Analysis of the Controversial 2000 Election

- The following is a CNN Special Report. [cheers] - The next President of the United States! - Bush versus Gore. [cheers] - The closest race in modern political history. - Nobody really knew what was gonna happen. - I was just seeing my life kind of flash in front of me. - An election night like no other. - I was operating in an environment of volcanic chaos. - Bulletin. Florida pulled back into the undecided column. - This phrase in my head kept repeating itself. "Too close to call." - Launching a war for the White House. The campaign chairman comes in and says to you... - "You better get people scrambling for a recount." And that was the "holy shit" moment. [soft dramatic music] - We were going to hold Florida unless they sent in federal troops. [shouts] - 36 days of political combat at the highest levels. - They were the worst 36 days of my life. - It was awful. - And in the end, the Supreme Court had the last word. - If you're a screenwriter, they'd fire you for this story. - So could it happen again? - There's no question it could happen again. ♪ ♪ [cheers] - We want Gore! We want Gore! - It's after 3:00 in the morning on November 8, 2000. The War Memorial in Nashville, Tennessee. Vice President Al Gore is inside getting ready to publicly concede the presidential election to George W. Bush. - It was total chaos as we're trying to get into the War Memorial, pouring rain, the Vice President and--and Lieberman's family, and that whole group had gone in. The Secret Service, the police, everybody was on edge. - And I got on the phone with Bill Daley. And he said, "What's up, Mike?" And I said, "Billy, we haven't lost. This thing is gonna be an automatic recanvas." I said, "This thing's too close to call." - I was just seeing my life kind of flash in front of me, and kind of breaking out into a sweat, thinking, "Oh my God, what do we do here?" - That's when he contacted David Morehouse. - Everything was--was ringing at once and vibrating. - Told him, "Grab the Vice President. "Get him into a holding room with Joe Lieberman. "Do not let anyone go out, just, everybody freeze." - Michael Feldman was trying to get a hold of me. Feldman said, "You know, you need to you need to stop the Vice President from conceding." - He cannot go out on stage. You've got to bring him to hold. - The Vice President's walking really fast, so it takes me a little bit to catch up with them. And I caught up with him. We're walking down a long hallway. End of the hallway's some stairs that lead to the outside where the stage is. I just stood in front of the stairs and said, "Mr. Vice President, we have to go to hold." And he said, "This better be good." [cheers and whistles] - Before election day ever started, the 2000 vote was too close to call. - Our polling was showing that it was a dead heat, that it was basically within the margin of error. - For news anchors, election night is the Super Bowl. - We're electing the most powerful person in the world. - And this election looked like one for the record books. - Any journalist worthy of the name, what you want is a great story, and this was a great story. - Election Night for any presidential contest is not routine. No, it's not because it's too important, too historic. But as the evening wore on, it was clear, this one is different. This one is different. - This is a CNN Election 2000 Special Presentation. - If you've ever longed for those nights that you've heard about when people waited late to find out who their leader was, pull up a chair. This may be it. - We started routinely with the polls closing and we watched the clock. This is how our electoral map looks at 7:34 Eastern Time. Governor Bush far ahead of Vice President Gore. - Predictable results in the states first to close their polls. Then, earth shattering news. - ...and altogether, according to Senator John McCain-- - Mike, excuse me one second. I'm so sorry to interrupt you. Mike, you know I wouldn't do this if it weren't big. Florida goes for Al Gore. Now, folks, the equation changes. Then it happens like that. It's in the ear, Florida for Gore. Boom. Ladies and gentlemen, let's pause right here because this could be decisive. Could be decisive in the election. - 25 decisive electoral votes. Votes that could deliver the presidency for Al Gore. At the Governor's mansion in Austin, there was pure anguish. - There was this poll. It was very quiet. And when I asked, President Bush 41, how he was doing, and he said, "Not so good right now." - What were you guys thinking about the network projections at that point? - I think the feeling from the beginning, from our people who were crunching the numbers, was that the networks were wrong. - Karen Hughes wasn't the only one unconvinced. - I don't believe that some of these states that they've called, like Florida, I just don't believe that--I don't believe we got enough evidence to be able to call the state. - That state's gonna flip. I really feel that way. ♪ ♪ - I do remember saying to myself, "Wow, I hope they're right with this." Basically it was, listen, don't question the decision desk. Florida belongs to Gore. - But I think, Bill, and you're the maven on this one, that generally networks do not call unless they have a pretty high degree of assurance, correct? - That is correct. We have a pretty high degree of assurance that Florida and Pennsylvania have gone for Al Gore. - Then two minutes later, all hell breaks loose. - Stand by, stand by. CNN, right now, is moving our earlier declaration of Florida back to the "too close to call" column. - Ah. - Beads of sweat start popping out of my forehead. 25 very big electoral votes. In the home state of the Governor's brother, Jeb Bush, are hanging in the balance. This no longer is a victory for Vice President Gore. We're moving it back. - Oh waiter, one order of crow, please. - Yes. - And I could actually feel sweat as I realize that this was wrong. We had to correct it. - And so did every other network. Within minutes. - NBC News is now taking Florida out of Vice President Gore's column and putting it back in the "too close to call" column. - Bulletin. Florida pulled back into the "undecided" column. Computer and data problem. - We pulled it back until we can examine the data and see where we are. - This knockdown drag out battle drags on into the night and turn the lights down, the party just got wilder. - We don't just have egg in our face, we've got omelet all over our suits. The numbers start to go back and forth. You know, we couldn't trust any of them. And I finally ran out of ways to explain to the audience what was going on. - The chaos factor just went through the roof. There's always chaos. Now we reach the abnormal. Now we reach a land where we've never been. - Basically the projections are made by exit polling data, and also actual vote counts from model precincts. - But those numbers were off, and they were shared by all the networks. - This model had worked in the past. It clearly, not only did not work that night, but it sputtered, and sputtered, and sputtered. ♪ ♪ - The models didn't work because Florida was a mess. Confusing ballots left voters unsure about whom they had actually voted for, local election officials misreported vote counts, and exit poll samples were just not accurate. In your ear, are they trying to be calm, even though they're freaking out? - Yes, they're trying to be calm. But it's--that's a failure. - I was trying to be as transparent as possible. The system is breaking down around me at that point. I know what I was thinking, we've got to find out now where we go next. - Those highfalutin computers, Tom. This is the answer. Get it right. ♪ ♪ - Coming up... - Al places the call, and we don't hear Governor Bush. At one point, I believe Al said something like, "You don't have to be so snippety about it." ♪ ♪ [cheers] ♪ ♪ - In the early morning hours on November 8, while thousands gather outside in Nashville, Joe Lieberman and his wife Hadassah are in their hotel room, waiting to hear if he will be the nation's next Vice President. - Somebody had sent an arrangement of flowers to our room. And in coming into the room, she expressed herself, expletives deleted. - [laughs] - And basically sort of knocked the flowers off the table. - Everyone is frustrated. And then, shortly after 2:00 a.m., it gets worse. - Bush wins. Florida goes Bush, the presidency is Bush. That's it. - The home state of Governor Jeb Bush. It's going to be a much happier Thanksgiving for the Bush family. ABC News is now going to project that Florida goes to Mr. Bush. [soft dramatic music] Let's stop and absorb that for a second. - We've got the TV on, all of a sudden, whichever network we were watching--you know, I think it was CNN, and it was Bernard Shaw, I think, broke in and said... - George Bush, Governor of Texas will become the 43rd President of the United States. And I actually get a chill when I say it right now. And I said, "I've got to go to see Al." - What Lieberman didn't know was that Gore had already decided to concede. He placed the call. - He just said, "Governor, you know, put up a fight," or whatever he said. I forget the exact words. but conceded. It was a very short call. I think Governor Bush just thanked him. There was no love lost between either one of these guys, they didn't like each other, period. And so it was probably a ten second call at most. And that was it. - At the time he conceded, Jeb Bush was still over there on his computer, and he's like, "I don't know what they're seeing. I don't know what numbers they're seeing. I think it's still too close." - So were you guys kind of surprised? It sounds like Jeb was that-- - - I think Jeb was surprised when Vice President Gore called to concede. - Jeb Bush was the Governor of Florida at the time, trying to deliver the state for his big brother. He wasn't the only one scratching his head at Gore's concession. - My numbers were going back and forth. - At headquarters, Michael Whouley, Gore's own numbers wizard, kept doing the math with no idea that Gore's motorcade was already on the way for his concession speech. How is it that you guys in the boiler room were not told they were going to concede? - I don't know. I think they believed the network news. When Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather said that George Bush had won, they thought it was game over. There was a furious scramble to find somebody in the motorcade. - Maybe a minute after we left the hotel, my White House pager went off. It was a call from Michael Whouley. - I think my words were, you know, "Where are you guys?" And he said, "We're at the War Memorial." And I asked why. I was obviously incredulous. And he said, "We're about to concede." I said, "For what? We haven't lost." ♪ ♪ - Something was fishy, and it smelled all the way to Austin, where team George W. Bush nervously waited. - Jeb Bush looking like his life is passing before his eyes. [chuckles] Because he's the good brother whose state is going to let down his brother George, and George and Laura Bush looking pretty--like, kind of shell shocked, a little bit. - Finally, after 3:00 a.m., a second call to Bush from Gore, who was still hunkered down backstage at the War Memorial. - The phone rang again and I heard Governor Bush in this very incredulous voice saying, "You're retracting your concession?" [laughs] And, you know, I mean, there's no precedent for anything like that. - Then at another point, toward the end of the conversation, he said, "I don't care what your little brother says. The networks are all saying now it's too close to call, and therefore I've got to withdraw my concession." - I mean, hell, his brother was the governor, but, you know, he was like, "Well, my brother." And Al was like, "Oh, hey," you know. And I'll never forget his facial expression, like, heh. - So he hung up the phone, everybody cheers. And then somebody says, "Wow, you called Jeb Bush his little brother." So Al says, "I didn't call him his little brother. He called him his little brother." - As the Bush team squirmed in Austin, it fell to Gore campaign chairman Bill Daley to deliver an unprecedented message. That Gore had withdrawn his concession. It was 4:00 a.m. [cheers and applause] - And Gore said to me, "You do it." I said, "I'm not gonna do it!" [laughs] "Forget about it, I'm not gonna go out there on TV at 2:30." He said, "No, you do it." So I thought, "Oh my God, I gotta go out there "to a billion people worldwide watching this "in the middle of the night in the U.S., "they're trying to figure out who's the President of the United States." This race is simply too close to call. And until the results-- the recount is concluded and the results of Florida become official, our campaign continues. [cheers] - Gore must concede! - Up next, taking the fight to the streets of Florida. - I wasn't a big fan of Al Gore's and the prospect of evening the score was an enticing prospect to me. - Bush Cheney! Bush Cheney! Bush Cheney! Bush Cheney! ♪ ♪ [soft dramatic music] ♪ ♪ - At the Governor's mansion in Austin, it was the morning after. - How many hours of sleep did you get last night? - About two. How about you? - About three and a half actually. - The one thing that keeps every operative, every person who works on a campaign going is the knowledge that it's over on election day. You know that this thing has an end. [machine ticking] - But the election of 2000 didn't end, it just moved to Florida where 25 electoral votes would determine the presidency. - We were going to take Lieberman's plane, and Ron Klain was going to lead the charge, and we got a bunch of lawyers get briefed on the whole thing. And they were going to go off to Florida that night, in the middle of night. - I remember telling my wife as I left early that morning to get on the plane, that I'd be home by Friday. I was pretty sure I'd be home on Friday. - Good idea. - Yeah. [dramatic music] - In Austin, team Bush needed a leader, a heavy hitter. The choice was obvious. - We have asked former United States Secretary of State, James Baker, to travel to Florida on our behalf. - And he said, "Well, Joe, how long do you think we ought to pack for?" And I said, "Oh, two or three days, we're going to the Sunshine State." [chuckles] - By 2:00 that afternoon, I was on an airplane to Florida with Joe Allbaugh. - He has one bag, and we get in the plane, a very small plane, fly off to Tallahassee and he says, "Okay, brief me." [soft dramatic music] After about 45 minutes, he leans back in the seat and he says, "We're headed to the Supreme Court." I was absolutely blown away. - The Supreme Court - The Supreme Court of the United States. I said, "You're kidding me?" And without batting an eye, taking a breath, he said, "It's the only way this can end." - Punching heavyweight for the Democrats was former Secretary of State Warren Christopher. - We're proceeding in accordance with the Constitution and laws, and will continue to do so. - Both statesmen, both diplomats, but hardly alike. - You never met anybody who had more respect for Christopher, but he was an old-fashioned, by the book, lawyer. Jim Baker was that plus a down in the pit, political hand-to-hand combat fighter. - Look, when I heard that Jim Baker was going to be involved for the other side, I thought this is a guy who comes armed on both sides. I mean, no, he carries two holsters, and he's got other hidden weapons. ♪ ♪ - Baker and Christopher had only one face to face meeting at the Governor's Inn in Tallahassee where it became very clear they were fighting different wars. ♪ ♪ - Secretary Christopher laid out a number of ideas about how the uncertainty in Florida might be resolved. And Secretary Baker listened politely, but simply said, "I have, really, "I've no idea what you're talking about. "There's no dispute here. "Governor Bush won the election. "Secretary of State Katherine Harris "is going to certify that, and the only thing we're "here to discuss is the terms and conditions "under which Vice President Gore is going to concede." - There was never any thought or suggestion that we could come to a conclusion because somebody had to win or somebody had to lose. - But I heard you just came in and were very, sort of, like, "We won, like, we're preserving this elec--" - Well, of course I did 'cause that's what I believed and, by the way, that's what happened. ♪ ♪ - Baker knew to win, he needed to get out of Florida's courts. - If we didn't find a way to get into the federal courts, we were dead meat. - Because the Florida Supreme Court was dominated by Democrats, Baker had to make his case to conservatives who wanted to leave it at the state level. - You want to be ideologically pure or do you want to win? They said, "We want to win." I said, "Well, then don't be criticizing "our going to federal court because if we stay with the Florida Supreme Court, we're gonna lose." There was no doubt about it, and if you look at their opinions, and the way they screwed us with those opinions, we would have lost. ♪ ♪ - The Gore team complained the odds were against them. Republicans controlled the State House and George Bush's brother, Jeb, was the Governor. - We thought it would be close. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine it would be this close. - If you own the system, which the Governor at the time, Bush, owned, you generally will win. They didn't do anything criminal or anything inappropriate, but as I said, I think if the Democrats had control of the Governorship and basically controlled the state, no doubt my mind, those calls would have been made for the Democrats. - Jeb was sort of the wizard behind the curtain-- - Well he's the Governor of the State, and there was a-- there was chaos as a result of an election in his state. And he was going to come back and try to get control of this thing. - Yeah, he's between a rock and a hard spot. I mean, obviously, he wants his brother to win, but he can show no favoritism in his role as Governor of the State. And we weren't asking him. I don't believe that he pulled any levers. - Or maybe he didn't have to, maybe it was just understood. - No major law firm in Florida would work for Al Gore. - Even Democratic? - Even Democratic oriented law firms because everyone was afraid of antagonizing the Bush family, antagonizing the Governor, and losing important state business. - Did you have any evidence that they had been called by the Governor? - No evidence that anyone said anything to anybody. Stuff didn't have to be said, right, it was just all obvious. It turned out that the name of the Governor of the State of Florida was the same name as the name of the person we were running against, you know, and so nothing had to be said, and I'm not saying that Governor Bush did anything wrong. I don't believe he did. I want to be clear about that. But it wasn't a fair process. It wasn't a neutral process. it was a process that was rigged against us. - What was rigged? - Uh, kind of, everything. So we could start with the fact that the person who was in charge of making sure-- of directing the counties to do what Florida law required, which is a re-canvass, a re-tabulation of their votes in every county, was George Bush's campaign chair in Florida, Katherine Harris. ♪ ♪ - Up next, the war that wouldn't end. - I hereby declare Governor George W. Bush, the winner of... - Katherine thought that George Bush had won the election, and we were going to fight 'em tooth and nail, house to house, hand-to-hand. And we were going to hold Florida unless they sent in federal troops. - Let us in! Let us in! ♪ ♪ [soft dramatic music] ♪ ♪ - In the 2000 election, more than 100 million ballots were cast in 50 states. But the race would come down to a few hundred votes and the authority of one woman... - It's exciting to see the process working. - ...destined for infamy. - Am I going to enjoy watching that Tennessee robot cry when he hears the results? Yes. [laughter] Does that make me partisan? I don't think so. ♪ ♪ - Katherine Harris was the Republican Florida Secretary of State in charge of the recount, and she was also the state campaign co-chair for George W. Bush. - What we asked her for was that she would be an honest broker. - And what was her response? - Well, thank you. [laughs] - But you walked out of there and you're like... - Forget this, you know. - Of course she was trying to win for George Bush. That's what she was doing, but she was using her power as Secretary of State... as the state's election administration official to try to produce that result, and that was wrong. - My sense is she was trying to do the best job she could, she'd been thrust into this sort of involuntarily. It was a great big role. - Thank you very much, I appreciate it. - There was nobody she could call up and say, "So, I've got a presidential recount here. What do I do as Secretary of State?" - She was very nervous. She was quite--you know, and my recollection is this Mac Stipanovich was her advisor, and he was a solid...person. ♪ ♪ - A well respected Tallahassee lobbyist with ties to Jeb Bush and a long history in Republican politics, Mac Stipanovich became Katherine Harris's brain. - I explained to her, you don't have any friends-- we're not gonna have any friends once this is over, and that we're going to be loathed by the media for the rest of our lives and through the lives of our grandchildren. That's not what's important here today. We're gonna elect a President of the United States. Forget all the rest of that stuff. [dramatic music] - As Americans watched the partisans duke it out daily on live TV, behind the scenes, Mac was plotting the Republican path to victory. - I called the senior staff together, and I said, "We're not gonna break any laws, "but I want you to forget about the intent of laws. We're going to bring this election in for a landing." And we were gonna fight 'em tooth and nail, house to house, hand-to-hand, and we were going to hold Florida unless they sent in federal troops. ♪ ♪ - He knew exactly what he had to do, stop recounting votes and preserve Bush's election night lead, no matter how small. ♪ ♪ - We actually believed the result was right. I said, "George Bush has won this election, "and it is our job to make it so, "and we're going to, rapidly as possible, "close off any option, any path that could be followed, that produces any result other than that one." People are going to watch this and be appalled. "Oh my God, the corrupt bastards, they stole the election." No, we won the election. - "No, you didn't," said the Democrats citing a long list of complaints. In Broward County, hanging and dimpled chads that left voter intent unclear. In Duval, confusing instructions to voters, and in Palm Beach, the now notorious butterfly ballot. ♪ ♪ How would you describe what happened to Al Gore in Florida? - He got screwed by a bad ballot in Palm Beach that the Democratic leadership in that county signed off on. ♪ ♪ - The butterfly ballot had punch holes for Al Gore and ultra-conservative Pat Buchanan located dangerously close to each other, just asking for mistakes. - I can tell you that the people came out of the voting booth in the hundreds, knowing, realizing that they had punched Pat Buchanan's number thinking it was Al Gore. - Had the butterfly ballot not happened, Al Gore would have been President of the United States, no doubt in my mind, period. ♪ ♪ - A big glitch that, after election day, left Gore scrambling to fix the unfixable. - They had a real argument to make about that ballot, but only before the election. They didn't have it afterwards. The Democrats signed off on it. The Republicans signed off on it. It was designed by a Democratic elections director in Palm Beach County. - He had very few options to fundamentally change the outcome after that. [people chanting indistinctly] - So how, and how hard to fight? ♪ ♪ Questions that would dog and divide the Democrats. - When you're in a fight, the first person who stops fighting always loses. ♪ ♪ [soft dramatic music] [cheering] - As days of uncertainty turned into weeks, the bitterness spread, even outside the Vice President's House. [chanting indistinctly] - They were there praying and chanting, "Get out of Cheney's house!" So they were trying to build the image that we were the ones who were not following the law. ♪ ♪ - Behind the gates, the Gore family strained to project normalcy, and as his team huddled inside, it soon became clear that not everyone was in a take-no-prisoners mood. ♪ ♪ - Somebody came over to me and said, "Senator, you're a young man with a great future, "and so is Al Gore, and I just urge you to look at the decisions we have to make in that light, and--" - Don't be a sore loser? - Yeah, and I was shocked, I must say, by that reaction. ♪ ♪ - Image was key during the recount, and each man stayed true to form. ♪ ♪ - Bush differed from Gore significantly because what Bush did was to pass the responsibility and authority to me. - They were going through the charade of having to transition, and blah, blah, blah, and Cheney was out there meeting with people and probably picking the cabinet. - Gore, meanwhile, managed every detail of the fight. - In the Gore campaign, you had Gore at the Naval Observatory. - He was more of a micromanager. - Machines can sometimes misread or fail to detect the way ballots are cast. - One of the biggest choices Gore had to make, which votes to recount? The final decision, just four out of Florida's 67 counties. Why those four, why not just statewide recount? - Those were four counties where we had concrete evidence of errors, inaccuracies, and mistakes on election day. Secondly, the clock was ticking, and we knew that the time we had to get these things counted was limited. ♪ ♪ - One more thing about the counties the Democrats chose, they were heavily Democratic. - I think the biggest mistake they made during the whole thing was to ask for a recount in four Democratic counties. That gave us the high ground. They had a good slogan, "count every vote." How can that be fair, just to ask for a recount in your county? ♪ ♪ - Our legal strategy was predicated on four counties believing that if we went back and re-counted those four counties, we would make up the difference. - Was that a mistake? - Very much a mistake. - The Florida courts let the recount continue for three crazy weeks as the tension became surreal. [chanting indistinctly] - The Gore campaign refused to accept the vote count on election day. - The delays have been, largely, the product of lawsuits filed by Republicans, or erroneous legal opinions from the Secretary of State. - When the clock ran out on November 26, Secretary of State Katherine Harris grandly announced the results. - We needed the nation to see that, as far as we were concerned, it was over. George Bush had won, move on. And so, it was important that there be some drama. - And there was plenty of drama. ♪ ♪ - In accordance with the laws of the State of Florida, I hereby declare Governor George W. Bush the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes for the President of the United States. ♪ ♪ - Good evening. - The margin, 537 votes. - Secretary Cheney and I are honored and humbled to have won the state of Florida, which gives us the needed electoral votes to win the election. - And Lieberman fired back. - This evening, the Secretary of State of Florida has decided to certify what, by any reasonable standard, is an incomplete and inaccurate count of the votes cast in the State of Florida. Part of why I went out, clearly, was to say to the public, "This ain't over yet." You know, it ain't over till it's over. ♪ ♪ - And it wasn't over, just half-time. ♪ ♪ The Democrats went to the friendly State Supreme Court and won big. - The circuit court shall order a manual recount of all under votes. ♪ ♪ - Not only did the court deny Bush's victory in Florida, but it also ordered a new statewide recount of disputed ballots. - Good morning. - Good morning. - Advantage, Gore. Did you believe at that point, at all, that you might win? - Yes. - Yes? - Yes. - Why? - 'Cause we had more votes. we just needed to get them counted. - The Vice President's residence on Friday night was a party. Everybody was thrilled about the victory in the Florida Supreme Court because we felt that it was the preface to a victory overall because it would give us the recount we wanted. ♪ ♪ - But there was no joy in Bushville. - Excruciating, just excruciating. I just remember thinking it just seemed unfair and arbitrary. - It was like being on a treadmill, I mean, we never knew from day to day, whether we're going to win or whether we're going to lose. We'd lose a case one day, we'd win one the next day. ♪ ♪ - As Baker had predicted from day one, he would have to look to another court for the final outcome he wanted. - We felt that we had sound constitutional arguments in our favor. - I think it was probably the biggest disappointment that I've had in my lifetime, in terms of what the Supreme Court has done. ♪ ♪ [dramatic electronic music] ♪ ♪ - The election that should have ended the same day it began is still dragging on one month later. ♪ ♪ - I think 31 days into this, we've learned to think that anything is possible. - Let us in! Let us in! - It's like Groundhog Day. - I just remember thinking, "This is never going to end." ♪ ♪ - After the Florida Supreme Court allowed the recount to continue, the Democrats could smell success. [soft dramatic music] But Republicans pushed past the Florida Supreme Court to an even higher authority. - The US Supreme Court has agreed to put a stay on the recount in Florida. - On December 9, in a stunning decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled, five to four, to stop the count. - I'm eating lunch in a sports bar when the television flashed across the screen that the United States Supreme Court had issued an order stopping the vote count. My first reaction is that had to be a mistake. - Can't be true. - It was true. - Advantage Bush. And so the final showdown was set between two super lawyers, Democrat David Boies for Gore, who was desperate to restart the counting. - ...citizens right to vote. - It certainly felt momentous. We knew the stakes were very high. - All we heard today... - And Republican, Ted Olson, who went to work immediately to keep the count frozen. - I found, literally, a broom closet on the floor beneath where everybody was working, where I could close the door and think and write. ♪ ♪ - After just 36 hours to prep, Olsen and Boies climbed the marble steps, each ascending into a legal stratosphere no one could have scripted. - The time pressures here, the fact that the Presidency of the United States was at stake, the fact that this was a political battle, a media battle, and a legal battle all taking place, so-called, perfect storm, all taking place in a very short period of time. ♪ ♪ - For 90 minutes, the two men went at it. [gavel cracks] - We'll hear argument, now, number 00949 George W. Bush and Richard Cheney versus Albert Gore. - For team Bush, Olsen argued that the Florida court had changed the rules in the middle of the game by allowing a statewide recount. - If one reads it the way the Florida Supreme Court did, the entire processes tilted on its head. - You can't have rules that say they must be counted-- ballots must be counted this way before the election, and then count them differently after the election. - For team Gore, David Boies countered the high court had no business intervening in the first place. - That is something that has to be decided, in the initial instance, by the Florida Supreme Court interpreting Florida law. - The real issue is which court ought to be making that decision. Historically, it was always the State Supreme Court. Historically, the United States Supreme Court had never intervened in a presidential election. ♪ ♪ - But this time, it would. - They have reached a decision, that word is imminent, don't leave CNN. - The judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida is reversed. - By a five to four vote, the Supreme Court decided the recount would not continue. It was over, and Bush had won, news that would soon reach Republican headquarters in Tallahassee. - We got a heads-up call about ten minutes beforehand that said, "The opinions coming, watch your fax machine." - Fax machine. - Fax machine. ♪ ♪ - I got a call from Austin from Governor Bush. And I answered the call, and I said, "Congratulations, Mr. President Elect." ♪ ♪ [shouting and cheering] - We gathered everybody together. - To the next President of the United States! - Everybody fought really hard. They had done an incredible job with an incredible setting, and precisely the outcome we had hoped for. - You're still emotional. - I'm still emotional about it, sure. You know, it's just moments of pure--of pure joy. ♪ ♪ - Or devastation if you worked for Al Gore. - I got on the phone with Vice President Gore and started to read him parts of it. We got to the part where the court essentially ordered that the recount wouldn't go forward. And that was, you know, the moment when it was really over. - What did you say? - I said a series of four letter words, and I'm not gonna repeat it here because my mom watches CNN. - 15 years later, Democrats are still second guessing. Nick Baldick had been on the ground in Florida for Al Gore. - If you work in an election like that, and it ends up getting decided by one vote in the Supreme Court, you constantly have to say to yourself, "What could I have done?" ♪ ♪ - Should Democrats have been more aggressive? - I think the Republicans came to a gunfight with a gun and we came with a knife. ♪ ♪ - Did Gore's initial concession set him up as a sore loser? - Do you regret telling Gore to concede in the first place? - Yeah, I do. At the point that we recommended that it was over, there was no other option as long as Florida was with Bush. ♪ ♪ - Should Democrats have made more use of President Bill Clinton, who was kept on the sidelines by the Gore campaign? ♪ ♪ - We did not utilize him to his full effectiveness, no question. - Anybody else goes through the-- did you use Bill Clinton? Did you--that's all bullshit. ♪ ♪ - Al Gore had won the national popular vote by more than half a million, but he lost the two most important votes, the one in the Electoral College, and the one at the Supreme Court. Case closed. ♪ ♪ But even now, the dispute lives on because nobody can prove, for sure, how voters intended to vote. - I think more people went to the polls intending to vote for Al Gore for President than George Bush in Florida, yes. ♪ ♪ - Well, I thought George Bush had won... - Even Republican operative Mac Stipanovich agrees. - I believe that people who went to the polls that day and voted elected George Bush. ♪ ♪ I believe the people who went to the polls that day and intended to vote, probably elected Al Gore. ♪ ♪ - Most elections are screwed up. The Presidency of the United States is really at risk based upon that. ♪ ♪ - I, George Walker Bush, do solemnly swear... - On January 20, George W. Bush was sworn in as the 43rd President of the United States, and the 2000 election entered the record books as the closest and most controversial race in modern political history. ♪ ♪ So, to this day, you think you won? - I think was fundamentally a tie. I think if we had kept counting... it would have been very interesting. - And maybe he would have won? - We'll never know. ♪ ♪

Transcript for:Analysis of the Controversial 2000 Election

Transcript for:
Analysis of the Controversial 2000 Election