• December 25, 2000
• Vol. 54
• No. 27

Florida

Sure, There Are 50 States. But in This Year's Presidential Race, One Mattered Most

The pundits knew for a long time that the presidential election would hinge on one state. As NBC newsman Tim Russert predicted on the morning before Election Day: It would all come down to "Florida, Florida, Florida." But who knew just how far down it would come?

Not only did Election 2000 run into a swamp of uncertainty, but the swamp was in a state that has become the staging ground for more than its share of extravagant national dramas. We were just recovering from the struggle over Elián González (see page 90). We had put behind us the news about the state's flammable electric chair and the annual hurricane watch. Then faster than you could say cute-poodle-eaten-in-his-own-backyard-by-an-alligator, Florida was at the heart of another tangled episode of American life. The grueling recount battle between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush came complete with antiquated voting devices, the U.S. Supreme Court and the sumptuous eyelashes of Katherine Harris, Florida's secretary of state and chief vote certifier.

"All roads of weirdness lead to Florida," says novelist and Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen. The Florida they arrive at is now the nation's fourth most populous state, with 25 electoral votes and 15 million people from every background, including a huge Latino population, a famous abundance of retirees and proud, self-proclaimed rednecks in the Panhandle. An influx of newcomers in the 1980s turned a one-party Democratic state more heavily Republican. That eventually gave the state legislature to the GOP, the governorship to Jeb Bush and a small, hotly disputed margin of victory in November to his older brother George W.

And all that set the stage for more than a month of breathtaking political antics: confused voters in Palm Beach County who meant to vote for Gore but punched a confusing butterfly ballot for Pat Buchanan instead! Dumb thieves who tried to sell a stolen voting booth via the Internet! Plus Florida's own version of the O.J. Simpson white Bronco chase—a truckload of ballots driven on a judge's order from South Florida to Tallahassee with media helicopters hovering overhead.

Consequently, it doesn't even seem strange to hear that a Republican vote-count observer accused a vote-count-observing Democrat of eating chads—the tiny bits of paper that fall from a punch card—to hide evidence of ballot tampering. Maybe democracy has to prove itself from time to time under the most stressful conditions, something Florida has certainly provided. For better or for worse, this year the Sunshine State cast the most interesting shadows.