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Covering a Presidential election is supposed to be an incredible experience, right? Backroom political deals, heated debate, a little intrigue, a few sleepless nights, and -- eventually -- an outcome. End of story. Unless, of course, your editors send you to Florida, which is where I've been posted for the past week. Here, the Presidential election lives on in what seems like eternity. In fact, sometimes I forget why I'm here.
By now, I'm of a mind that, no matter what the Florida Secretary of State says, this whole mess can end in only one way: in some court, before a judge, with one side crying foul and the other proclaiming that the law has finally been followed to a tee. What I've learned is, in court, what one side says today can change tomorrow. So you'd better be on your toes, because circumstances change hour by hour -- and sometimes minute by minute. The real reason we're here? It was buried long ago in an avalanche of lawsuits, press conferences, photo ops, parades, and protests. It's all so far afield at this point that you can't help but laugh sometimes -- or grimace.
SEND IN THE CLOWNS. Like so many compelling media moments of late -- from the O.J. Simpson trial to World Trade Organization protests -- Election 2000 in Palm Beach has turned into a bizarre three-ring circus. The outside world becomes a blur. From the reporters crushed up against the podium every time a lawyer begins to stir to Jesse Jackson's invoking civil rights battles that now seem like ancient history to the man who chided Jackson about his apparent inability to rhyme anymore, the show constantly changes. Sometimes you wonder: Where's the ringmaster when we need him?
So again, why are we here? I've had to remind myself of the reason a few times since I arrived in the Sunshine State -- a place where I spent a good portion of my childhood, the state my family still calls home. Ah-ha! I remember now. There are these two guys named Al Gore and George W. Bush. Their race is too close to call. This is about who will be the next President.
Instead, it feels like a Saturday Night Live skit. Take, for example, the bow-tied man in a tweed jacket who listened to the Reverend Jackson intently for a few moments and then chimed in: "Explain to us your utter failure to rhyme the word chad," referring to the little tabs on ballots that have become such a source of controversy as the vote is recounted. "The American people deserve to know." A shrill and skinny fellow, he soon took to hanging around the media camp in front of Palm Beach County's emergency operations center -- the hurry-up-and-wait home to more than 275 media types from all over the world. "Reverend Jackson, you have built your franchise on your ability to rhyme. Tell us, why have you failed to rhyme chad," the man repeated. Jackson, clearly annoyed, ignored the man.
LIGHTS, CAMERA, JACKSON! I'm wondering, Why is Jackson here anyway? Oh yeah, because this has become a media spectacle. You know that because of all the giant, humming satellite trucks bearing the logos of network affiliates from around the world. Those are the telltale signs that a matter of cosmic importance has become a mad media scene. Hundreds of media folks hover like a swarm of hornets around a fresh victim each time a representative of either side utters a word -- even when they have little to say.
Then there are the ever-present Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies, who made an arbitrary rule on Nov. 15 that no signs would be allowed on the emergency operations center premises and went so far as to surround and threaten a Republican partisan who held up a four-inch-by-four-inch notebook sign, for a television camera no less. It was so small all I could make out was that it said something unflattering about Al Gore. Later I saw sheriff's deputies searching for signs, presumably without cause, in an onlooker's backpack.
Jackson's Nov. 13 march was emblematic of the spectacle. This was no longer a matter of who would be the next President of the United States. No, it was somehow, according to Jackson, about his march in Selma, Ala., in 1964. It was about the three civil rights workers who died in Mississippi. It was about those who fought in World War II, those who survived the Holocaust, women who didn't always have the right to vote or the right to choose. Soon, what seemed like a meeting of Voters Anonymous unfolded: Citizens of all stripes -- including a first-time voter in her late teens, a senior citizen, a middle-aged woman, and an immigrant speaking in broken English -- paraded before the crowd to tell their sad stories as Jackson looked on. It was as if they wanted him to heal their sorrows. Meanwhile, a half-dozen helicopters hovered overhead like giant, noisy dragonflies.
Wait a minute, I thought. What about the election? What about the recount? For an instant I almost felt compelled to shout out my question, as if I were at a press conference. But I had second thoughts. What was I thinking?
STALIN'S DARK WISDOM. Scanning the crowd, there were plenty of people protesting on both sides of the issue, some with signs demanding a revote, others with T-shirts mocking the whole process, and still others with placards pushing for an end to the recounting and a declaration that George W. Bush is our new leader. Perhaps the most chilling sign, a large poster board, was one that repeated a quote from Joseph Stalin: "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."
One livid protester held up a stuffed, handmade, scarecrow-like doll. It was fashioned after the likeness of one of the candidates -- and was hanging from a noose. Bush supporters screamed at Gore supporters outside the office of the elections supervisor. And then there were the T-shirt vendors. They came out in force even before the first partial recount began. Soon, there were T-shirts mocking the Palm Beach County ballot, mocking Bush, mocking Gore, demanding a revote, and finally, explaining all the types of chad, from "pregnant" to "swinging door" to "dimpled."
You expect hawkers at such an event. But what was with the guy holding the giant Miami Dolphins poster whose reverse side read, "NY Jets Suck!"? And what about the guy dressed in Goth clothing with a bright blue Mohawk who was chanting about something entirely unrelated to the election -- and too crass to repeat here. And the group widely rumored to have been bused in from Miami -- and paid -- to simply chant, "Jesse go home." How about this crowd favorite -- the pretty blonde store owner who passed out tourist information to reporters, using all her might to tell everyone that people in Palm Beach County aren't as crazy as this. "Really, this is a great place," she said. "We're not always like this. Please believe that."
The numbers in the streets changed with the rising and setting of the sun, but the message stayed the same. People drifted into Media Central, identifying themselves as voters, hoping to get on TV for their 15 minutes of fame. Pity poor Judge Charles Burton, the chairman of Palm Beach County's elections canvassing board. He sneaked out of the Palm Beach municipal building for a moment one day, only to be surrounded by a horde of reporters. The word spread like wildfire through Media Central: "The judge is out! The judge is out!"
PREGNANT PAUSE. True enough, but the real reason the judge came out was that he had missed his daughter's 14th birthday party and was impatient for a decision from one court or another. One onlooker -- oddly enough, not a member of the media -- asked the judge: "With all those pregnant chads you've got in there, I hope you've got an obstetrician on hand." The judge smiled, and said: "Pretty soon we'll have to figure out whether they're in the first trimester or the second or the third." He shook his head and walked back into the building.
Too bad for him. He had just missed the folks from the local A&W [root beer] restaurant who showed up with a box full of burgers and hot dogs, jugs of root beer, even a giant cartoon character dancing around, presumably the A&W mascot. The hungry, tired media and the die-hard protesters all feasted. The folks from A&W even fed the bow-tied man.
Sadly, the prolonged comedy skit makes a bit of a mockery out of Palm Beach County and the serious voting issues at the center of it all. And of course, all the spin and divergent goals have blurred the reason we are here in the first place. We're still waiting for word on who'll be the next President. If I could, here's what I would vote now: Let's get this over with -- and fast.
Merritt is a reporter for Business Week. She drew the short straw on who had to go to Palm Beach to cover the Florida recount. Edited by Thane Peterson
Copyright 2000, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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