not go out on the stage!” Daley bellows.
“What the fuck are they doing?” Whouley thinks. “You don’t leave to concede without checking with the boiler room first! We’re
busy workin’ to get Bush’s face off the TV, and they’re taking the networks’ word for it?! We’re hustling, and they’re conceding?!
What a fuck-up.”
A block later, Gore is down by maybe only 1,300 votes.
The motorcade stops. Someone tells Attie to get to the holding room inthe Memorial, so he begins clawing his way there. When he gets there, he sees Gore.
“With ninety-nine point seven percent of the vote counted, we’re only six hundred votes behind,” Attie tells him.“We need
to change the language in the speech, and Carter and Daley need to talk to you.”
Gore looks at him, taken aback. Hmm!
About ten minutes later, another aide, Greg Simon, says: “It’s down to five hundred votes in Florida.”
Lieberman tells Gore not to concede.
At 3:15 A.M. , Daley calls his counterpart in Bush’s camp, Don Evans, to tell him about their concerns. “You need to give us a little more
time,” Daley says to Evans. “You need to let us work this out.”
Bush is not happy. Ellis has told him that Florida is, again, too close to call.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Bush says.
After calling back to Tallahassee, Jeb says the same thing. “I’m not seeing the same thing they’re seeing in the numbers,”
Jeb says.
When Gore calls him a few minutes later, Bush doesn’t let on that he knows that Florida is still in play. From this moment
on, Bush and his team will propagate a myth, repeating it over and over to the American people: he won, definitively, at the
moment that his cousin called the election for him for Fox News Channel.
“Circumstances have changed dramatically since I first called you,” Gore says to Bush. “The state of Florida is too close
to call.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Bush asks pointedly.“Let me make sure that I understand. You’re calling back
to retract that concession?”
“You don’t have to be snippy about it,” Gore responds.
Gore tries to explain: Florida is too close to call. If Bush wins it, Gore will concede again. But the reality is different
than the networks have reported it.
Bush tells Gore that the networks are right. Jeb’s right here, he says.
“Your
little brother
doesn’t get to make that call,” Gore says.
“Well, Mr. Vice President, you do what you have to do,” Bush says.
“Thanks for calling.”
“You’re welcome!” Gore says.
Inside the holding room at the War Memorial, Gore hangs up.
His staff cheers.
Except for Bill Daley, that is, his campaign chairman. He’s holding his bald head in his hands.
In the holding room, Daley took Gore aside and apologized for not having served him well, for having taken the TV networks’
word for it. Gore brushed it off, don’t worry about it, he said. But now Daley’s fretting again that Gore may have done the
wrong thing in retracting his concession. “What if we find out within the next few hours that what had caused us to hesitate
was some mistake, some problem with the secretary of state’s office?” he worries. “Then all of a sudden it’s Wednesday morning,
and we should have pretty obviously conceded the night before.” He’s trying to get a handle on the chaos; he doesn’t want
Gore to look like a jerk.
In Austin, Bush calls John Ellis. “Gore unconceded,” he tells him.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ellis says.
In Austin, the rain is unrelenting.
In Tallahassee, Jeb Bush’s acting chief counsel, Frank Jimenez, is watching CNN at Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan’s home. At 3:50 A.M. , Ed Kast, the assistant director for the state division of elections, does a phone interview with CNN anchors Judy Woodruff
and Bernard Shaw and analysts Jeff Greenfield and Bill Schneider.
“OK, Mr. Kast,” Greenfield says, “I just want to review
“What the fuck are they doing?” Whouley thinks. “You don’t leave to concede without checking with the boiler room first! We’re
busy workin’ to get Bush’s face off the TV, and they’re taking the networks’ word for it?! We’re hustling, and they’re conceding?!
What a fuck-up.”
A block later, Gore is down by maybe only 1,300 votes.
The motorcade stops. Someone tells Attie to get to the holding room inthe Memorial, so he begins clawing his way there. When he gets there, he sees Gore.
“With ninety-nine point seven percent of the vote counted, we’re only six hundred votes behind,” Attie tells him.“We need
to change the language in the speech, and Carter and Daley need to talk to you.”
Gore looks at him, taken aback. Hmm!
About ten minutes later, another aide, Greg Simon, says: “It’s down to five hundred votes in Florida.”
Lieberman tells Gore not to concede.
At 3:15 A.M. , Daley calls his counterpart in Bush’s camp, Don Evans, to tell him about their concerns. “You need to give us a little more
time,” Daley says to Evans. “You need to let us work this out.”
Bush is not happy. Ellis has told him that Florida is, again, too close to call.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Bush says.
After calling back to Tallahassee, Jeb says the same thing. “I’m not seeing the same thing they’re seeing in the numbers,”
Jeb says.
When Gore calls him a few minutes later, Bush doesn’t let on that he knows that Florida is still in play. From this moment
on, Bush and his team will propagate a myth, repeating it over and over to the American people: he won, definitively, at the
moment that his cousin called the election for him for Fox News Channel.
“Circumstances have changed dramatically since I first called you,” Gore says to Bush. “The state of Florida is too close
to call.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Bush asks pointedly.“Let me make sure that I understand. You’re calling back
to retract that concession?”
“You don’t have to be snippy about it,” Gore responds.
Gore tries to explain: Florida is too close to call. If Bush wins it, Gore will concede again. But the reality is different
than the networks have reported it.
Bush tells Gore that the networks are right. Jeb’s right here, he says.
“Your
little brother
doesn’t get to make that call,” Gore says.
“Well, Mr. Vice President, you do what you have to do,” Bush says.
“Thanks for calling.”
“You’re welcome!” Gore says.
Inside the holding room at the War Memorial, Gore hangs up.
His staff cheers.
Except for Bill Daley, that is, his campaign chairman. He’s holding his bald head in his hands.
In the holding room, Daley took Gore aside and apologized for not having served him well, for having taken the TV networks’
word for it. Gore brushed it off, don’t worry about it, he said. But now Daley’s fretting again that Gore may have done the
wrong thing in retracting his concession. “What if we find out within the next few hours that what had caused us to hesitate
was some mistake, some problem with the secretary of state’s office?” he worries. “Then all of a sudden it’s Wednesday morning,
and we should have pretty obviously conceded the night before.” He’s trying to get a handle on the chaos; he doesn’t want
Gore to look like a jerk.
In Austin, Bush calls John Ellis. “Gore unconceded,” he tells him.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ellis says.
In Austin, the rain is unrelenting.
In Tallahassee, Jeb Bush’s acting chief counsel, Frank Jimenez, is watching CNN at Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan’s home. At 3:50 A.M. , Ed Kast, the assistant director for the state division of elections, does a phone interview with CNN anchors Judy Woodruff
and Bernard Shaw and analysts Jeff Greenfield and Bill Schneider.
“OK, Mr. Kast,” Greenfield says, “I just want to review
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