Free Down & Dirty by Jake Tapper Page A

brief.
    “The election’s so close in Florida there’s going to be an automatic recount,” Daley says. Gore wants Christopher and him
     to run it.
    The seventy-five-year-old springs out of bed. A 6 A.M . Pacific time flight to Nashville is arranged. He shaves, showers, and packs. On the morningshows, the Gore campaign is able to announce the selection of their éminence grise to project that the recount will be a dignified
     and orderly event.
    In Gore-Lieberman HQ in Nashville, things are not so dignified or orderly. It’s downright scrappy.
    Most of the crew has spent the night waiting outside the Nashville War Memorial in the rain on an emotional roller coaster:
     overjoyed when Gore was awarded Florida, then despondent when it was taken from him, then mortified—almost in mourning—when
     it was given to Bush. After the networks took Florida away from the GOP governor, they were overjoyed again, chanting the
     Gore mantra “Stay and fight!”
    Soaking wet and totally confused, the young Democrats gather in HQ after Daley has bid them adieu for the night. Gore strategist
     Tad Devine gathers the crew around and gives them a pep talk. They said Al Gore was dead in the water in New Hampshire, Devine
     says, referring to pre-primary polls that showed former New Jersey senator Bill Bradley with a sizable lead in the state Gore
     eventually won. “But we stayed and fought!” Devine says, and Gore won New Hampshire. They said Al Gore was going to get demolished
     by George Bush, Devine says. But we stayed and fought, and it looks like Al Gore’s going to win the popular vote.
    “I don’t know what the outcome of this election will be,” Devine says. “But I feel an obligation to go down there and figure
     it out, and stay and fight!” The exasperated Democratic masses cheer. There’s an automatic recount in Florida, Devine says,
     and Gore needs guys on the ground to make sure it all goes right.
    Donnie Fowler, deputy field director, jumps on a desk and starts shouting out names like he’s in the army. “Backus, Jenny!”
     he says. “Bash, Jeremy!” He runs through several dozen. “You got an hour. Go home and pack. Bring about three days’ clothing.”
     A charter plane is shipping them all down to Florida at 6 A.M .
    Someone chips in that he did the Virginia recount in 1998, and it took three weeks.
    Everybody groans. Three weeks! That’s forever!
    Lieberman’s campaign plane—nicknamed “El Al Gore” or “Air Force Jew” by Nashville staffers—is snagged. By 5:30 A.M. , sixty to seventy staffers have been shuttled to the airport and loaded up onto the plane, which Gore campaign lawyer Jack
     Young has dubbed “Recount One.”
    Jill Alper briefs the young campaign staffers on what’s going on, tells them to take off their campaign paraphernalia. As
     they all drink coffee andOJ, Young and Joe Sandler, general counsel of the DNC since 1993, brief them on the recount process.
    Weeks before the election, Whouley asked Sandler and Young to prepare an immense notebook containing the recount procedures
     of twenty states. Some states were dropped as they got closer to Election Day and poll numbers went outside the margin of
     error, but it’s a pretty comprehensive volume, and it looks like a stroke of genius now. They thought they’d need it for Missouri.
     Earlier in the night, when Iowa looked too close to call, they pulled the book out. They looked to the binder again for information
     about Oregon, Washington, New Mexico. And, finally, Florida.
    In August 1994, Young and two Democratic attorney colleagues—Chris Sautter and Tim Downs—self-published
The Recount Primer,
a forty-three-page booklet that deals with almost every issue the team will encounter—and the country will learn about—in
     the next thirty-six days. In the primer, they laid out the purpose of a recount for “partisan representatives”: “a) preserving
     a margin of victory, b) identifying election night mistakes which