Anything for a Vote

by Joseph Cummins

  DAN QUAYLE VS. MURPHY BROWN By 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle had already been the butt of a lot of jokes. There was something so callow and ridiculous about the guy, even down to his name, J. Danforth Quayle, and the fact that, as one critic has said, “his pales eyes [look] like windows into an unfurnished room.”

  In 1992, Quayle picked the lack of “family values” in entertainment as his own particular issue. The music of rapper Tupac Shakur, for instance, had “no place in our society,” according to Quayle. Shakur was a relatively easy target, but then the VP made the mistake of going after the phenomenally popular television show Murphy Brown. Brown (played by actress Candace Bergen) was an anchorwoman who had decided to give birth to a child out of wedlock. Quayle thundered that bearing a child alone “mocks the importance of fathers” and was an example of the “poverty of values” that afflicted television.

  This was not a smart move since even Republicans loved to watch the show, and Quayle, weirdly, was acting as though this sit-com character was a real person. White House staffers decided that Quayle should change his tune and praise Murphy Brown for her courage in having the baby, rather than, say, having an abortion. Bush spared Quayle from this humiliation, and the whole situation died when, in early June, the vice president visited a New Jersey elementary school and corrected student William Figueroa’s spelling of “potato,” claiming it was “potatoe.”

  Wrong. But this new source of ridicule sent the Murphy Brown controversy spiraling into the old-news file.

  Republicans accused Bill Clinton of smoking marijuana while in college—and his “I didn’t inhale” defense only fueled the flames.

  WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON

  VS. BOB DOLE

  There were so many mini-scandals in Bill Clinton’s first term, you needed a scorecard to keep them straight. There was “Travelgate,” in which several long-time workers in the White House travel office were fired for alleged improprieties and replaced with people with ties to Clinton. Then there was “Filegate,” in which the White House head of security improperly requested and received FBI security clearance files on government employees; and, of course, Whitewater, a highly convoluted scandal about a Bill-Hillary Arkansas real estate deal, where no wrongdoing by the president was ever established by Kenneth Starr, the independent prosecutor assigned to investigate it.

  In July 1993, Clinton’s close friend and deputy White House counsel Vince Foster committed suicide. Some six months later, in February of 1994, Paula Corbin Jones, a low-level Arkansas state employee, sued Clinton for sexual harassment, claiming that as governor, Clinton had cornered her in a room, pulled down his pants, and asked for a blow job (“I will never forget it as long as I live. His face was blood red, and his penis was bright red and curved”).

  All of this, according to Hillary Clinton, was part of a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” and there’s plenty of evidence to back up her claim, including indications that at least one conservative tycoon spent years funding efforts to discredit Clinton, to the tune of as much as two million dollars.

  Was there any time left to govern the country? It turned out there was. Clinton turned back the challenge of right-wing Republican congressmen by expertly moving to the center on most issues, from balancing the budget (a feat Clinton actually managed) to revamping welfare. When the time came for Clinton to run against Senator Robert Dole in 1996, he was an incumbent at the helm of a robust economy. Translation: unbeatable, even with his satanic penis.

  THE CAMPAIGN Kansas Senator Robert Dole was a wounded World War II veteran with a dry sense of humor, who, at age seventy-two, had spent thirty-five years in Congress and had been Gerald Ford’s 1976 running mate. He was too moderate for the mood of the Republican Party and never quite convincingly endorsed the party’s positions on abortion, crime, or state’s rights. He later said of Clinton that “he was my opponent, not my enemy,” a stance that did not endear him to Clinton loathers. On election night, the president took thirty-one states to Dole’s nineteen, with a popular vote margin of 45,590,703 to 37,816,307. Ross Perot, running again, garnered about eight million votes.

  On January 23, 1996, a triumphant President Bill Clinton gave an eloquent State of the Union address in which he thanked “the person who has taught me more than anyone else over twenty-five years about the importance of families and children—a wonderful wife, magnificent mother, and a great first lady. Thank you, Hillary.” Clinton later inscribed an official copy of the speech to a friend: “To Monica Lewinsky, with best wishes, Bill Clinton.”

  GEORGE W. BUSH

  VS.

  AL GORE

  “Only Al Gore can beat Al Gore.

  And he’s been doing a pretty good job of that.”

  —Green Party candidate Ralph Nader

  Despite being impeached, but not convicted, of the crime of lying to Congress about his liaison with Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton left office in 2000 with a 68 percent approval rating—a score even higher than Ronald Reagan’s final numbers. It’s not that voters approved of the president’s extramarital affair or his claim that fellatio didn’t constitute sex. The simple matter is that while Clinton was getting his hummer, the economy was humming, too—which left America sighing with relief.

  But the Democrats had a challenge ahead of them. Their new candidate was likely to be Vice President Al Gore, who, while undoubtedly smart and honest, lacked Clinton’s charisma and political legerdemain. Just as Lee Atwater decided to make Willie Horton Michael Dukakis’s 1988 running mate, Republican strategists tried to saddle Al Gore with the hulking shadow of his libidinous president.

  First, though, the GOP had to pick a candidate. Big Republican money fell in behind George W. Bush, son of H. W. and the governor of Texas. With the help of his longtime top manager Karl Rove, Bush set out to win the primaries but ran into a roadblock in the form of Arizona Senator John McCain, the former Vietnam POW who took New Hampshire by a sixty-to-forty margin over Bush. The moderate McCain captured the votes of Independents and even some Democrats wearied by Bill Clinton’s behavior. His challenge had conservative Republicans worried.

  But Bush’s men were waiting for McCain in the South Carolina primary, where they dragged out the sleazy old practice of push-polling. Voters in South Carolina were asked: “Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?” (McCain and his wife had adopted a Bangladeshi girl.) This technique, which had the fingerprints of Karl Rove all over it, helped derail McCain; he lost in South Carolina, and Bush eventually captured the nomination.

  On the Democratic side, Gore had little problem beating his strongest opponent, former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley, to take the nomination. But two third-party challenges would have serious consequences for Gore down the line: activist Ralph Nader, running as a Green Party candidate, and conservative Pat Buchanan, the Reform Party nominee.

  THE CANDIDATES

  REPUBLICAN: GEORGE W. BUSH In 2000 George W. Bush—or “Dubya,” as he is affectionately known—was fifty-four years old. Born into a wealthy Republican family (Bush’s grandfather Prescott was a U.S senator, and, of course, his father, George H. W., president of the United States), Bush attended Exeter and Yale and received his MBA from Harvard. A real New England Yank. But Bush is forever associated with Texas; it was in that state that he unsuccessfully ran an oil company, unsuccessfully ran for Congress, and partied very successfully. But in 1986, under the influence of the evangelist Billy Graham, Bush gave up drinking and became a born-again Christian, although he never relinquished his warm, fraternal, back-slapping manner, something that endeared him even to those who disagreed with his policies. In 1994, Bush beat Ann Richards to become governor of Texas, and in 2000 he was perfectly situated to seek the presidency. His vice-presidential candidate was Dick Cheney, his father’s very conservative secretary of defense.

  DEMOCRAT: AL GORE Al Gore also hailed from privileged political bloodlines. His father was senator from Tenne
ssee; Gore attended elite private schools and later Harvard. A political junkie, he was fascinated by the electoral process and the history of government but could sometimes come across as stiff, intellectual, and a trifle arrogant, even to friends. The causes he espoused would qualify him for the tag “tree-hugger” in any Republican playbook, including the fight against global warming and a push to pass the Kyoto Protocol, which called for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

  Gore’s running mate was Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a religious, conservative Democrat and the first Jewish person to run on a presidential ticket (if you don’t count Barry Goldwater, whose father was Jewish).

  THE CAMPAIGN

  Almost from the beginning, the 2000 race was neck and neck—but at first glance, it’s a little hard to understand why. Gore could lay claim to being a part of an administration that had brought violent crime to a thirty-year low, balanced the budget, created a surplus, and in general kept the country in peace and prosperity. The big problem was Bill Clinton. Gore had been aghast at Clinton’s White House “sexcapades” and probably felt it necessary to distance himself from the president—but in doing so, he was distancing himself from the genuine accomplishments of the Clinton administration. Even Karl Rove later said that if Gore had paid more attention to the great shape the country was in, “we [the Republicans] should have gotten our brains beaten out.”

  Bush’s strategists positioned their guy as a man who was out to bring back to America a sense of decency (“there’s no question the president embarrassed the nation,” Bush told journalists). Bush also became a “compassionate conservative” out to “reform” Medicare and Social Security and fix the environment, just like Al Gore—all of which made more than a few Democrats remember John McCain’s remark about Bush during the primaries: “If he’s a reformer, I’m an astronaut.”

  When they realized that Clinton-era scandals were not rubbing off on Gore as well as might be hoped, Bush strategists turned to portraying the vice president as a two-faced liar. They managed to do so quite successfully, creating controversy over most of Gore’s political positions, including putting forth the widely accepted (but false) claim that Gore said he had invented the Internet. (Actually, what he said in a 1999 interview was, “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” Okay, a bit of an exaggeration. But, according to some people involved in developing the technology, Senator Al Gore was instrumental in approving research funds for the “Information Superhighway,” which helped transform it from a military communication system into a worldwide networking and information channel.)

  The vice president didn’t help his own cause by smirking and rolling his eyes during his first debate with Bush, which made it seem as if he were ridiculing his opponent (Ronald Reagan could get away with “There you go again!” but not the far-less-magnetic Gore).

  Democratic strategists were hard at work, too. They resurrected Bush’s 1976 bust for driving under the influence in Maine (Bush had gotten off with a $150 fine). And if Gore was a liar, well, Bush was an idiot, a sort of chuckling fool. Bush had once told reporters that his favorite book was the kid’s classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar. He claimed that Democrats wanted “the federal government controlling Social Security like it’s some kind of federal program!” He also said things like “Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dreams.”

  THE WINNER (EVENTUALLY):

  GEORGE W. BUSH

  Only some 50 percent of eligible voters turned out on Election Day 2000—November 7, a day that shall live in confusion. By late in the evening, it was clear that Al Gore would win the popular vote (the official tally would be Gore 50,996,582, Bush 50,456,062). The election was close, the difference being a half-million votes, roughly the same margin by which Nixon beat Humphrey in 1968 and not even as close as Kennedy’s edge over Nixon in 1960.

  The problem, from Gore’s point of view, was that pesky Electoral College. To win the 2000 election, a candidate needed at least 270 electoral votes. Not counting the state of Florida’s 25 electoral votes, Gore was assured 267 votes, Bush 246. Whichever way Florida went, so went the presidential election.

  About 7:50 P.M. EST on election night, major networks, relying on exit polls, announced that the state of Florida (whose governor was George Bush’s younger brother, Jeb) had voted for Gore. (Some Republicans later said that calling the election ten minutes before polls closed in Florida kept Bush supporters at home, but there is little evidence of this.) By ten o’clock, Gore, in Nashville, thought he had won the presidency when New Mexico, Minnesota, and Michigan fell into line.

  But, gradually, as more returns came in from Florida, the situation changed. At 2:00 A.M., with 97 percent of the votes in, it appeared that Bush had won in Florida. Now Gore made a serious tactical mistake. Anxious to seem statesmanlike and gracious, he called Bush, who was in Texas, and conceded the election. Then he made his way to Nashville’s War Memorial Plaza, where he was going to make his concession speech and thank Democratic workers.

  Just as he was about to give the speech, news came from frantic campaign staffers that Florida had become too close to call—Bush’s margin had narrowed considerably. Gore immediately telephoned Bush and, as the latter put it ruefully, “unconceded.”

  The following conversation is priceless because it proves that even big candidates sometimes act like squabbling teenagers. Insiders on both sides explain that it went something like this:

  Gore: “Circumstances have changed dramatically. The state of Florida is too close to call.”

  Bush: “Let me make sure I understand. You’re calling me back to retract that concession?”

  Gore: “You don’t have to be snippy about it.”

  (Bush then explains that his little brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, has assured him of victory.)

  Gore: “Let me explain something. Your little brother is not the ultimate authority on this.”

  Bush: “You do what you have to do.”

  And the election after the election was on. For thirty-six days, no one knew who the next president would be.

  REPUBLICANS VS. DEMOCRATS In Florida, automatic machine recounts are mandated by law when elections are as close as the Bush-Gore contest. Going into the recount, Bush led by 1,784 votes out of 5.9 million cast. Two days later, after the machine recount, his lead had shrunk to fewer than 300 votes. Democrats then cherry-picked three predominantly Democratic Florida counties—Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward—and asked for a hand recounting of votes, which was allowed under Florida law.

  Republicans argued that of course Gore was going to pick up Democratic votes in these three counties—in all elections, in all states, a few errors are made here and there. No doubt some errors were made in Republican favor in the extremely close contest in New Mexico (which had gone to Gore). Why not pick through votes there?

  Bush followers, led by the extremely savvy James Baker, former secretary of state under George H.W. Bush and five-time Republican presidential campaign manager, claimed that the election was over. Bush was the winner, and Gore was the pretender to the throne. The election needed to be certified and done with.

  OVERVOTES, UNDERVOTES, AND CHADS Democrats, led by former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, pointed out that this was no ordinary case of a few ballots gone missing. The Votomatic system—in which voters punch out a hole on a paper ballot with a stylus to record their choice and then insert the ballot into a machine—was rife with problems.

  In Palm Beach County, the two-page butterfly ballot (which looked like an opened book) was so poorly designed that more than 3,000 of the predominantly elderly, Jewish population had mistakenly punched the hole for ultraconservative Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan, giving him 2,700 votes more than he won in any other Florida county. (Even Buchanan said that most of these votes were probably cast not for him, but for Gore.) Some voters saw their mistake and punched more than one hole to try to vote for
Gore. These were known as overvotes.

  There was not necessarily a lot anyone could do about the butterfly ballot errors—the ballot had been designed by a Democrat and approved by both parties ahead of time. But, in other counties, some ballots were only partially punched, leaving a hanging piece of paper (called a chad), which caused the vote not to be counted. This was known as an undervote. There were also ad nauseam “dimpled” or “pregnant” chads, which were still completely attached to the ballot on all four sides and corners, but bulged slightly in the middle, rendering those votes invalid.

  In all, Democrats estimated, there were as many as 61,000 disputed undervotes. These had simply not been counted as votes cast, and they needed to be. For it was a matter of law in Florida that a voter’s intent to vote be taken into consideration when recounting ballots, even if said voter made a procedural or mechanical mistake (that is, not punching the ballot fully) in casting a vote.

  Hence, Democrats said, the hand recount was needed. But Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a co-chair of the Bush campaign in the state, refused to allow the recounts—intent on certifying the election and moving forward. On November 21, the Florida Supreme Court voted to force Harris to let the recount proceed, approving manual recounts in the three Florida counties chosen by the Democrats. The hand count went on, but Republicans sent activists to demonstrate (many of them congressional aides flown to Florida). In Dade County, these “preppy protestors” were so militant that they managed to delay the counting, frightening the exhausted and overwhelmed poll workers.