Capital Letters: Stump Speeches

Michael W. Lynch from the January 2001 issue

Capital Letters: All Losers' Night

In which our man in Washington desperately cruises for losers on Election Night and learns from experts how the new president should-must!-govern

Subj: Looking for losers in all the wrong places
Date: 11/08/00
From: [e-mail]

Pick your cliché to describe Election Night in D.C. "It's a nail biter," a weary fellow at the Democratic National Committee bash at the Mayflower Hotel told me. At the Republican's party, an Arlington lawyer put it more colorfully: "Tighter than a piece of coal in Shannon Doherty's ass."

I spent the night and much of the early morning hopping from party to party in search of bad news. There's always plenty of it, since with elections somebody has to win. My goal was to spend the night with the losers. Actually, I spent most of the night assuming I was a loser, since I had bet $200 that Gore would take the White House and $50 that the Dems would take back the House.

My first stop was the DNC bash at the Mayflower Hotel, where I picked up my press credential, purchased a $5 Bud Light, and soaked in the scene. It was early and too cheery for my taste. At 7 p.m., CNN said Georgia and Virginia were too close to call, and the room erupted in cheers. Vermont went to Gore. "Big surprise," said one cocky fellow when we learned that Bush had secured South Carolina.

Things were far more tense a short walk away at the Capital Hilton, where the RNC was throwing its bash. "We expected to lose Florida," explained Republicanoid radio host Armstrong Williams. "But we're going to win Pennsylvania." Early in the evening, things were gloriously grim at the RNC party. In line for a $4 beer, a woman, upon learning I was press and had once lived in California, confided how she too once lived there. "I left California because the Mexicans were taking over," offered the fiftysomething bottle blond, reminding me why I'm not a Republican.

RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson introduced the emcee for the night, a comedian who doesn't use four-letter words (even on Election Night). Not sur-prisingly, he was a comedian in name only. "He hasn't tickled my funny bone yet," said a young guy who nodded to the band and asked, "Why do Republicans always get white bands who play Motown all night?"

But it wasn't the comedian or the band that was bringing down the party. It was the fact that CNN and other networks had
at that point called Florida for Gore. Michigan went the V.P.'s way as well, and by 9 p.m. it looked like an early wrap for Gore.

It was time to catch a cab to Republican operative Grover Norquist's party, where a committed group of conservative activists would surely be bumming in their beer.

"It's closer than we'd like it to be," Grover admitted as he emptied a kitchen trash can at 9:30 p.m. "I don't see how you can call Florida with 600,000 absentee ballots out." I grabbed a beer and followed Grover upstairs, where former Speaker Newt Gingrich was watching the returns. The often talkative pol wasn't saying much as he watched with his third wife.

The nadir of the night for the GOP came at 9:50 p.m., when someone announced that New Mexico had gone to Gore. Five minutes later, CNN had put Florida back into play. "We're taking back Florida one geriatric at a time," exclaimed one merry, and very drunk, conservative.

Grover's was now too cheery, so I caught a cab back to the DNC party, where folks were sure to be grieving. "If it comes out that Nader caused Gore to lose, I will go to Nader meetings and throw tomatoes," D.C. lawyer Mike Castellano told me. Echoed Georgetown law student Rachel Entman, "I want to know how Nader feels if he single-handedly screws up the country." (My hunch: Pretty damn swell.)

It was a bad night in many respects for Democrats, especially locally. By 1 a.m., the announcement came that they wouldn't take the House. Though a dead Democrat would beat a live Republican in Missouri (they don't call it the Show Me State for nothing), Virginia Sen. Chuck Robb, the profligate son-in-law of LBJ, was a goner. The ballroom was emptying out so I headed back to the RNC to see how they were holding up in apparent victory.

"What's up with the bullshit in Florida?" asked Gen-X Republican operative Mario Lopez, who was glued to the TV at the RNC party. "They won't call it with 93 percent of the precincts reporting." Well, "they" did call it for Bush, at approximately 2:15 a.m. And then they took it back at 4:06 a.m. Gore was understandably not willing to concede the lifelong ambition of at least two generations of his family.