Certifiably the fight’s far from over
Despite Sunday deadline, election process will drag on
By Dan Balz and Helen Dewar
THE WASHINGTON POST
Nov. 26 — The moment Texas Gov. George W.
Bush long has been waiting for arrives at 5 p.m.
today, when Florida counties must submit their
final vote tallies and Secretary of State Katherine
Harris is free to certify a winner.
‘With the
Supreme Court
ruling there’s
pretty much of a
given that
whatever
Secretary Harris
does is one step
along the road
here, but not in
any way, shape or
form a final
decision.’
— WILLIAM DALEY
Gore campaign chairman
BUSH HAS always believed he would emerge from
this process of recounting still holding a lead over Vice
President Gore, although with Gore gaining votes yesterday
and many ballots left to be examined, it was difficult to
predict who would have the most votes as of this
afternoon’s deadline.
Bush advisers still hope it will be the Texas governor
and that the stamp of certification will give him a political
boost that will shift public opinion in their direction and
make it that much harder for Gore and the Democrats to
win the election in the court action that will follow.
“This will be the fourth win of George Bush in Florida,
but this time, accompanying the win will be the secretary of
state’s certification and the [25] electors,” Michigan Gov.
John Engler (R) said yesterday. “The fact that these
electoral votes put him over 270 is quite decisive. I do not
think that the vice president can succeed in his effort to have
enough new ballots re-voted to give him the win.”
CERTIFICATION HARDLY THE END
The act of certification is hardly the end of this long and
tangled process. Both sides may contest the outcome,
regardless of who is ahead today, and the contest
proceeding represents another intensive legal struggle that
could again end up in the state Supreme Court.
Still, the act of certification looms as an event that will
begin to move the election dispute toward a conclusion and
one that could begin to reshape public opinion, even as the
legal process moves forward. In the battle for legitimacy,
the certified winner will claim the high ground and seek not
to relinquish it.
But as events of the past three weeks have shown, the
ground shifts dramatically and unexpectedly. Democrats
said yesterday Bush himself already has robbed what might
have been a watershed event of much of its meaning. By
drawing the U.S. Supreme Court into the battle, they said,
Bush’s team has extended for at least another week the
practical deadline for resolving the presidential race and
given Gore that much more time to make his case to both
the public and the courts.
“Obviously each side has laid down markers to contest
this [certification],” Gore campaign chairman William Daley
said. “With the Supreme Court ruling there’s pretty much of
a given that whatever Secretary Harris does is one step
along the road here, but not in any way, shape or form a
final decision.”
GORE CAMPAIGN’S PLANS
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That marks a big change in attitude inside the Gore
camp. A week ago, Gore advisers were clearly relieved
when the Florida Supreme Court enjoined Harris from
certifying the election results, as she was preparing to do on
Nov. 18, fearful that the certification process would cause
Democrats to abandon the vice president and bring calls for
Gore to give up the legal fight and concede.
Today, after another round of conversations with
Democratic leaders, Gore advisers said they are far less
concerned about what Harris does tonight, confident that
rank-and-file members of Congress are prepared to carry
on the fight through state and federal courts.
Gore advisers are bracing for Bush to claim victory and
were preparing action to counter him, including a possible
speech by the vice president on Monday to explain why he
is continuing to fight after the deadline ordered by the
Florida Supreme Court has passed.
The vice president’s advisers said they assume Bush
and running mate Richard B. Cheney also will use
certification to move more aggressively – as if they are the
winners. “These guys have an M.O.,” one Gore adviser
said. “That is, if you act like the president you become
president. I don’t think the American people buy it one bit. I
think it aggravates them. That’s something we’ll be fighting.”
‘THE BALL GOWNS WILL BE MADE’
Gore advisers anticipate that Bush could use
certification to ask the General Services Administration for
the keys to the transition office space that has been set aside
in Washington and begin other transition activities that they
started and then slowed in the face of criticism.
“They’ll start their inaugural committee and the ball
gowns will be made,” another Gore adviser said. “They’ll
use all that stuff.”
Bush spokesman
Ari Fleischer remained
coy about what steps
Bush might take if he is
certified the winner in
Florida. “I’m just not
going to speculate about
what might happen
tomorrow at 5 p.m.,
given the way events in
this environment swirl,”
he said.
But Bush allies
expressed optimism that
a certified vote with
Gore behind will
reinforce the Texas
governor’s claim to the
White House.
“If he [Bush] is certified, then I think it’s over,” said
Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R). “If Gore still loses
based on the decision of Democratic-controlled canvassing
boards, then I’d say he’s going to have a very steep hill to
climb,” both politically and legally, she added.
“Politically, people have seen Bush declared the winner
on election night, they have seen him declared the winner
after recounts and then after changes in Florida law favoring
Gore,” Hutchison said. “If Bush wins again that would be
the time the American public would say this has been settled
in the fairest possible way.”
Republican pollster Bill McInturff said the certification
process, even with other legal action to come, will begin to
cement in the public mind the image of Bush as the
president-elect.
“Based on the numbers we had [in a survey] 10 days
ago, I think if he is a state-certified winner that a
comfortable majority of Americans will see him as the
person who will be president and the person with the most
legitimate claim to be president,” he said.
DEMOCRATS DOUBT BUSH STRATEGY
Democrats said yesterday they doubt Bush can
succeed with that strategy. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who
was on his way to Florida as a Democratic observer, said
the political significance of the certification has been
“diminished” both by Bush’s appeal to the Supreme Court
and by the failure of officials in Miami-Dade County to
recount all the votes by hand, after voting to do so.
“If Bush declares [himself the winner] without the
Supreme Court having spoken in a case that he brought,
what would he say, ‘Oh, never mind’?” Reed asked. He
added, “It makes it all the more apparent that this is not
about counting all the votes but stopping the count.”
Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) agreed that the Supreme
Court announcement that it would take the case brought by
Bush complicates the Republicans’ post-certification
strategy. If Bush were to proclaim himself the winner based
on a certification today, “It would be premature and, as we
say in the South, a little tacky,” Graham said.
Gore and his advisers have been careful to take the
temperature of Democratic leaders, and Democrats said
yesterday that Republican demonstrations in South Florida
had rallied the party behind the vice president’s strategy of
hanging tough.
While there could be pressure at some point on the
loser of the certification to fold his tent, Republicans – by
their own tactics – have virtually ensured that this won’t
happen among Democrats any time soon, said Rep. Martin
Frost (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.
“The Republicans have upped the ante, they have been so
outrageous in their conduct that they have hardened resolve
among the Democrats and opened the door for Gore to
seek an election contest,” he said.
Democrats cited recent comments by House Majority
Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) and House Majority
Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) threatening congressional action
to deny Gore the presidency, if he wins the vote in Florida.
‘STEEL IN THE DEMOCRATS’ BACKBONE’
“Just as the Republicans did during the impeachment
process, the Republican leadership is doing a lot to put steel
in the Democrats’ backbone,” said Democratic pollster
Geoff Garin. “In some respects, Dick Armey and Tom
DeLay are Al Gore’s best friends in this process.”
Only a few days ago, Garin was warning that today’s
certification deadline could put enormous pressure on Gore.
Now he believes the vice president has considerably more
latitude to keep fighting.
“I was concerned before they went to the Supreme
Court that if the secretary of state certified the results under
rules set by state Supreme Court, there was some likelihood
that Gore would wear out his welcome pretty quickly,” he
said. “Now the Bush campaign has reset the clock. It is
very hard for the Bush side to argue that Al Gore is now
dragging this out.”
Still, if Gore remains behind in the vote count at 5 p.m.
today, he faces the more difficult challenge. Both sides are
preparing to contest the outcome, almost no matter what
happens today, if only to protect themselves on what both
see as legitimate grievances in the way the recounting has
been carried out.
Gore has been aided in his efforts by the Florida
Supreme Court, but there is no guarantee that either the
state court will continue to rule his way or that the Supreme
Court, which caught most experts by surprise in agreeing to
step into the dispute, will rule for the vice president.
With the results about to be certified and the contest
period ready to begin, the two candidates will have to think
more clearly about how the process may end. The
day-to-day war-gaming may have to give way to thinking
about strategy over a longer horizon, for if there is anything
both sides agree on – and at this stage there isn’t much – it
is that whoever emerges the winner will need public opinion
on his side.
© 2000 The Washington Post Company |
