PREMIUM SEARCH Search by job title, geography and build a list of executive contacts
The press thinks it's over, but the politician isn't ready to quit. There are still votes to be won, he insists, and supporters who would view surrender as betrayal. After a big win in a key swing state, he vows to soldier on -- only to discover that his top strategist has pulled the plug on his Presidential bid.
Make no mistake, George Herbert Walker Bush was mighty steamed in May, 1980, when James A. Baker III reacted to Bush's meaningless victory in the Michigan GOP primary by calling it quits a few days later in favor of eventual nominee Ronald Reagan. But that act of political euthanasia led to a rapprochement between the patrician Bush and the populist California governor who detested him. The rest, as they say, is history.
COOL LOGICIAN. Now, flash-forward to 2000. Scrapping, clawing, and pursuing every legal angle in his battle for Florida's 25 electoral votes, Al Gore, like the elder Bush before him, thinks he still has an outside shot at victory if he just keeps chugging ahead. Yet time and voter patience aren't on his side. Ever the cool logician, Gore reckons that eventually the courts will give him the handful of votes he needs to prevail in his election deadlock with George W. Bush.
But the pressure on Gore is building even as he punches newfound votes into his pocket calculator. His popular support is flagging in opinion polls. And some supporters privately fear personal ambition may blind the candidate to what's best for his party -- and the country.
No matter what one thinks about the legitimacy of Gore's claim to have won the election on the strength of disputed Florida ballots, the fact is that the odds are heavily stacked against the Vice-President, and the risks of continuing his crusade are great. Gore's presumed courtroom triumphs could prove Pyrrhic, because Republicans hold the trump cards. They control both the Florida legislature, which can ultimately pick the state's representatives to the Electoral College, and the U.S. House of Representatives, which would decide the contest if the Electoral College can't.
INSULAR POLITICIAN. That's a compelling scenario for a gracious withdrawal. But Gore intimates caution that, given their man's competitive streak, it would be unrealistic to expect a speedy resolution to the Endless Recount. For one thing, Gore isn't swayed much by prevailing opinion. He's an insular politician whose inner circle consists of a tight cadre of family members plus a few political hired guns. Moreover, the Vice-President has no one in his command bunker with the stature to unilaterally end his bid. There's no one to talk him out of it.
One reason Gore is inclined to soldier on is that his horizon doesn't extend very far beyond Jan. 20, when the next President is sworn in. Unlike Bush Sr., who was a rising star in the Republican ranks, Gore faces dim prospects if his Presidential drive fails.
"A lot of Democrats are disappointed with Gore," notes Bruce Cain, a political scientist at the University of California at Berkeley. "They feel this shouldn't have been a close election, that Gore shouldn't have lost Tennessee, and that he shouldn't have developed this unctuous Eddie Haskell-like persona." Adds another senior Democratic strategist: "After the kind of campaign he ran, he has no future -- and he knows it. No matter what he puts the country through, Gore is willing to go to the courts and try to win this thing."
PARTIALLY PUNCHED. With his political future in doubt, Gore and his legal commandos have every incentive to keeping battling in federal and state courtrooms. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear a Bush challenge to continued recounting of Florida ballots. Gore's rationale for pressing the fight rests on the contention that state officials arbitrarily excluded 13,000 questionable ballots from the final tally. What made them questionable: partially punched vote cards weren't counted by machines.
Technically, Gore has until Dec. 12 -- the date by which Florida's Electoral College representatives are to be chosen -- to win in the courts and get those excluded votes tallied. That would require a string of victories in three county-vote challenges and, ultimately, validation of the extra ballots by the Florida Supreme Court. Notes College of William & Mary law professor Michael J. Gerhardt: "His margin of error is virtually nonexistent."
While Gore finagles, public patience is running out. In a Nov. 26-27 Gallup Poll, 62% of Americans say the process has dragged on too long. And even 36% of Gore backers already say he should concede the election to George W. Bush. "If defections hit 50%, it will be tough to continue," says UC's Cain.
"A LITTLE MORE ROPE." But others think the Democrat has a little more time yet. "This is not like the [pressure] for Richard Nixon to resign," says Paul Maslin, a Democratic pollster in Oakland, Calif. "With cases still pending in the courts and Republicans playing [political] games, voters are giving Gore a little more rope."
Meanwhile, Gore has to devote considerable energy to keeping his uneasy party united behind his pleas for more time, mindful that any breach in the wall of support could be fatal. Gore and his lieutenants have been working the phones to key Democratic constituent groups, pleading for solidarity. While there have been a few minor defections, for now the circle-the-wagons approach seems to be working. Hill leaders smoldering over GOP hardball tactics in Florida have closed ranks behind the Veep.
But Sunbelt Democratic governors and representatives from conservative districts, many of whom are being bombarded by Bush-inspired phone calls urging them to call for capitulation, are under heavy pressure to desert Gore. Key politicians to watch for Wobbly-Knee Syndrome, according to Hill insiders: Senator John B. Breaux (D-La.) and Representative Calvin Dooley (D-Calif.), leaders of the moderate New Democrats, plus Representative Charles Stenholm (D-Tex.), an influential conservative.
"FLIGHT TO CASH"? While most Democrats are sticking with Al, the message from Wall Street is clear: Stock market mavens want closure. Every time Bush is buoyed by another Gore legal setback, stock averages tick upward. "The market is telling you what it thinks: It likes Bush," says Robert Stovall, senior vice-president for Prudential Securities Inc. "If Gore drags the election on, you'll see more of a flight to cash." Adds David Gilmore, a partner of Foreign Exchange Analytics, in Essex, Conn.: "The markets are pretty confident that Bush has the momentum and is going to win. If Gore keeps delaying it, it would wear away at the edges of the stock market and the dollar."
At the moment, though, playing for time is Gore's only hope for vindication -- which explains why Bush's lawyers are throwing up so many legal obstacles in an attempt to run out the clock. Many Democrats have become dispirited and frazzled by the ordeal. But the Vice-President's intimates say he remains the unflappable political manager-coach, personally directing his all-court press with an intensity that is either inspiring or unnerving, depending on your point of view.
"Remember," says a party consultant, "this is a guy who's convinced he has won." He'll slog on until either the legal process is nearly exhausted or he suffers an explosive loss of public support. "When it is this close, it is far better that it be solved by a court we trust than anybody simply pulling out," says Democratic wise man Lloyd Cutler.
But by attenuating the election, the Vice-President is walking a fine line between perseverance and pigheadedness. The unspoken fear of some congressional Democrats is that if Gore lingers too long in the land of chad, voters will turn on them in much the same way they turned on Bill Clinton's impeachment tormentors in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. The backlash could undermine Hill Democrats' plans for hog-tying President Bush and gliding to big gains in the 2002 midterm elections. After all, no one wants to be branded a member of the Sore Loser Party.
By Lee Walczak, Richard S. Dunham, and Paula Dwyer in Washington, with Dan Carney and Rich Miller Edited by Douglas Harbrecht
Copyright 2000, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
Printer-Friendly Version
