A New Name for That Florida MessAnd no recounts allowed!

From the Fray Editor:

"Deadline passes--still no winner" was the worrying headline in Slate today. It actually referred to some other contest, but we took it to heart, so although entries are still pouring in (3,000+ at time of writing), it is decision time here at The Fray. For the sake of the country, we need a winner in the Slate contest. Take us to court if you don't like it.

We have divided the entries into groups:

1) Everyone thought of these: votergate, waitgate, chadgate, indecision 2000, chadaquidick, Tally hassle, too close to count, mecount, bushwhacked, chadlock., Hurricane Chad, electile dysfunction ("bring on Bob Dole to resolve it"), Chad wars, Florida follies, Florida flipflop. Floridunces and Floriduh featured frequently. An astonishing number of people (three: anything more than zero would qualify as astonishing) made the suggestion Chad and Jeremiad--if you need to ask you probably don't want to know. (OK then, Chad and Jeremy were an English singing duo of the 60s, biggest hit: Yesterday's Gone).

2) We were looking for something catchy, something people might actually use. Most of this section were not phrases you could imagine using in normal life ("say, what's the latest on KCTYGIL?") but we thought you'd want to read them anyway: Tropican'ta and Silence of the Palms (Steve), Tropical Debacle, Panscandals (Ira Joseph), Southern Discomfort (Sam Fried), A Line in the Palms (Jim Sequin), Floridada (for the surreal President, from Mike Schoen), plebiscide (Peter Jackson). Steve in NJ said "In the tradition of Cannes, perhaps the eventual winner of this fiasco could be awarded the Palm D'Gore". Illejebimate. Palm Springs Eternal (Greg Weaver) here. The Second Gulf War, Zach D here. Elian's Revenge from Carlos Decisneros here. Swampwatergate from Ronnie Evans. Chaddy chaddy hang hang, from John Christian (we like this one, and also John's comment "Your suggestion of naming this mess helped remove a little of the angst that's been building for the past week". You're welcome.)

And according to Gthestrngr, here, (obviously used to no vowels) KCTYGIL stands for "Keep counting till you get it left".

3) There were entrants who thought they were asked to provide headlines:
Butterflies confuse Gators (Donald Phillips)
A Chad in the hand is worth two in for Bush (Jim Price here)
Too close to care (Dan the man)
Orange you glad I didn't say Banana Republic again? (From Dr Limerick who also suggested "Floridate". Others did too, but he gets points for suggesting its use as a verb, as in "We don't want to Floridate this one based only on exit polls.")

4) People who appear to have been entering some other contest, but we just liked their entries anyway:
"Bush flush flore gore" from M. Osborne
"Countdown to extinction" from Ryan Judd
"Florida--home of situational ethics" (Wynn: thanks for really entering into the spirit)
"Should pregnant chads be aborted if Reps are pro-choice?" (Grant).

Kristen M had a rather splendid new national anthem here.

Mike S said "We the people of Florida hereby agree to release the hostages--Electoral Votes--when the rest of the country stops sending all your old people down here to retire." (There was also a highly reprehensible suggested headline here, on similar lines, which we can't bring ourselves to reproduce, but which made us laugh more than almost anything else in the contest.)

5) Potential winners: Take your pick from these, the ones we really liked and thought might actually be used:

Sunshine stalemate (Alan Thornton) or The Whowonshine State from Glen Ellington.
Waitgate, Tallyhassle, Ballot Bollux (all suggested by many people, so advantage: no question of winners, copyright, prizes or anything like that)
A standout entry from Alex Heard included Indecisney World; Punchout; Countragate; Numba Rumba; Casterisk. Many people suggested some version of Beach Ballot Bingo, and J Patrick Elwell like Butterfly Bingo. Alibi came up with Stalemategate, (here), Zach D with Chadventure, and Ramona Day with Chadmire. We liked Sunshine Stumper from Andrew Hagen, here. And Chadapolloser, Kerry Kelly here. We personally liked Florida Fray from Nancy Burrell here, but we may be prejudiced.
Palm Beach Breach from Lauren and Palm Beach Screech, Gavin.
Short and sweet: Florasco came from Barb, here, Flawrida from Jon Jacobs.

Are any of them better than Will Saletan's GatorWait? Emily K Durand came close, and she did phrase her entry very nicely: "True, it's ripped from the Slate feature of similar moniker, but hey, it came to me in the car. Ballotbotch." But it lacks that final element of a Florida connection. Will, you up-and-coming young Frayposter you, the prize is yours. Allegations of bias will be considered carefully by the Fray Editor, who in no way relies on Mr Saletan for her job, before being thrown away.

The Electoral College has spoken. But in this case, the real winner will be a phrase that actually gets used, ie the popular vote. So now it's up to you.

• Robinson: A Little Worried About the Meltdown
• Khaled Hosseini: Sen. McCain, Am I a Pariah?
• Ombudsman: A Puff Piece About the Obamas?
• King: The Anatomy of an Assault