Prime-Time
Battle
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The key
node is Baker to Cheney - the former Secretaries of State
and Defense under President Bush, two men who fought the Gulf
War together in 1991 and are fighting the Florida war together
now. On the day after the election, Baker, who has been an
occasional adviser to the son this year, was all set to go
hunting in Spain with an eclectic group: Bush's father, the
former President, along with Schwarzkopf, former Indiana basketball
coach Bobby Knight and King Juan Carlos. Then Baker got a
call from Bush campaign chairman Don Evans. "I hope you don't
think this is a crazy idea," Evans said, "but would you be
open to leading our Florida team?" Baker said sure. He's used
to getting the we-need-you call from the Bushes, and though
he expects no role in a possible Bush Administration, he's
pleased to be helping. "Cheney and Baker are running this
show," says an official. "They are making decisions and telling
W., This is the deal.' I'm not saying it's bad. That's how
Reagan did it."
Gore is
far more connected than Bush - an adviser describes sending
Gore an e-mail and being floored when the reply came back
"in about 10 seconds." And Gore manages his team in a far
more controlling manner. Aides receive several e-mails a day
from the boss, asking, What's new? What's going on? What are
you hearing? Although he didn't personally recruit Microsoft
slayer David Boies to his legal team (he didn't have a conversation
with Boies until the lawyer was on the ground in Tallahassee),
he attends to most everything else. Says a senior adviser:
"He has to own this thing."
In so doing,
Gore has finally pulled off something he couldn't manage during
the campaign: corralling people from all the far-flung provinces
of his party and harnessing them into an effective team. In
his final lunge for the White House, he has put aside his
doubts about all the people whose complete loyalty he could
never count on. He has brought in Bob Bauer, the best election-law
mind in America (and a Bill Bradley guy); Boies, one of the
few players who appears to be thoroughly enjoying himself
but with whom Gore has no prior relationship; and onetime
archrivals Jack Corrigan and John Sasso, cutthroat campaign
operators with whom Gore tangled in 1988. "We finally got
the best people to do their jobs irrespective of their drawbacks,"
says an aide. "We never got that done in the campaign."
Gore, who
can often be moody and stressed, has been eerily confident
amid the pressure, "ridiculously upbeat," as an aide puts
it. "He thinks he's gonna win. He has very little doubt."
Instead of doing what he normally does in meetings - sucking
the oxygen out of the room - Gore has been energizing the
conference calls and emergency strategy sessions. When an
adviser says, "Gore has been really great," he sounds almost
surprised.
The Democratic
legal team spent most of the week in what one lawyer calls
"triage," as Harris issued new opinions and set new deadlines
almost daily, and sometimes hourly, most of them designed
to delay the hand recounts until they became moot. At first,
the Gore lawyers were primed for battle, but by Tuesday night
the mood turned somber. Daley was so tired that he began to
resemble Bert the Muppet. Christopher at times looked absolutely
ancient. As their anger and frustration rose, Harris became
the woman they loved to hate, just as she did for Democrats
around the country. If she wasn't taking her orders from Austin
- and she swears she was not - she might as well have been,
since her every decision furthered Bush's goal. Members of
Gore's legal team pushed all week to go after her in the courts,
if not for possible election-law violations, then for breaking
the Sunshine law, because her Elections Canvassing Commission
met in secret. But Christopher vetoed the idea - until Saturday,
when Gore's supreme-court brief called her decisions "Kafkaesque."
The Gore
camp claims to have been stunned by Harris' rashness in refusing
all recounts and not maintaining a pose of impartiality. Instead,
she banked the fires in all three counties - and Gore's folks
can't believe Bush let her do it. "They just totally blew
her credibility," says a Gore adviser. "If they had been 10%
less brazen, they'd be 50% better off." MORE>>
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November 27,
2000 | NO. 47
U
N I T E D S T A T E S
COVER:
One Nation, Under Chad
In the murkiness of Florida, amid bickering about bits of paper, will
the next President be decided in the margins of error?
THE
CANDIDATES: Tales from the War Rooms
The inside story of the battles to take the White House
VIEWPOINT:
Will Defeat Be Good for the Democrats?
Jeff Greenfield speculates on political expediency
THE
COURTS: Where Will It All End?
Adam Cohen on judges, briefs and supreme decisions
VOTING:
A Map for the Electoral Labyrinth
Richard Lacayo on the morass-and ways to get out of it
S
O U T H P A C I F I C
INDONESIA:
Trouble on the Border
The first pictures from a West Papuan separatist training camp
Viewpoint:
The rebels' presence in P.N.G. could hurt Australia
T
H E A R T S
BOOKS:
Frank Moorhouse
brings his lively League of Nations chronicle to a close
Barbara Kingsolver
returns to her roots
CINEMA:
Girlfight's Michelle Rodriguez, a knockout talent
MUSIC:
The rich afterlife of Everlast Soul Sister Mumba One
TRAVELER'S
ADVISORY
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