"Kerry running mate Sen. John Edwards [related, bio] (D-N.C.), a trial lawyer, argued in favor of pressing the legal case, sources said."
Heartbreak on Beacon Hill: Kerry's roller-coaster night turns from elation to deflation
By Andrew Miga
Thursday, November 4, 2004
Sen. John F. Kerry's election night spirits soared as exit polling and early returns began trickling in.
After a final four-hour marathon of 38 satellite TV interviews in four hours at the Westin Hotel, Kerry spent the evening huddled with wife Teresa Heinz Kerry, other family members and a few senior advisers in his elegant Beacon Hill townhouse.
``We felt very good about the way things were going,'' Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill told reporters.
A buoyant Sen. Edward M. Kennedy [related, bio] stopped by early in the night and congratulated Kerry for running a smart, tough race.
But Kerry's elation proved short-lived. It was an emotionally wrenching end to the bruising 2004 campaign season.
The raw vote totals in a string of battleground states defied the exit poll figures that showed Kerry with a modest lead in a broad swath of states.
Kerry's sluggish performance in southern Florida was a huge red flag.
``It became clear Florida was tightening,'' recalled Cahill, who headed over to the campaign's ``boiler room'' at the Westin to confer with other senior aides about the bad turn.
Bush began to pull out to a stubborn four-point lead in the pivotal state of Ohio - another troubling sign for the Kerry camp.
Cahill and senior advisers weighed in with advice and the latest data for Kerry throughout the night, calling or shuttling over to the senator's Louisburg Square mansion.
The issue of Ohio's provisional ballots surfaced. Kerry's campaign lawyers reasoned they might be able to reverse Bush's 136,000-vote Ohio lead through the provisional ballots. Kerry aides estimated there could be 250,000 such ballots - and the lawyers began drafting legal motions for their case.
``Some of our lawyers thought very strongly that we should enter court,'' Cahill said.
Kerry running mate Sen. John Edwards [related, bio] (D-N.C.), a trial lawyer, argued in favor of pressing the legal case, sources said.
Kerry finally went to bed about 2 in the morning, shortly before Edwards addressed the Copley Square rally crowd.
By the time Kerry awoke at 7 a.m., however, the numbers weren't adding up for him in Ohio, where the campaign's count found just 140,000 provisional ballots - not nearly enough to catch Bush.
Kerry would have needed to win 93 percent of all the provisional ballots - a virtual impossibility.
The deliberations wore on for about an hour in the townhouse.
``We discussed it,'' Cahill said. ``(Kerry) instantly made the determination he did not want to put the country through any extensive litigation.''
At 11:02 a.m., Kerry called the White House to concede. |
