Reversal
of Fortune
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But Baker's
coded message to the Democrats on Friday was already a threat.
"If we keep going down the path we're on," he warned "then
we just can't sit on our hands, and we will be forced to do
what might be in our best personal interest, but not in the
best interest of our wonderful country." In other words, if
Gore pushes Florida too hard, Bush will demand recounts in
Iowa, Wisconsin, New Mexico and Oregon. If Gore gained Florida
but lost a combination of three of those states, the Electoral
College vote would end in a deadlock, 269-269, in which case
the race would tumble into the House of Representatives, which
the Republicans, by a piece of tissue, control.
And top
Republicans told Time that Baker has every intention of going
after Gore's Achilles' heel in California if necessary: the
1 million absentee ballots. Bush would not win enough to take
back the state. But Republicans estimate that there are 600,000
Bush votes in boxes in California somewhere, and those could
be enough to reverse Gore's popular-vote victory.
The Bush
strategy was to take away what it considers Gore's only moral
leverage. And so Baker was really offering Gore an exit strategy:
depart the field now, as the clear popular-vote winner, and
live to fight another day - in 2004, Gore will be only 57
- or take your chances, face a popular-vote recount elsewhere,
and risk losing that imprimatur as party leader, heroic victim,
Mr. Popularity. Bush's people were betting Gore would take
this sooner or later. But the offer may not last long. "If
they want to play hardball, fine," said a Bush aide. "We're
prepared."
The Democrats,
meanwhile, did not like what they saw last week. They did
not like the images of Bush surrounded by a government in
waiting, all but ordering new White House china. And so their
strategy was to fight on three fronts, each with different
tactical goals.
The first
was the recount, to prevent the immediate certification of
the Florida results; the outcome from a hand count could still
save the day. There was also the outside chance that the overseas
ballots would include enough from Israel to tip the balance
to Gore. The second was the public relations war: stoke the
anger of African Americans and Jews, for whom disfranchisement
strikes a deep chord, throw Austin off balance, keep that
transition from getting organized. All this had useful downstream
benefits for the Democrats, even if they don't ultimately
prevail. The third track was to figure out the legal strategy
while the first two tracks bought them time to mull it over.
Gore has
a powerful instinct for the endgame, as he has shown in many
budget battles, in his handling Bosnia and above all at the
end of his losing presidential bid in 1988. It had been a
brutal race, but he found a way to end it gracefully. More
important than winning, Gore said, was "helping my party,
serving my country, knowing when to keep fighting and knowing
when I've been licked." Some people close to Gore saw in the
results last week a popular mandate for his ideas; these were
the people counseling Gore to fight on as long as the cause
was just, wait for the last vote to be counted and checked,
but then, if Bush retained his edge, lay down the legal sword.
Then he
could sit back and watch President Bush struggle to move forward
in a gruesomely divided Capitol, hoping that four years from
now his party could not possibly deny the nomination to the
man who won the popular vote. Two of the three men in American
history who won the popular vote only to lose in the Electoral
College came back four years later to win in a landslide.
When Gore's
father lost his Senate seat in 1970, he ended by saying, "The
truth shall rise again." Gore believes the truth is still
on his side, and he is a patient man.
Hillary
Clinton, however, was losing no time. Her victory in New York
was also a piece of history, and not just because she is the
first First Lady ever elected to anything. She promised on
Friday to back a bill abolishing the Electoral College and
providing for direct popular vote for the President - the
kind of system that particularly favors candidates from big
states. And so the week ended with one dynasty struggling
to survive as another was being born - one intergenerational,
one intermarital. Both were conceived in pride and nursed
on revenge, and you wondered if they may meet one day to clash
again. MORE>>
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November 20,
2000 | NO. 46
US
ELECTION 2000
STANDOFF
2000: The Cliffhanger
Nancy Gibbs tells the story of Al Gore and George W. Bush's never-ending
election night and the constitutional trapdoors that may lie ahead for
a country in political limbo
BACK
TO SCHOOL: An Electoral College Primer
Why the winner will be chosen by 538 men and women
Public
Eye: Margaret Carlson urges calm and patience
FLORIDA
KEY: The Sunshine State Keeps Counting
The turbulent quest for the State's 25 electoral votes
CAPITOL
HILL: The First Lady is a Senator
How Hillary Clinton won her race for Congress
HISTORY:
No Surprises
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. on White House history repeating
Vote:
Barbara Ehrenreich on why she's not sorry
SOCIETY
IDEAS:
A Hardy Constitution
Australia's chief justice is a fan of the country's "rules"
T
H E A R T S
EXHIBITIONS:
Pursuing the delusion of Utopia
MUSIC:
PJ Harvey in a New York state of mind
CINEMA:
Philip Seymour Hoffman, the prince of perversity
TRAVELER'S
ADVISORY
PACIFIC
OBSERVED: The legacy of Whitlam's dismissal
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