“I WOULDN’T SAY wake up the children,” Dan Rather famously uttered late that night, “but when they wake up in the morning, be sure to show them this, because they’re not likely to see it again in their lifetime.” Bush was named president-elect around 2:15 a.m. EST and then later, William M. Daley, Gore’s campaign chairman, said they were contesting, not conceding. The “nonelection” stretched on for another 36 days.
Of course, the media was taken to task for its coverage–for getting the presidential winner wrong not once but twice. Congressional hearings and navel-gazing followed.
In the days leading up to election night 2002, the networks vowed to be more careful. And they vowed it again and again and again. Newspaper articles detailed how big media would call races this time around. TV segments were produced on the subject. Rather called the operation at CBS “Accuracy Central.”
Then Tuesday afternoon, the Voter News Service, an exit-polling organization operated by a consortium of television and print-media organizations, said it was “not satisfied with the accuracy of today’s exit poll analysis and will not be in a position on election night to publish the results of state and national surveys of voter attitudes.” This meant networks would have to do much more guesswork and rely much more heavily on their own polling. It also meant that an already slow evening of television was destined to be a heck of a lot slower. “It’s going to be a loooong night,” anchors on all the cable channels said to each other, chuckling on the outside but probably dying a little death on the inside.
In between calling preliminary races–using a combination of the networks’ own polling and early vote tabulations from the states–anchors did a lot of ad-libbing. CNN had a four-person panel, as did MSNBC and Fox News Channel. They made small talk about politics. At one point on MSNBC, the experts bantered about why, generally speaking, men tend to sway Republican and women Democratic. It was like being stuck at the worst Washington cocktail party ever.
When the networks did post preliminary results from various elections, their graphics were sometimes oddly confusing. If, in the early part of the evening, the Georgia Senate race was 3,380 votes for Saxby Chambliss and 2,220 votes for Max Cleland, how exactly could it be that “0 percent” of the districts were reporting? Also bewildering: the first numbers from the West Virginia race showed 268 votes for Jay Rockefeller and 103 for Jay Wolfe. Was reporting a grand total of 371 votes–and creating percentage breakdowns from those numbers–responsible coverage?
Many voters must have succumbed to the temptation to switch to the networks, which were showing their usual Tuesday-night slate of programming. Ninety minutes of “Fear Factor”–wow! And hey, TV viewers could actually get a real fix of politics and drama on HBO, where “Journeys with George” screened at 9:30 p.m. Alexandra Pelosi’s tart documentary on covering Bush’s 2000 campaign was a perfect respite from the mind-numbing analysis on the cable news channels.
TV producers everywhere were scrambling to fill the holes. What was with the “countdown” tactic on CNN? As it drew closer to the top of every hour, producers added a timer in the top left-hand corner of the screen. Guess that was so viewers could get excited about the next group of poll closings. The drama fell something short of New Year’s Eve on the Millennium.
Elizabeth Dole was declared the winner for the Senate seat in North Carolina in the 10 p.m. hour. All the cable channels–but none of the networks–cut to her speech, which seemed as if it had been practiced for a year. And really, it was no different from all the other victory addresses of the night. “I just got off the phone with [insert loser’s name here],” the winner would say–followed by a round of “boos” from the audience. How many times over a night is a viewer meant to sit through that?
On ABC, Peter Jennings interviewed (now former) Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who was in prime spin mode. “It does not appear, at this hour, to be going very well for you,” Jennings said. Said Daschle: “The night’s early.” Daschle didn’t even want to answer a hypothetical about the Democrats losing the Senate. “If the House is going to be Republican, I think the Senate ought to be Democratic,” he said. Compelling television.
At 11 p.m., another breather: “The Daily Show.” After an evening of snide chuckles, it was a relief to have some real laughs. Jon Stewart said North Carolina was “the North Dakota of the Carolinas.” He said that when Katherine Harris won her House race in Florida, she “burst into tears, covering the first two rows of supporters in a thick but colorful ink.” The best line of all was his closer: “Now that the Republicans are most likely to control the House, Senate and presidency, I would just like to say, from everyone here at the show, we’ve always been with you guys!”
After midnight came Larry King’s interview with Rudy Giuliani, who congratulated his fellow Republicans. Chris Matthews was chipper into the wee hours. Well past 1 a.m., he said, smiling at the camera, “we’re still working!” Over on Fox, Greta Van Susteren also remained well-coiffed. Tom Brokaw at NBC, who did look a little tired, said it had been a “fascinating” night.
But here may be the evening’s highlight. On NBC, correspondent David Gregory said that even President Bush–whose bedtime is normally 9:30 p.m.–had stayed up until past 1 a.m. making phone calls. Said the correspondent, “He was pretty pumped up.” Click.
