| The Real Winners & Losers of 2000 |
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Snippiest exchange: The election
night phone call in which Gore retracted his concession and told Bush
"You don't have to get snippy about it."
A close second: Bill
Clinton, speaking about George W. Bush: "I mean how bad could I be?
I've been governor of Texas, my daddy was president. I own a baseball
team." Former President Bush, in response: "I'm going to wait a month
... If he continues that, I'm going to tell the nation what I think about him as
a human being and person."
Most sobering campaign moment: News
breaking just days before the election that Bush and Cheney have three DUIs
between the two of them. As Jay Leno noted, "We've got drunk and drunker
running here. I say we vote for Bush and Cheney just to get them off the damn
highway."
Most amusing campaign bumper
sticker: "Bush and Gore make me want
to RALPH"
Lowest point of the post-election media feeding
frenzy : The
broadcasting of live aerial footage of the Florida ballot convoy making its way
to Tallahassee. Even O.J. Simpson found it "boring," saying, "Now
I know what people went through when they were trying to watch the basketball
game and my Bronco was going up the freeway."
Best freak show: In the early '90s, Katherine
Harris made a name for herself on the nightclub circuit as the sideshow act
in a Sarasota musical revue. Her specialty: exhorting audience members to jump
from their seats, flap their arms, and dance like chickens. Ironically, she
would call upon those same skills years later in her capacity as Florida's
secretary of state, trying to exhort an anxious nation to do the Dubya
Dance.
Best evidence of a divine plan at work in Florida:
The fact that there is a St.
Chad (of Lichfield, England), who is known as the patron saint of disputed
elections.
Best election keepsake:
The Ryder truck used to
transport Palm Beach County's ballots to Tallahassee. After an intense bidding
war, it went for a cool $67,100 on Yahoo!
Auctions.
A close second: Al Gore's soul, which briefly went up for auction on eBay, thanks to some jokester. Last recorded bid: 2 cents.
Lamest Gore exaggeration:
Telling union workers that his mother used to lull him to sleep by singing
"Look for the Union Label," a song that was not written until he was
27. It's amazing what can happen to those memory cells when you inhale.
The one thing Gore was not exaggerating about:
Gore said he decided to make Central Florida the final stop of his campaign
"because that's where the future is going to be written." He just
didn't know it would be written in erasable ink.
Bushism of the year: "They misunderestimated me." Indeed.
