Should Gore have fought for Florida, a la Ukraine?

[Sam Spade]

The mistake Gore made was challenging results and asking for hand recounts in only 4 counties, all of which were favorable to him. 

If instead, he would have asked for an entire state-wide hand recount, Bush would have had to go along with that, since to appear otherwise would have been politically as well as practically foolish.

But with the hand he played, it gave Bush the opportunity to play the hand that the certification the Florida SOS made was the only legal one under the law as stated by the Florida legislature.

Gore's selective recount request could therefore be negated by the successful argument on the Bush side that his selective recounts violated the rest of the Florida voters' right to "equal protection under the law" as stated in the 14th Amendment.

That's how it was presented to the Supreme Court of the US and that's the basic rationale (though it gets a little more complicated than that under the surface) by which they overruled the Florida Supreme Court and declared the election over with.

Nonetheless, when the NY Times and the Miami Herald did their recounts, they showed that Bush would have won under the Gore standards or under the statewide recount anyways.

My advice for Democrats is to get off this issue.  It does not help now, it didn't help then and it won't help in the future.

Gore made a fundamental strategical error in his recount fight and it really doesn't matter because he would have lost anyway.