume that Kerry's efforts to register blacks, youth and others who don't usually vote are attempts at massive electoral fraud.

Far too many on both sides assume that if their man does not win, America will be placed in mortal danger.

For the U.S., this is potentially tragic. Democracies work only if those who lose at election time accept the outcome.

But for Canada, a legitimacy crisis in America is downright dangerous.

Our relations are tricky enough when the U.S. functions properly. A systemically dysfunctional America promises nightmares.

When Canadians talk about the effect of American elections on this country, they usually are referring to the perennial batch of cross-border trade disputes.

Will the U.S. continue to discriminate against Canadian softwood lumber? Will it reopen the border, partially closed as a result of the mad cow scare, to Canadian beef? Will it continue to rail against existence of the Canadian Wheat Board?

Since the 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington, these hardy perennials have been joined by an entirely new crop of bilateral Canada-U.S. issues.

Will the Americans expect us to join them in their missile defence adventure? Will they up the pressure to help them out in Iraq? Will they continue to push for a Fortress North America security perimeter in which Canada plays only the most junior of roles?

Will they be nicer to the multilateral institutions, such as the United Nations, in which Canada places so much stock?

At some moments in history, the outcome of the quadrennial American presidential election does matter.

The fact that Ronald Reagan was president in the mid-1980s had much to do with the Canada-U.S. free trade deal.

The fact of George W. Bush's presidency in 2000 forced Canada and the rest of the world to re-evaluate the structure of Western international co-operation that America itself created after World War II.

Is Tuesday's election equally pivotal? Some, particularly those critical of Bush, argue that it is.

However, for a wide range of bread-and-butter issues, it is not clear that the outcome matters that much to Canada.

Theoretically, Republicans are open to free trade. Yet, Bush's record has been one of higher subsidies for U.S. farmers and more protection for U.S. industry.

Theoretically, Democrats are more protectionist. Yet, during his career as a senator, Kerry placed himself firmly in the camp of the so-called Clinton Democrats, fans of fiscal conservatism and open borders.

Kerry has talked during his campaign of getting tough with what he calls unfair trade. But when pressed, he refers not to America's largest trading partner, Canada, but to China.

In truth, Canada doesn't matter much in Washington. To Congress, which has significant authority over economic matters, Canadians are just another lobby group, albeit a particularly ineffectual one that can neither vote nor legally donate money.

Reacting to this, Canadian policy-makers place much importance in the president, and particularly to the relationship between America's head of state and whoever happens to be this country's prime minister.

Yet, even at the presidential level, U.S. domestic politics trumps all. Former prime minister Jean Chrétien had a warm relationship with then-president Bill Clinton and a frosty one with Bush.

That didn't stop the Clinton administration from levying punishing assaults on Canadian softwood lumber. Nor did the alleged Bush-Chrétien animosity interfere with Canada's booming export trade to U.S. markets.

Some Senate Democrats, such as South Dakota's Tom Daschle, are vehemently opposed to opening the U.S. border to Canadian beef. This certainly would make it difficult for a Democratic president Kerry to move on the issue.

`If Kerry wins, Canada ... will be under more pressure to go into Iraq'
Stephen Clarkson, University of Toronto

But, as U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci noted recently, such domestic opposition has made it equally difficult for a Republican president like Bush to solve the problem.
Prime Minister Paul Martin calls improved Canada-U.S. relations a priority. Yet, the record shows that foreign leaders who tie their stars too closely to a particular U.S. president do so at their own risk.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's loyalty to Bush has hurt him at home. Mexican President Vicente Fox, who gambled that he could strike a key immigration deal with Bush, was left crippled domestically once the U.S. leader switched his focus to war.

Many Canadians assume that Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, would be friendlier to this country than the somewhat less knowledgeable Bush (famously ridiculed four years ago for responding seriously to fictitious statements from an equally fictitious Canadian prime minister named "Jean Poutine"). Yet, there is no evidence of that.

"Canadians should disabuse themselves of the notion that presidents from states close to the border have a better sense of Canada, because it is empirically incorrect," says University of Toronto political scientist John Kirton, a trade specialist.

"This election won't matter much to us as North American citizens," says fellow U of T political scientist Stephen Clarkson, who has written extensively on Canada-U.S. relations. "But it will matter to us as global citizens."

Certainly, most of the rest of the world thinks Tuesday's contest matters. Polls show that in countries around the globe (Russia and Israel being two notable exceptions), most hope Kerry will win.

In Canada, the figures were 60 per cent for Kerry, 20 per cent for Bush. But how much of a difference would a Kerry victory mean in terms of America's relations overall with the rest of the world? If one takes the challengers' campaign rhetoric seriously, the answer is not clear.

Bush says he is committed to the pacification of Iraq and wants to involve other countries. Kerry says the same thing.

Bush says he'll leave American troops in that country until the job is done. So does Kerry, although he says he hopes that task will be accomplished within four years.

Bush refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Kerry has made it clear that he won't sign it either.

Bush opposes the idea of the new International Criminal Court having any jurisdiction over Americans alleged to have committed war crimes. So, it seems, does Kerry.

Bush wants a North American missile defence system. Kerry does, too, although he has been critical of Bush's specific plan and insists that missile defence would not be such a high priority for him.

In a vague and generalized way, Kerry is keener than Bush about mending relations with America's old allies. But as Clarkson points out, this contains its own dangers. If, as president, Kerry makes a bow to multilateralism, he will expect America's old friends to help out where it counts — in Iraq.

"If Kerry wins, Canada — like France and Germany — will be under more pressure to go into Iraq," Clarkson says. "We'll have to do something, or else in a month or two he'll be in as bad a position as Bush."

All of this assumes a normally functioning America. The wild card, however, is the vote itself and the willingness of the majority of Americans to accept the official results — particularly if the Supreme Court or Congress has to step in.

The history here is mixed.

Americans take their politics seriously. Four sitting presidents — Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy — have been assassinated. Disgruntled U.S citizens have tried to kill at least two others.

Only once in America's history has a presidential election been overwhelmingly rejected by a significant section of the country. But that particular rejection, of Lincoln in 1860, led to a bloody civil war.

Yet, there have been other less well-known close calls.

In 1876, the business of the Republic ground to a halt for months as the country tried to decide who had won that year's presidential election.

Federal troops were sent to Washington to keep order. One Kentucky Congressman promised a march on the capital of 100,000 men to assure the victory of his candidate.

As in 2000, the 1876 stalemate was the result, in part, of the peculiarities of the U.S. system. The Democratic candidate, Samuel Tilden, won the popular vote decisively. But his Republican opponent, Rutherford Hayes, appeared to have a one-vote edge in the Electoral College that actually chooses the president.

The 1876 contest was further confused by the fact that Republicans and Democrats in three southern states (including, ironically, Florida) elected rival slates of Electoral College members, each vying for the right to help select the president.

That particular stalemate was resolved when Hayes (elected, in part, by the votes of freed slaves in the south) secretly agreed to end all efforts at post-war reconstruction, thereby consigning those same ex-slaves to almost 100 years more of second-class status.

In return, Democrats in the Congress agreed to support Hayes and officially declared him the winner. Since only blacks were disadvantaged by the deal, the results were accepted by everyone else.

It's not at all clear this time that Americans are in as accommodating a mood.

"They'll have huge legitimacy problems no matter who is elected," Clarkson says. "That has to have an impact abroad.

"Back when Quebec was first electing separatist governments, the Americans were worried about instability on their northern border. They moved tanks up to the border during the referendum (on Quebec separation).

"Now, it's our turn to be worried."