PART 2:
The Home Stretch
Oct. 21
Every campaign lives to exploit a misstep by the other side. Gore was floored when he saw a New York Times story in which Bush aide Condoleezza Rice said the governor wanted to pull American troops out of the Balkans. Gore called Fabiani from Air Force Two. "I really want to get this out," he said.
After Gore's speech at Washington's Hyatt Regency, Lehane told Times reporter Steven Holmes to stand outside the hotel for better cellphone reception. The vice president phoned from the car on the way to his son's football game and, at Lehane's urging, called the Associated Press and Reuters as well. Holmes's front-page piece quoted Gore as saying the Bush plan "would lead to the collapse of NATO and eventually threaten the peace in Europe." But the story quickly faded.
Oct. 23
Campaign officials felt they were at the mercy of the polls that continued to give Bush the lead. Maybe, Fabiani felt, he was deluding himself about Gore's chances. The problem with these tracking polls was that what you did was regarded as brilliant or stupid, depending on whether you were two points up or down.
Lehane was engaged in a shell game with the press, constantly touting different polls – Reuters one day, ABC the next – that happened to favor Gore. The Bush campaign's goal, he felt, was to convince the press that Gore was a goner, and to some extent that strategy was working.
Oct. 24
Fabiani had been maneuvering for days to make sure a Rand grenade exploded this Tuesday morning. He had gotten word from a friend who knew the wife of a Rand Corp. researcher, Stephen Klein, that Klein was frustrated with the think tank's month-long delay in releasing his study on Texas education, which found that Bush's record of improving student test scores was inflated.
Ron Klain, the veteran Gore aide, helped arrange for Klein to give the report to Washington Post reporter John Mintz. But Rand embargoed the report for release Wednesday, and the Gore team didn't want to allow time for a Bush counterattack.
By Monday evening, Oct. 23, when it was clear The Post would not break the embargo, Fabiani tried reporters for the New York Times and AP, but they also refused to ignore the embargo. Finally, Fabiani faxed the report to the home of Thomas Ferraro, a Reuters reporter who wasn't bound by the restriction because Rand hadn't given his organization a copy.
The Reuters story moved after midnight. Lehane had the report slipped under the hotel doors of all the reporters traveling with Gore in Portland, Ore., and notified the morning news shows. The story obliterated Bush's message for the day.
Oct. 31
Nothing seemed to be working. They had sent Joe Lieberman out on the Sunday shows to bluntly question Bush's readiness to be president. (There had been some talk of having Gore make the charge, but the staff agreed that this would be too risky.) Two war-hero senators were drafted to attack Bush over apparent gaps in his National Guard service. For all their high-minded talk about not attacking Bush personally, Fabiani felt they had no choice because they could not get the press to focus on Bush's lack of experience. It was the sort of rationalization that struggling staffers employed in a campaign's final days.
Nov. 2
Air Force Two was beginning its descent into El Paso, Tex., when Lehane got a call from Fabiani, telling him of news reports that Bush had a 1976 conviction for driving under the influence. "It's already a huge story," Fabiani said.
"I assume we're not saying anything," Lehane said.
"Yeah," Fabiani said.
"I assume we can say we didn't have anything to do with this."
"Right."
Lehane gave Gore the news. "I should do a press avail to discuss it," the vice president said. Lehane started arguing that they would look terrible fanning the flames until he saw Gore was pulling his leg.
When they landed, Lehane was surrounded by 100 reporters but refused to comment. But he regarded the revelation as a huge booster shot for them, one that resurrected the old questions about Bush's past.
By the time the team gathered in Nashville for Election Day, Fabiani and Lehane were convinced – though few in the press believed them – that Gore would win the election and the popular vote as well.
The Post-Campaign
Nov. 8
Al Gore was on the way to deliver his concession speech at Nashville's War Memorial at 3 a.m. when Lehane got a call from the AP's Ron Fournier. "We don't think you guys have lost this thing," the reporter told him, despite all the networks projecting that Bush had won Florida, and with it the presidency. Unable to reach Gore aides on his cellphone, Lehane grabbed a van, chased the motorcade and ran futilely into the crowd, ignoring a pack of shouting reporters.
Gore, meanwhile, was calling Fabiani at the Vanderbilt hotel headquarters. "How's it playing?" he asked.
"I think people are fairly stunned," Fabiani said of the apparent Bush victory. Summoned by the boss, Fabiani commandeered a tour bus to get to the War Memorial.
Halfway there, Fabiani saw the Gore motorcade heading back to the hotel. Gore, who had been briefed on the latest Florida figures, had called Bush to retract his concession. The vice president was reflective in his hotel suite, telling Fabiani how incredible and historic the night was.
At 4:30 a.m., Lehane summoned Fabiani to the campaign's war room, where Daley, Eskew, Shrum, Klain, Dixon and Tad Devine were plotting strategy. The campaign was putting Fabiani and Daley on the morning shows and drafted some talking points: The "will of the people" should prevail. The legal process should go forward. And, most important, Al Gore won the popular vote – a legally irrelevant but emotionally powerful point.
Sticking to the script, Fabiani told ABC: "He won the popular vote."
Exhausted and frustrated – the networks, after all, had called Florida for Gore the night before – Lehane returned to the hotel at 6 a.m. and got some sleep. At 9, he rode down to the lobby and found himself surrounded by the biggest press mob he'd ever faced. After lunch he saw Gore, who was trying to console his kids.
Nov. 9
Gore had ordered Fabiani to Florida to deal with the media mob. But Fabiani, who had an independent streak, had decided to stay put. When he walked into Gore's hotel suite – Lehane, Eskew, and Gore's wife and brother-in-law were already there – the vice president fixed him with a stare: "Why aren't you in Florida?"
"I don't think it's a good idea," Fabiani said.
"This is something you and I will have to talk about afterwards," Gore snapped.
Fabiani explained later that he needed to be able to move information to reporters, rather than flying off to a place where he'd have no office, staff, phones or Internet access. "These are crucial hours," he said.
Nov. 10
The circus atmosphere was heating up. At Gore's request, Lehane arrived in Palm Beach at 3 a.m. to deal with the assembled press corps. Hours later he went to the local campaign headquarters and was mobbed by the press – and by elderly Jewish women who wanted their picture taken with him. A radio reporter followed him into the bathroom. Lehane suddenly realized he had become a mini-celebrity. "Lookit, I really should get out of here," he told Fabiani by phone. Fabiani joked that they'd have to airlift him off the roof, as in Saigon.
Fabiani, meanwhile, was suggesting an outdoor photo op for Gore. To some aides' embarrassment, Gore staged a Kennedyesque touch football game.
By now, as the squabbling over the recount escalated, Fabiani and Lehane wondered: How far could they push this? Was there a point of diminishing returns at which the prize – the presidency – would no longer be worth it? But as the legal warfare escalated, they persuaded themselves that they were embarked on a moral crusade.
Nov. 17
Chris Lehane felt he had become radioactive. Everyone knew he was an acid-tongued partisan, and he told Fabiani he planned to stay off camera. Fabiani, too, had retreated from the klieg lights. He told the campaign's TV booker that he wanted to see lawyers and elder statesmen making their case. The campaign was presenting itself as a sober legal operation, with the spinners in the shadows.
The two men were gearing up to challenge the significance of Katherine Harris's expected declaration of Bush as the winner the next day. Their assault on the suddenly famous Harris reminded them of their White House days, when they had waged war against Al D'Amato as the senator investigated Whitewater. Sometimes it helped to have a colorful enemy. Late in the day, as Gore planned to make a public statement, Lehane saw the news on MSNBC: The Florida Supreme Court had blocked Harris's certification of the balloting. Gore's speech was quickly rewritten.
Fabiani felt the only thing keeping them in the game was that Gore had won the popular vote. Without that victory, he believed, they would look like losers trying to overturn an election through legal chicanery.
Nov. 25
They had one more day until Harris certified Bush's Florida win. Their worst nightmare was a spate of headlines calling Bush the president-elect. Fabiani handed Gore a list of top-level media executives, along with a set of talking points: You won the national vote and believe you won Florida as well. All you're asking for is a full, fair and accurate recount. You're not trying to win on a technicality. It would be a mistake to declare Bush president before all the votes are counted.
Gore called New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Howell Raines, its editorial page editor, and Washington Post Publisher Bo Jones. He called Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings. He called executives at the newsmagazines, USA Today and the Miami Herald. The stakes could hardly be higher.
Nov. 26
Fabiani was dining at the Palm with Daley, Shrum and Eskew as they watched Harris make the certification announcement. He was surprised at Bush's aggressiveness in declaring himself president the winner. Some Gore aides wanted to put the vice president on television soon after Bush, but Fabiani and Lehane said his message would be overshadowed.
The next day, campaign officials decided that Gore would give a prime-time speech, but that meant a whole news cycle would go by without a word from the candidate. Fabiani and Lehane devised a solution: Let the cameras in for a noon conference call between Gore and the Democratic leaders in Congress, Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle, in Florida. Sure it looked staged and corny, Lehane felt, but it sent the message that the party was rallying behind Gore. The cable networks kept replaying the phone call, with Gore stiffly reciting his talking points from his dining room, and that, the media advisers felt, was better than nothing.
When Gore, draped by an array of six American flags, made his speech at 6:35 that evening, it was marred by constant camera flashes from the photographers who had been allowed in. That was two blown TV appearances in a single day.
Nov. 28
Fabiani and Lehane were sitting in the Ritz-Carlton lounge where? on this Tuesday morning when a large rat – not the subliminal kind – scurried by their table. Undeterred, Fabiani kept tapping on his laptop, writing a blueprint for an Al Gore television blitz.
In a 9 a.m. conference call an hour earlier with Daley, Eskew and a dozen others, several staffers had argued against the spate of interviews. It will look like he's campaigning, some said. Others said the reporters' questions would throw Gore off his message.
But Fabiani insisted they had no choice. People expected the candidate to carry the message. Lehane believed the best way to get saturation coverage, and compete with the burgeoning story of Bush staging his presidential transition, was to use their biggest gun. Besides, they were watching the polls as obsessively as they did during the campaign, and with 60 percent now saying Gore should concede, they had to influence public opinion. That, Fabiani felt, was the only way to keep big-name Democrats from abandoning ship. He kept typing:
"Gore personal appearance for television to communicate his message of the day. Move news about disenfranchised voters in FL. Offensive move against opposition (beginning with voter intimidation off of today's Washington Post story and tomorrow's pending New York Times stories). Demonstrate Democratic solidarity."
Since the "Today" show had the biggest morning audience, they decided to give the first interview to NBC's Claire Shipman. The memo laid out the offensive.
Tuesday: "Pretaped today for airing Wednesday morning. Claire Shipman. Walking around NAVOBS [the Naval Observatory] with Mrs. Gore. Ten minutes."
Wednesday: "Gore network interviews, taped Wednesday for airing Wednesday night, with all three network anchors and CNN." Thursday: "Ted Koppel/Nightline day in the life, taped Thursday for airing Thursday night." Friday: "Barbara Walters interview." Weekend: "Instead of the Nightline/Walters combination, Gore could do 60 Minutes with Lesley Stahl on Sunday."
First, though, Gore would make a statement outside his residence that afternoon. Fabiani told him to take some questions from the press. Fabiani and Daley staged a mock news conference in the residence, with Eskew asking most of the questions.
In a few short hours, Gore spoke to Rather, Jennings, Brokaw and CNN's John King, and days later with Stahl. Gore was back in full-fledged campaign mode, even though the most important votes would now be cast by judges.
Dec. 8
Lehane was watching in his Georgetown home at 4 p.m. Friday when Florida Supreme Court spokesman Craig Waters emerged before the cameras. Before Waters got halfway through his statement that the court was ordering a statewide recount of disputed ballots, Lehane was on the phone to CNN's Jonathan Karl and AP's Ron Fournier, claiming victory for Gore's argument that every vote must be counted. In a 24-hour world, he felt, you had to reach the cable and wire reporters immediately. He also fired off e-mails to CBS's John Roberts and ABC's Terry Moran. Fabiani began arranging for Barbara Walters to interview Gore that Sunday. But he and Lehane and Fabiani knew better than to celebrate.
Dec. 9
Lehane was walking back from a Bill Daley press conference on the Hill when his fiancee called on the cellphone to say that the Supreme Court had just halted the recount. Fabiani was on the phone with CNN's Karl when the decision was announced at 2:42 p.m. Their hopes had been dashed again.
In a hastily arranged conference call with Fabiani, Shrum, Greenberg and Monica Dixon, Lehane suggested some talking points: They would express disappointment with the ruling but stress that the recount had netted Gore 36 votes so far.
At 3:11, Gore sent Fabiani and Lehane an e-mail. "Please make sure that no one trashes the Supreme Court," it said.
Lehane called CNN and the wires. The ruling felt like a kick in the stomach, but his tone was what he called practiced nonchalance. He had learned in the White House that reporters picked up on your body language if you let your feelings show.
Dec. 12
Half an hour after the Supreme Court ruling that would finally doom his candidacy, Gore called Fabiani. What did the press think of the decision? It was after 10:30 p.m., and reporters were poring over the 5 to 4 ruling.
"People are still trying to sort it out," Fabiani said. "A consensus is emerging that it's not a very good decision for us." Their original plan – to have the vice president concede on television soon after a definitive ruling against him – was scrapped because of the late hour. Lehane tapped out a statement in Daley's name that the campaign would have to study the ruling. Fabiani edited it, Monica Dixon approved it, and the statement was sent to Gore's BlackBerry. "Gore signed off," Dixon announced, and Lehane e-mailed it to 100 reporters.
Earlier, during the interminable wait for the ruling, they couldn't resist some mischief. Fabiani leaked to CNN that Lehane was spending the time playing a video game. Lehane told MSNBC and AP that Fabiani was shopping online at Men's Wearhouse.
Lehane kept returning calls until 1:30 a.m., when he was picked up by his fiancee, Andrea Evans, who had marched down to the court to demonstrate.
Dec. 13
Fabiani was heading back to La Jolla, though he dreaded telling his 4-year-old son, who had met Gore, that they had lost the election. He was torn over the what-ifs: what might have happened if they had hit Bush harder or closed the campaign stronger. He knew he would be living with these doubts for years.
Lehane felt good about the campaign. None of the prognosticators had given them a chance last summer but Gore had come back and won, he believed, even if a partisan Supreme Court had snatched the victory away from them.
On his way to the airport, Fabiani sent Lehane a final e-mail: "WE WUZ ROBBED." |
