Scores On This Historic Day: November 7, 2000, No One Is Elected President

Ralph Nader, famous as a consumer advocate since the 1960s, runs as the nominee of the Green Party. He gets 2.9 million votes, or 2.7 percent.

Bush's brother, Governor John E. "Jeb" Bush of Florida, sees how close the vote is in his State, and tampers with the voting process, and that one State holds everything up for 5 weeks.

The following Sunday, among the guests on NBC's Meet the Press is William Safire, longtime political columnist for The New York Times; before that, a speechwriter for President Richard Nixon. Host Tim Russert asks him, "What do we have here, Bill?" And Safire says, "We have a tie."

For all intents and purposes, he was correct. Both Bush and Gore had a base that thought their man would make a good President. Both of them had party regulars who might not have been happy that the party as a whole nominated the candidate it did, but would vote for that party's nominee anyway, because that's what they always did. And then there were people who weren't members of either party, and didn't especially like either one, but decided one was worse, and voted for the other one.

It would have been so simple for Gore to win. All he had to do was ask the outgoing President, Bill Clinton, to do one rally for him in downtown Miami. It would, literally, have made all the difference in the world, because, in spite of his personal mistakes, Clinton was a very successful President, and still popular.

But Gore was terrified that Clinton's personal scandal, which led to his impeachment by a Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, and then his acquittal by a Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, would attach itself to him. So, in his speech at the Democratic Convention at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, he said, "I stand here today as my own man."

Bush couldn't say that. Well, he could, but, like so many other things he said, it would have been a lie. The son of a President, he was a dimwitted hothead who had faked his way through life. Every time he failed -- in keeping out of military service, in business, and in a 1978 run for Congress -- his father's friends bailed him out.

But Texas evangelicals got him nominated for that State's Governor, an office where the only real requirement is make it easier for businessmen to make money. He got elected in 1994 and 1998. Jeb, considered the smart, level-headed one in the family -- often compared to Michael Corleone, to George's Sonny and father George's Don Vito -- lost in his 1st race for Governor, also in 1994, but won in 1998.

Jeb's Secretary of State, in charge of running elections, was Katherine Harris: Young (33 in 2000), attractive, every bit as committed to the conservative movement as the Bush brothers were, and, it was rumored at the time, Jeb's mistress. He put her in charge of ensuring that "Dubya" won in Florida.

Court-ordered recounts were undertaken, and "the Brooks Brothers Riot" in downtown Miami the day before Thanksgiving stopped the one in Dade County. When the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled on December 12 that the recounts must stop, and Bush be accepted as the winner, it was the ghastliest decision in the Court's history, aside from the Dred Scott decision that said black people weren't citizens (a decision remedied by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution).

Nader, appealing to leftists who felt betrayed by Gore and President Bill Clinton over the last 8 years, won 97,488 votes in Florida. Bush's final lead in Florida was 537 votes. But Nader's voters wanted their "pure" candidate, and the result was the most un-Nader-like (and the most un-Gore-like) Administration anyone could have imagined.

Needless to say, New York's 2 major tabloid newspapers had differing opinions. The Daily News cared about journalism, and their headline was "TOO CLOSE." The Post cared about promoting the conservative candidate, and their headline was "BUSH WINS!"

The election of sitting First Lady Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. Senator from New York was almost unnoticed.

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November 7, 2000, like all modern U.S. Election Days, was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 6 games played in the NBA that night:

* The New York Knicks beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 103-89 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.

* The Toronto Raptors beat the Boston Celtics, 105-75 at the SkyDome in Toronto. (It's now named the Rogers Centre.)

* The Washington Wizards beat the Chicago Bulls, 88-83 at the United Center in Chicago.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 84-74 at The Summit in Houston.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the San Antonio Spurs, 100-81 at the AmericaWest Arena in Phoenix. (It's now named the Footprint Center.)

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Atlanta Hawks, 97-88 at the Rose Garden in Portland. (It's now named the Moda Center.)

And there were 4 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-3 at Madison Square Garden. The Broadway Blueshirts came from 2-0 down on 2 goals by Brian Leetch and 1 by Mike York. Then they blew the 3-2 lead, before Radek Dvorak won it with 5:15 left in regulation.

* The New York Islanders beat the Nashville Predators, 2-1 at the Nassau Coliseum. The Isles came from 1-0 down on 2 goals by Brad Isbister.

* The Colorado Avalanche beat the expansion Minnesota Wild, 2-0 at the Pepsi Center in Denver. (It's now named the Ball Arena.)

* And the Phoenix Coyotes and the Los Angeles Kings played to a tie, 3-3 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.