Don’t Overstay Your Welcome
“Welcome back to Election Night 2000,” the deep voice of Tom Brokaw came in over the television in thousands of households. “NBC is ready to officially call the state of Florida for George W. Bush.”
The news shocked every American still watching on election night as Democrats booed and Republicans cheered all across the country. For hours the state of Florida had been a nail-biter and though many were disappointed in the outcome (Gore had won the popular vote by half a million votes after all) the announcement of Bush’s victory let many Americans take a sigh of relief with the knowledge of who would be the new President come January 20th, 2001. As the pundits spent the remaining time of the night debating how a Bush presidency would pan out in the next four years before suddenly Tom Brokaw stopped the broadcast in front of the NBC Election Headquarters background and in a few sentences threw the country into chaos.
“This just in, NBC has just received credible information from the State of Florida that the count has put Vice President Al Gore narrowly ahead by a razor thin 127 vote margin.” Brokaw appeared disheveled, the news being reported in the earliest hours of November 8th. “We will not call the state for Vice President Gore or Governor Bush just yet, as an estimated 25,000 votes are yet to be counted.”
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Vice President Al Gore was quietly sitting in a small quiet office in the War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville where he silently pondered over his defeat by Governor Bush of Texas. He had failed the Democratic Party and his predecessor in Bill Clinton, though Gore and Clinton’s relationship had become noticeably icy after the Vice President had actively tried to distance himself from the President’s sex scandal. The irony of that had not been lost on Gore, his stunt of kissing his wife at the DNC had earned the laughs of many as the overly passionate lip lock was an obvious attempt to separate himself from the scandal of the previous two years. Gore had naturally been confident in his ability to win, he did win the popular vote if the near-final tallies were to be believed, and he had won by nearly half a million votes. The president wasn’t decided through the popular vote however and as the cruel irony of his defeat set in he couldn’t help but reflect on how he lost to a buffoon that had only made it to the highest office in the country because of his powerful father. ‘To be fair some could describe me the same way’ Gore thought to himself as he let out a self-deprecating chuckle before his campaign manager Donna Brazile burst through the door right as Gore had phoned Governor Bush.
“Al,” she breathed heavily as the light of the fluorescent hallway was contrasted with the dim yellow light of a desk lamp. “You just pulled ahead in Florida.”
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President-elect George Walker Bush was dining with staff and his family on the night of the election when one of his aide’s interns had let him know that he was getting a call from Vice President Gore. Bush promptly excused himself and walked to the kitchen’s phone where he picked up the receiver and held it to his ear as he excitedly awaited the sound of Gore’s voice.
“Hey there Senator, I just want you to know that you put up a hell of a fight.” Bush could barely contain the enthusiasm in his tone in an attempt to remain humble. “I really respect the campaign you put on and I just want you to know I’m hopin’ you and I can meet again in ‘04.”
“Hello Governor,” Gore’s nasally voice came in through the phone’s receiver, the distraught tone Bush had expected missing from Gore’s voice. “I sure did put up a hell of a fight, and it isn’t over.”
“S-sorry what did you mean by that?”
“Well George, I was calling to concede but as I’m sure you’ve already heard I’m currently up in Florida let alone Wisconsin and Oregon, looks like we got a few more days of election news to look forward to.”
Bush quickly turned pale as a ghost, beads of sweat immediately streaking down his forehead as he pursed his lips and sighed before responding to the quiet Gore on the other end of the phone.
“Well Al, I guess you and I are gonna still be seein’ each other quite a bit I guess.”
“Yes George, I suppose we shall.”
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As the recount began in Florida on November 8th it soon became apparent to many that the ‘butterfly ballot’ was a particular difficult issue to resolve as its confusing design and positioning of Bush and Reform candidate Pat Buchanan on the ballot had caused many to incorrectly push in the ’chads’ that had indicated one’s choice for the election. In a random twist of fate, Bush’s totals that had been raised by the military ballots coming in from overseas were soon muddled by the inconsistencies of the butterfly ballot and soon Gore was up by 5,000 due to the sheer confusion caused by the ballots. The Gore campaign soon sought to end anymore attempts at a recount, with Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris agreeing in a shocking moment of bipartisan agreement that the count could not continue into December.
The Bush campaign however, was extremely adamant that every vote should be counted and certified in order to properly account for every American’s voice in the election. The Florida Supreme Court agreed with Bush and a manual recount was to begin despite the protestations of Harris who had also secretly been told to tone it down by Bush’s brother Jeb, the Governor of the State of Florida. Gore was infuriated and quickly appealed the case to the Supreme Court in late-November to end the manual recount and certify Gore the winner who had his lead narrowed back down to under 2,000 votes as more and more ballots were being manually certified by Floridians everyday. The Supreme Court initially refused to take the case, fearing the optics of interfering with a democratic election but the conservative justices soon lobbied Rehnquist to at least hear out the case.
The Bush campaign argued that the confusing nature of the ballot had actively deprived voters of being able to properly exercise their right to representation in the Presidential election and any votes that were unable to be properly verified upon first examination should receive written confirmation by each individual voter. The Gore campaign argued that an individual’s inability to understand the voting process (which to their advantage had written instructions) should not be cause to drag out an election that should have ended weeks ago. Justices Thomas, Scalia, Rehnquist, and O’Connor were at odds with justices Ginsburg, Stevens, Breyer, and Souter with Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy being the decider in the case. The decision was set to arrive in early-December before a leak threw the country into even more chaos and outrage.
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“This just in, a rare and unprecedented Supreme Court leak for Associate Justice Clarence Thomas shows both a written dissent and concurrence for either outcome of the Court’s ruling on Gore v. Bush.” Tom Brokaw would become a staple in many American’s memory of the 2000 election. “In a shocking twist of events for the Court, Justice Thomas’s leak shows directly conflicting opinions on the decision of the court with opinions seemingly entirely hinging on whether or not Governor Bush pulls ahead in the race in Florida.”
The shocking leak threatened to destroy any credibility for the Court as Americans everywhere were outraged. Only the staunchest of Bush supporters even dared defend Thomas’s actions and the flak that hit the SCOTUS would eventually persuade Justice Kennedy to side with the liberal side of the court and effectively shut down the recount with Gore leading by a narrow 592 votes. Thomas’s flagrant partisanship in an institution defined by its separation from politics had shaken the judicial institution to its core, numerous Democrats actively called for his impeachment before the party leaders quickly shut that down.
The outrage of the leak stemmed from the four opinion’s base points:
1. Bush leading with the recount ending: The expedience of the election being the tantamount focus of the government in order to ensure a proper transition of power
2. Bush trailing with the recount ending: The rights of every American to voice their opinion were unprecedentedly silenced in a dangerous ruling that threatened to dismantle Americans’ faith in democracy and the recount should continue.
3. Bush leading with the recount continuing: The recount should end in order to ensure a proper transition of power.
4. Bush trailing with the recount continuing: Every vote should be counted and the court is right to ensure every voice is heard to make sure America’s institutions are accountable to the people.
In the end it didn’t matter and Gore was officially certified the winner of the 2000 Election on January 6th, 2001 much to the chagrin of a gathering of pro-Bush protesters outside both the Supreme Court and the Capitol. Justice Thomas, after intense criticism from the left and deafening silence from the right, would announce his resignation on January 7th, 2001 in the shocking series of events that was the 2000 Election, leaving the narrowly Democratic Senate to potentially confirm Gore’s nomination in the future. Immediately after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Governor Bush stood in front of a fleet of television cameras and addressed his supporters to concede the Presidency to Al Gore.
“First I would like to thank everyone who supported me, without you this campaign wouldn’t have even been a fraction of what we accomplished in these many long months on the campaign trail. I would also like to thank my family, and especially my wife Laura, for supporting me through this ordeal as we anxiously awaited the results of our great American democracy. I extend a thank you to Secretary Dick Cheney, my campaign manager Karl Rove, my father George H.W. Bush, my mother Barbara Bush, and congratulate President-elect Al Gore on his hard fought victory. It is important right now to remember that this is exactly what makes America the greatest country in the history of the world. You all, not just Republicans or Democrats but every American, spoke out with the power of millions of voices across this nation in support of a candidate. Your voices were heard, some won and some lost, but our nation marches on stronger than it was before in this unprecedented time for our republic. Our institutions righted themselves, our confidence held strong, and as I end this message thanking so many of you for your support I can’t help but think back to an old saying: ‘don’t overstay your welcome.’” - George W. Bush’s concession speech
The news shocked every American still watching on election night as Democrats booed and Republicans cheered all across the country. For hours the state of Florida had been a nail-biter and though many were disappointed in the outcome (Gore had won the popular vote by half a million votes after all) the announcement of Bush’s victory let many Americans take a sigh of relief with the knowledge of who would be the new President come January 20th, 2001. As the pundits spent the remaining time of the night debating how a Bush presidency would pan out in the next four years before suddenly Tom Brokaw stopped the broadcast in front of the NBC Election Headquarters background and in a few sentences threw the country into chaos.
“This just in, NBC has just received credible information from the State of Florida that the count has put Vice President Al Gore narrowly ahead by a razor thin 127 vote margin.” Brokaw appeared disheveled, the news being reported in the earliest hours of November 8th. “We will not call the state for Vice President Gore or Governor Bush just yet, as an estimated 25,000 votes are yet to be counted.”
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Vice President Al Gore was quietly sitting in a small quiet office in the War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville where he silently pondered over his defeat by Governor Bush of Texas. He had failed the Democratic Party and his predecessor in Bill Clinton, though Gore and Clinton’s relationship had become noticeably icy after the Vice President had actively tried to distance himself from the President’s sex scandal. The irony of that had not been lost on Gore, his stunt of kissing his wife at the DNC had earned the laughs of many as the overly passionate lip lock was an obvious attempt to separate himself from the scandal of the previous two years. Gore had naturally been confident in his ability to win, he did win the popular vote if the near-final tallies were to be believed, and he had won by nearly half a million votes. The president wasn’t decided through the popular vote however and as the cruel irony of his defeat set in he couldn’t help but reflect on how he lost to a buffoon that had only made it to the highest office in the country because of his powerful father. ‘To be fair some could describe me the same way’ Gore thought to himself as he let out a self-deprecating chuckle before his campaign manager Donna Brazile burst through the door right as Gore had phoned Governor Bush.
“Al,” she breathed heavily as the light of the fluorescent hallway was contrasted with the dim yellow light of a desk lamp. “You just pulled ahead in Florida.”
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
President-elect George Walker Bush was dining with staff and his family on the night of the election when one of his aide’s interns had let him know that he was getting a call from Vice President Gore. Bush promptly excused himself and walked to the kitchen’s phone where he picked up the receiver and held it to his ear as he excitedly awaited the sound of Gore’s voice.
“Hey there Senator, I just want you to know that you put up a hell of a fight.” Bush could barely contain the enthusiasm in his tone in an attempt to remain humble. “I really respect the campaign you put on and I just want you to know I’m hopin’ you and I can meet again in ‘04.”
“Hello Governor,” Gore’s nasally voice came in through the phone’s receiver, the distraught tone Bush had expected missing from Gore’s voice. “I sure did put up a hell of a fight, and it isn’t over.”
“S-sorry what did you mean by that?”
“Well George, I was calling to concede but as I’m sure you’ve already heard I’m currently up in Florida let alone Wisconsin and Oregon, looks like we got a few more days of election news to look forward to.”
Bush quickly turned pale as a ghost, beads of sweat immediately streaking down his forehead as he pursed his lips and sighed before responding to the quiet Gore on the other end of the phone.
“Well Al, I guess you and I are gonna still be seein’ each other quite a bit I guess.”
“Yes George, I suppose we shall.”
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
As the recount began in Florida on November 8th it soon became apparent to many that the ‘butterfly ballot’ was a particular difficult issue to resolve as its confusing design and positioning of Bush and Reform candidate Pat Buchanan on the ballot had caused many to incorrectly push in the ’chads’ that had indicated one’s choice for the election. In a random twist of fate, Bush’s totals that had been raised by the military ballots coming in from overseas were soon muddled by the inconsistencies of the butterfly ballot and soon Gore was up by 5,000 due to the sheer confusion caused by the ballots. The Gore campaign soon sought to end anymore attempts at a recount, with Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris agreeing in a shocking moment of bipartisan agreement that the count could not continue into December.
The Bush campaign however, was extremely adamant that every vote should be counted and certified in order to properly account for every American’s voice in the election. The Florida Supreme Court agreed with Bush and a manual recount was to begin despite the protestations of Harris who had also secretly been told to tone it down by Bush’s brother Jeb, the Governor of the State of Florida. Gore was infuriated and quickly appealed the case to the Supreme Court in late-November to end the manual recount and certify Gore the winner who had his lead narrowed back down to under 2,000 votes as more and more ballots were being manually certified by Floridians everyday. The Supreme Court initially refused to take the case, fearing the optics of interfering with a democratic election but the conservative justices soon lobbied Rehnquist to at least hear out the case.
The Bush campaign argued that the confusing nature of the ballot had actively deprived voters of being able to properly exercise their right to representation in the Presidential election and any votes that were unable to be properly verified upon first examination should receive written confirmation by each individual voter. The Gore campaign argued that an individual’s inability to understand the voting process (which to their advantage had written instructions) should not be cause to drag out an election that should have ended weeks ago. Justices Thomas, Scalia, Rehnquist, and O’Connor were at odds with justices Ginsburg, Stevens, Breyer, and Souter with Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy being the decider in the case. The decision was set to arrive in early-December before a leak threw the country into even more chaos and outrage.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“This just in, a rare and unprecedented Supreme Court leak for Associate Justice Clarence Thomas shows both a written dissent and concurrence for either outcome of the Court’s ruling on Gore v. Bush.” Tom Brokaw would become a staple in many American’s memory of the 2000 election. “In a shocking twist of events for the Court, Justice Thomas’s leak shows directly conflicting opinions on the decision of the court with opinions seemingly entirely hinging on whether or not Governor Bush pulls ahead in the race in Florida.”
The shocking leak threatened to destroy any credibility for the Court as Americans everywhere were outraged. Only the staunchest of Bush supporters even dared defend Thomas’s actions and the flak that hit the SCOTUS would eventually persuade Justice Kennedy to side with the liberal side of the court and effectively shut down the recount with Gore leading by a narrow 592 votes. Thomas’s flagrant partisanship in an institution defined by its separation from politics had shaken the judicial institution to its core, numerous Democrats actively called for his impeachment before the party leaders quickly shut that down.
The outrage of the leak stemmed from the four opinion’s base points:
1. Bush leading with the recount ending: The expedience of the election being the tantamount focus of the government in order to ensure a proper transition of power
2. Bush trailing with the recount ending: The rights of every American to voice their opinion were unprecedentedly silenced in a dangerous ruling that threatened to dismantle Americans’ faith in democracy and the recount should continue.
3. Bush leading with the recount continuing: The recount should end in order to ensure a proper transition of power.
4. Bush trailing with the recount continuing: Every vote should be counted and the court is right to ensure every voice is heard to make sure America’s institutions are accountable to the people.
In the end it didn’t matter and Gore was officially certified the winner of the 2000 Election on January 6th, 2001 much to the chagrin of a gathering of pro-Bush protesters outside both the Supreme Court and the Capitol. Justice Thomas, after intense criticism from the left and deafening silence from the right, would announce his resignation on January 7th, 2001 in the shocking series of events that was the 2000 Election, leaving the narrowly Democratic Senate to potentially confirm Gore’s nomination in the future. Immediately after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Governor Bush stood in front of a fleet of television cameras and addressed his supporters to concede the Presidency to Al Gore.
“First I would like to thank everyone who supported me, without you this campaign wouldn’t have even been a fraction of what we accomplished in these many long months on the campaign trail. I would also like to thank my family, and especially my wife Laura, for supporting me through this ordeal as we anxiously awaited the results of our great American democracy. I extend a thank you to Secretary Dick Cheney, my campaign manager Karl Rove, my father George H.W. Bush, my mother Barbara Bush, and congratulate President-elect Al Gore on his hard fought victory. It is important right now to remember that this is exactly what makes America the greatest country in the history of the world. You all, not just Republicans or Democrats but every American, spoke out with the power of millions of voices across this nation in support of a candidate. Your voices were heard, some won and some lost, but our nation marches on stronger than it was before in this unprecedented time for our republic. Our institutions righted themselves, our confidence held strong, and as I end this message thanking so many of you for your support I can’t help but think back to an old saying: ‘don’t overstay your welcome.’” - George W. Bush’s concession speech