Can Bush Bring Us Together?

A few hours before he conceded the election, Al Gore was on the phone with his old friend Norm Dicks, a Democratic Congressman from Washington State. Allies since 1977, when both were House freshmen, Gore and Dicks stayed in touch during the last roller-coaster days of the 2000 contest. Now that it was over, Dicks told the Vice President, "you've done all you could do. You'll have another day." Gore giggled nervously and said, "I'm not so sure about that." Dicks could hear the hurt in his voice. "He won Florida," Dicks told TIME, "and should be President of the United States."

The anger that swept Capitol Hill last week, as Democrats struggled to accept the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to stop the Florida recount and award the presidency to George W. Bush, wasn't confined to Gore's friends. Since he doesn't have many of those on the Hill, the emotions triggered by his loss caught many House and Senate Democrats by surprise. A week before, they had been eager for the end, dismissive of Gore's strategy and above all worried that the cursed election would have to be decided in their chambers. How can we miss you, they seemed to be telling Gore, if you won't go away?

Then he did go away--because the Supreme Court handed down a decision that felt more partisan than principled--and Democrats were outraged. Some Senators predict titanic battles if Bush gets to nominate new Supreme Court Justices. Some House members predict titanic battles over just about anything that happens in 2001. Aggrievement is a handy political tool, of course, and some of it no doubt is being manufactured by politicians who would love to see Bush fail so they could pick up seats in 2002. But even as lawmakers speak publicly of bipartisanship and healing, they speak privately of the deep pessimism that has settled over Washington. One hears it not simply from liberals but also from moderates in both parties who had been bullish about Bush's chance for success. "I'm in the realism category now," says Representative Charles Stenholm, a conservative Texas Democrat who had radiated optimism just days before. "It's going to be difficult."

Even Gore's note-perfect concession speech--brief, unbowed, ruefully funny and unabashedly patriotic--carried a dire subtext. The Vice President quoted Stephen Douglas' concession to Abraham Lincoln after the 1860 election: "Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I'm with you, Mr. President, and God bless you." But when Douglas offered those uplifting words, the nation was weeks away from the Civil War.

It's almost obscene to compare Bush's predicament to Lincoln's. But it is true that Bush must unify a divided nation. He lost the popular vote by 337,000, and many Americans believe he lost Florida and thus the electoral contest as well--and a non-binding, after-the-fact recount could end up reaching the same conclusion around the time he takes office. The man who promised to be "a uniter, not a divider"--who warned Republicans that the Party of Lincoln hasn't always heeded the message of Lincoln--ended up fighting in the courts to prevent the recount of ballots cast largely by Americans who are black, poor, and/or elderly. The man who promised to be a different kind of Republican may owe his office to an old-fashioned Republican network--the allies of his brother, the Florida Governor, and the Republican appointees on the nation's highest court.