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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, Leon here, Before we get to this episode,

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Speaker 1: I want to let you know that you can binge

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Speaker 1: the entire season of Fiasco bush v goor right now

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Speaker 1: ad free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Sign up

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Speaker 1: for Pushkin Plus on the Fiasco Apple podcast showpage, or

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Speaker 1: visit Pushkin dot fm slash plus. Now onto the episode.

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Speaker 1: On Thanksgiving morning nineteen ninety nine, a Florida man from

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Speaker 1: outside Fort Lauderdale named Donado Dalrymple went on an impulse

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Speaker 1: fishing trip with his cousin. The water was choppy as

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Speaker 1: they took their motorboat out into the Atlantic Ocean in

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Speaker 1: search of Mahi mahi.

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Speaker 2: My cousin he said, look for seaweed and debris, anything

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Speaker 2: floating on the ocean. And I point out with my

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Speaker 2: finger and I said, like that inner tube that's there.

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Speaker 2: He goes, Yeah, let's go around that inner tube.

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Speaker 1: Dalrymple was thirty nine years old and he wasn't much

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Speaker 1: of a fisherman. He owned a house cleaning business, which

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Speaker 1: he still does. Out on the water, he followed his

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Speaker 1: cousin's lead as they scouted for a good place to

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Speaker 1: throw out their lines. Then dal Rymple saw something.

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Speaker 2: We were about twenty five yards from the inner tube,

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Speaker 2: never that close to it, and I told my cousin,

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Speaker 2: I said, there looks like there's somebody on there, but

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Speaker 2: they look like they're dead.

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Speaker 1: When dal Rymple got closer, he noticed a tiny hand

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Speaker 1: moving in the inner tube. His cousin jumped into the

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Speaker 1: water to investigate.

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Speaker 2: My cousin's in the water and he's screaming, it's a baby,

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Speaker 2: and he's pushing up and I'm leaning over, almost falling

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Speaker 2: into the water. That's how rough the seas were, and

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Speaker 2: I snatched what we know today as Ellon Gonzalez.

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Speaker 1: Eleon Gonzalez was five years old. His mother had to

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Speaker 1: bring him to the United States from Cuba in a

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Speaker 1: small aluminum boat. He had just barely survived the journey.

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Speaker 1: His mother drowned along with ten other people. After dal

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Speaker 1: Rymple and his cousin brought Elean ashore, they delivered him

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Speaker 1: to the Coastguard. When it was discovered that Eleon had

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Speaker 1: a great uncle living in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami,

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Speaker 1: the boy was sent to stay with him and his family.

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Speaker 1: Eleon's story was seen as a miracle by some in

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Speaker 1: the local Cuban community.

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Speaker 3: He was highlighted in the local news. This little kid survived,

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Speaker 3: the mother died, everybody died.

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Speaker 1: This is Carlos Saladriguez, a Miami businessman who fled Cuba

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty one. Because of his deep ties to

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Speaker 1: the city's Cuban American community. Saladriguez was able to watch

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Speaker 1: the Elian Gonzales ordeal unfold from close range.

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Speaker 3: There were rumors circulating around that dolphins had saved the

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Speaker 3: kid from drowning and from being eaten by charge.

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Speaker 4: He was safe by God, but the dolphins.

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Speaker 5: Is a miracle.

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Speaker 1: A few days after Eleon's rescue, his father back in

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Speaker 1: Cuba made it known that his son had been taken

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Speaker 1: to America without his permission.

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Speaker 6: The father, back in their hometown of Cardinis keeps asking

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Speaker 6: his son when he's coming back, and demanding his return

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Speaker 6: by the United States.

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Speaker 1: The custody battle instantly ballooned into a diplomatic crisis, as

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Speaker 1: Cuba's President Fidel Castro started putting pressure on the US

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Speaker 1: to send Elyon back.

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Speaker 7: Now to the young refug j caught in the custody

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Speaker 7: dispute between the US and Cuba today.

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Speaker 3: And that sort of became an opportunity to hidelight the

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Speaker 3: plight of the Cuban victims of the communists, and all

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Speaker 3: of that, he had all the qualities of becoming a

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Speaker 3: good political football.

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Speaker 6: Relatives here claim Eleon's father is being pressured by the

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Speaker 6: Cuban government to ask for his son's return.

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Speaker 1: Miami Dade County was home to six hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: thousand Cuban Americans, many of them first generation exiles. These

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Speaker 1: were people who hated Cuba's communist regime with a passion

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Speaker 1: to them. It didn't make a difference what Eleon's father

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Speaker 1: or Fidel Castro said. The boy's life would obviously be

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Speaker 1: better if he was allowed to grow up in America.

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Speaker 1: The US government did not see it that way. In

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Speaker 1: January of two thousand, six weeks into Elyon's stay in Miami,

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Speaker 1: the Clinton administration announced that he would have to be

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Speaker 1: sent back to Cuba.

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Speaker 6: The US Attorney General Janet Reno says the child should

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Speaker 6: be returned to his father in Cuba as soon as possible,

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Speaker 6: especially in light of the hardships he endured coming to

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Speaker 6: this country.

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Speaker 1: The news did not go over well in Little Havana.

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Speaker 8: Dozens of Cuban Americans were arrested while protesting the US

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Speaker 8: government's decision to return Eleon Gonzalez to his father in Cuba.

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Speaker 1: A standoff ensued as Eleon's Miami relatives looked for ways

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Speaker 1: to keep him in the country.

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Speaker 3: Because it was a child, he sort of brought down

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Speaker 3: the political issue and gave it a human face and

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Speaker 3: the face of a of a young child who lost

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Speaker 3: his mother. And it just became a very emotional and

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Speaker 3: deeply emotional issue, and it consumed the Quean American community

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Speaker 3: into that drama.

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Speaker 1: As the custody battle over Eleon dragged on, many Cuban

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Speaker 1: Americans in Miami came to despise the Clinton administration for

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Speaker 1: its handling of the case.

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Speaker 9: President Clinton, have you no shame.

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Speaker 1: But in the end, it was not Bill Clinton who

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Speaker 1: had to answer for the Elyon case. It was the

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Speaker 1: guy running to replace him.

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Speaker 10: Vice President Al Gore today formally declared himself a candidate

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Speaker 10: for the Democratic presidential nomination.

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Speaker 7: Today I announced that I am a candidate for President

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Speaker 7: of the United States.

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Speaker 1: Al Gore was five months into his presidential bid when DONALDO.

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Speaker 1: Dalrymple and his cousin pulled Eleon Gonzales out of the water.

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Speaker 1: There are those who believe that Gore's fate was sealed

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Speaker 1: right then and there, that the Elyon controversy placed the

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Speaker 1: vice president on the path to inevitable defeat in Florida.

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Speaker 1: But as you're about to hear, the real story of

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Speaker 1: Gore's loss in two thousand was messier, richer, and harder

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Speaker 1: to arrange in a straight line of cause and effect.

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Speaker 1: And none of it could have happened anywhere but Florida.

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Speaker 1: I'm Leon Nafok from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries. This

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Speaker 1: is fiasco Bush v.

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Speaker 11: Gore.

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Speaker 12: The rice with the White House is incredibly close.

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Speaker 1: It's election like we haven't seen in decades.

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Speaker 10: Uncharted Territorge Tonight, the outcome and history itself on Home

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Speaker 10: and the battled ground is Florida.

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Speaker 1: Episode one, Homestead. What happened in Florida before everything else

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Speaker 1: that happened in Florida. I'll just tell you now. Al

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Speaker 1: Gore lost Florida to George W. Bush by a margin

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Speaker 1: of five hundred and thirty seven votes out of nearly

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Speaker 1: six million cast. The outcome played out in slow motion

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Speaker 1: over thirty six days, as vote totals across the state

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Speaker 1: came under dispute, Hundreds of thousands of ballots were recounted,

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Speaker 1: and the two campaigns went to war with each other

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Speaker 1: in the courtrooms of Tallahassee. Now, many people believe, quite

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Speaker 1: reasonably that Gore lost the two thousand election because of

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Speaker 1: the way the recount played out in Florida. But the

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Speaker 1: roots of Gore's defeat can be traced back to the

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Speaker 1: earliest days of the campaign itself. Because what's striking when

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Speaker 1: you think back on two thousand is that, in most respects,

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Speaker 1: the fundamentals of the race were strongly in Gore's favor.

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Speaker 8: Now, Governor Bush likes to say that we should go

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Speaker 8: back to the policies of eight years ago.

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Speaker 7: I think that reflects perhaps a fuzzy memory.

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Speaker 13: This is the asan al Gore's deck, as it were,

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Speaker 13: the strength of the economy.

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Speaker 11: It's probably too late for George W.

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Speaker 14: Bush.

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Speaker 1: He had been vice president for nearly eight prosperous years.

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Speaker 1: The economy was booming, crime was down, the budget was balanced,

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Speaker 1: and the country was at peace. Yes, Bill Clinton's sex

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Speaker 1: scandal and impeachment created a serious challenge for Gore, but

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Speaker 1: on paper, at least, it should not have been that

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Speaker 1: hard for him to convince voters to stay with the

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Speaker 1: winning formula.

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Speaker 7: Bill Clinton worked hard to get this economy right, and

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Speaker 7: I'm pledging to you here today, i am not gonna

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Speaker 7: let the other side wreck it and take it away

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Speaker 7: from us. We're gonna keep the prosperity going.

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Speaker 1: So what happened? What was it about Al Gore and

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Speaker 1: his candidacy and the way he ran his campaign that

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Speaker 1: made the race so incredibly close? The general election was

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Speaker 1: ten months away when the Clinton administration announced that Elian

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Speaker 1: Gonzales would have to be sent home to Cuba. The

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Speaker 1: situation placed Gore in political quicksand if he sided with

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Speaker 1: his own administration, he would surely forfeit the crucial Cuban

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Speaker 1: American vote in Miami to his Republican opponent. But if

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Speaker 1: he broke with the White House and pushed for l

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Speaker 1: On to stay in America, he would alienate his own party.

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Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Gore was never going to have

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Speaker 1: an easy time winning the Cuban American vote. For decades,

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Speaker 1: the perception had been that Democrats were soft on Castro

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Speaker 1: and soft on communism. In nineteen eighty, about eighty percent

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Speaker 1: of the Cuban American vote in Dade County went from

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Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan and in nineteen eighty eight, the same percentage

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Speaker 1: voted for George HW. Bush.

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Speaker 14: President Bush is a beacon of hope for the millions

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Speaker 14: seeing Cuba who want liberty and democracy. President Bush has

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Speaker 14: shown his loyalty to the Q and people.

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Speaker 1: But despite that history, al Gore had reason to be optimistic.

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Speaker 1: For one thing, he had an ally in the powerful

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Speaker 1: mayor of Miami Dade County, Alex Penelis. The rare Cuban

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Speaker 1: American politician who also a Democrat.

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Speaker 15: Alex Panels has propelled himself to the center of South

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Speaker 15: Florida's political stage. He's making himself heard far beyond his state.

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Speaker 1: Panellus was considered a rising star in national politics. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, he was named America's sexiest politician by

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Speaker 1: People magazine.

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Speaker 15: With two million constituents, he is Florida's second most powerful

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Speaker 15: politician after the governor, and some say the most influential

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Speaker 15: Hispanic politician in America.

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Speaker 1: In addition to Penelus, Gore owe his chances in Little

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Speaker 1: Havana to Bill Clinton, who had made a steady and

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Speaker 1: concerted effort over the course of his presidency to make

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Speaker 1: inroads with the Cuban American community. Here's journalist Michael Grunwald,

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Speaker 1: who wrote about Clinton's courtship of the Cuban American elite

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Speaker 1: in his book The Swamp.

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Speaker 5: And Bill Clinton is a political animal. You know, he's

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Speaker 5: a precinct by precinct vote counter, and he knows the demographics,

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Speaker 5: and he knows who matters in each demographic. And he

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Speaker 5: recognized that Cuban American voters who had been traditionally extremely

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Speaker 5: Republican could be made somewhat less Republican, and in Florida,

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Speaker 5: margins really matter.

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Speaker 1: The charm offensive dated all the way back to Clinton's

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Speaker 1: first presidential campaign. During that spring of nineteen ninety two,

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Speaker 1: Clinton voiced his support for a hardline bill to intensify

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Speaker 1: the Cuban embargo, a bill that George H. W. Bush

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Speaker 1: initially declined to support. Then the following August, when the

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Speaker 1: Category five storm Hurricane Andrew caused twenty five billion dollars

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Speaker 1: in damage across South Florida, Clinton was presented with a

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Speaker 1: chance to build ties with the Cuban American power brokers

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Speaker 1: who would be steering the recovery effort. One of the

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Speaker 1: worst hit areas in Hurricane Andrew's path was a small

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Speaker 1: city in Dade County called Homestead. Before the storm, the

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Speaker 1: city's economy had revolved around the federally owned Homestead Air

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Speaker 1: Force Base.

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Speaker 16: Homestead received the most damaged.

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Speaker 17: Witnesses say almost every building was damaged, many destroyed.

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Speaker 1: Homestead Air Force Base was almost completely destroyed in the storm.

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Speaker 1: The base had been there since nineteen forty two and

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Speaker 1: had played an important role in military relations between Washington

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Speaker 1: and Havana. When more than a thousand prisoners of war

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Speaker 1: returned to the United States after being captured during the

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Speaker 1: failed Bay of Pigs invasion, they landed at Homestead.

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Speaker 18: It certainly looked like a happy New Year to the

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Speaker 18: eleven hundred and thirteen captives returning from Cuba. Homestead Air

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Speaker 18: Force Base, Florida was their first taste of freedom after

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Speaker 18: being Castro's prisoners for twenty months.

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Speaker 1: In Clinton, on a campaign swing through South Florida not

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Speaker 1: long after Hurricane Andrew visited the ruins of the Homestead

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Speaker 1: Air Force Base and made a promise that if elected president,

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Speaker 1: he would use the power of the federal government to

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Speaker 1: revitalize the area. Here's Michael Grunwald again.

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Speaker 5: So he had a sort of kitchen cabinet of some

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Speaker 5: prominent Cuban American advisors, and they let him know early

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Speaker 5: that Homestead Air Force Base was a good issue, not

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Speaker 5: just on the merits where it seemed like the right

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Speaker 5: thing to do to rebuild a destroyed air Force base,

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Speaker 5: but that it would be a way of sort of

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Speaker 5: signaling culturally that he cared about South Florida generally and

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Speaker 5: the sort of Cuban American slice of South Florida specifically.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety four, a group of Cuban American investors

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Speaker 1: unveiled the proposal to convert Homestead Air Force Base into

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Speaker 1: a commercial airport. The proposal promised to turn Homestead into

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Speaker 1: a hub of international travel, but in order to get

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Speaker 1: off the ground, it needed the Clinton administration's approval.

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Speaker 5: It was federal land, you know, as a US air

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Speaker 5: Force base, and the Pentagon was going to be running

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Speaker 5: the show in terms of what to do with this land.

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Speaker 5: It was going to be a federal process, and you know,

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Speaker 5: the White House clearly was going to play a role

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Speaker 5: in directing the Pentagon which direction it wanted to go.

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Speaker 1: The promise of a brand new airport in Homestead gave

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Speaker 1: Clinton in an opening to forge political alliances with the

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Speaker 1: Cuban American power brokers who are pushing for it.

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Speaker 5: One way to show some of the Cuban elites that

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Speaker 5: he was on their side was to really emphasize his

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Speaker 5: support for this airport. He knew it was something that

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Speaker 5: they wanted, and he knew that those business and political

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Speaker 5: leaders had a fair amount of influence with making actual

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Speaker 5: votes and dollars happen.

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Speaker 1: All of this behind the scenes work paid off. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, Clinton managed to get between thirty five

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Speaker 1: and forty four percent of Miami's Cuban American vote. This

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Speaker 1: astonishing result helped Clinton become the first Democrat to win

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Speaker 1: Florida in twenty years. As Al Gore looked ahead to

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Speaker 1: two thousand, it seemed possible that the Cuban community's goodwill

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Speaker 1: towards Clinton would carry over to him. But then Elian

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Speaker 1: Gonzales happened.

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Speaker 19: We will not forget Elyon, we will not forget his mother,

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Speaker 19: and we will not live peaceably and until we see freedom.

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Speaker 1: Gore initially tried to step lightly around the Elyon issue.

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Speaker 1: I would insist, he told reporters upon due process of

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Speaker 1: law within the appropriate tribunal. On the substance, Gore was

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Speaker 1: putting distance between himself and the Clinton administration by saying

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Speaker 1: that the question of custody should not be handled by

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Speaker 1: federal immigration authorities. But as far as Bold stands go,

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Speaker 1: it left something to be desired and did not win

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Speaker 1: him a ton of credit. In Little Havana, George W. Bush,

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, spoke about the Elyon issue simply

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Speaker 1: and freely. The boy should just be given US citizenship,

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Speaker 1: he said, and his father should be allowed to come

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Speaker 1: to the United States and join him.

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Speaker 10: The man ought to be brought to the United States,

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Speaker 10: given a whiff of freedom so he can see how

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Speaker 10: wonderful our country is.

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Speaker 8: I want to say something about Cuban our hemisphere.

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Speaker 1: As anti Castro demonstrations flared around Miami Eli, young Gonzales

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Speaker 1: settled into a strange life under the glare of international

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Speaker 1: media attention.

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Speaker 10: Ellon today trying to roller skate outside his house in

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Speaker 10: Little Havana in its stand off with the government and

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Speaker 10: the boy's father.

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Speaker 1: A few days after his sixth birthday, his family took

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Speaker 1: him to Disney World, where he was followed around by

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Speaker 1: a pack of reporters and sheriff's deputies while people chanted

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Speaker 1: his name.

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Speaker 16: The case of the smiling six year old is so

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00:16:22,751 --> 00:16:26,830
Speaker 16: entangled in American politics that even his new puppy came

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Speaker 16: from a member of Congress.

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Speaker 1: Donardo Dalrymple meanwhile made regular visits to the house where

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Speaker 1: Ellion was staying, driving there most days after work to

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Speaker 1: spend time with the boy and his family.

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Speaker 2: I just felt that I wanted to see this child again.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's not every day that you pull a

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Speaker 2: child out from the ocean, and I want to know

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Speaker 2: what was going to happen with his life.

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Speaker 20: What your name, sir, My name is Donado dal Rymple.

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Speaker 1: Dalrymple would regularly give interviews to the reporters camped out

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Speaker 1: in front of Ellon's house.

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Speaker 20: To see this gift of God. I believe that's what

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Speaker 20: he really is. To hang on the water for that

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Speaker 20: many days. I don't know how long it was, but

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Speaker 20: I mean, he's definitely a gift of God, and I'm

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Speaker 20: really privileged to be now to him.

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Speaker 21: That's awesome, Thank you, that is awesome.

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Speaker 22: What a beautiful kid.

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Speaker 1: Soon, Dalrymple became a media sensation in his own right.

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Speaker 23: So who is Donando Dalrymple, the man widely known as

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Speaker 23: the Fisherman.

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Speaker 1: In the Washington Post story headlined a Fisherman in his

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Speaker 1: fifteen Minutes, Dalrymple was cast as the Miami equivalent of kato' kalan,

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Speaker 1: the actor who lived in OJ Simpson's guest house and

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Speaker 1: briefly became famous after Simpson was charged with murder. In

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Speaker 1: the Post story, Dalrymple was described signing autographs and talking

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Speaker 1: about how Howard Stern had mentioned him on the radio.

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Speaker 1: His own cousin, the same one who helped pull elli

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Speaker 1: On out of the water, was quoted in the story

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Speaker 1: saying that Dalrymple was a desperate man looking for publicity.

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Speaker 7: He says, you're.

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Speaker 19: Using the child for fame and glory, and that you

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Speaker 19: believed from the start a child should be with his father.

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Speaker 24: I like to tell my cousin I love him very

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Speaker 24: much and that it's very interesting, h how he's making

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Speaker 24: these accusations. I've never made an accusation towards him or anybody,

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Speaker 24: so I don't know where he's coming with that.

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Speaker 1: Dal Rymple, who was born in Poughkeepsie, says he came

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Speaker 1: to identify with a Cuban American cause.

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Speaker 2: They embraced me as one of their own. And I

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Speaker 2: listened to literally hundreds of stories of older men that

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Speaker 2: were in political prisons in Cuba and they came here.

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Speaker 2: And this is what made me see life a little

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Speaker 2: bit different. Is when they seen Elion, they seen themselves.

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Speaker 1: Dal Rymple absorbed a great deal from his new Cuban

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Speaker 1: American friends, including their resentment towards Clinton and their view

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Speaker 1: of al Gore as complicit in the administration's policies.

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Speaker 2: I just thought that he was one and the same

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Speaker 2: with him. They served together, and those decisions were made together.

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Speaker 2: Bill Clinton just wasn't the be all end all. I

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Speaker 2: mean he as a vice president, yet they have to

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Speaker 2: consult each other. And if al Gore thought different, he

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Speaker 2: might have stood up and said, you know, I don't

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Speaker 2: think this is right.

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Speaker 1: That winter Gore watched that the Clinton administration became more

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Speaker 1: and more radioactive in Little Havana.

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Speaker 4: I used to be a Democrat up to the time

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00:19:18,991 --> 00:19:23,830
Speaker 4: of the Leon Gonzalez incident. My loyalty did not belong

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Speaker 4: in the Democratic Party. I believe that our government, the

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Speaker 4: United acting in the best interests of all Americans.

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Speaker 1: In March, the Cuban American National Foundation announced that it

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Speaker 1: would work actively against Gore's election. Meanwhile, on the Cuban

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Speaker 1: exile radio station Radio Mambi, an influential commentator named Armando

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Speaker 1: Perez Rua, sometimes referred to as the Cuban American Rush Limbaugh,

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Speaker 1: called on his listeners to punish their enemies with their votes.

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Speaker 1: Even the mayor of Miami Dade County, Cuban American Democrat

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Speaker 1: Alex Panelis, took a hard line against the Clinton administration.

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Speaker 9: And if the Justice Department's handling of this matter, if

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Speaker 9: their continued provocation leads to civil unrest and violence, we

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Speaker 9: are holding the federal government responsible and specific Lee Janet

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Speaker 9: Reno and the President of the United States.

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Speaker 16: To some, Panella seemed to be inviting trouble when he

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Speaker 16: said local police would not participate if the government removed Elyon.

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Speaker 1: Panellis's aggressive stance was bad news for Gore, who had

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Speaker 1: been counting on the mayor's enthusiastic endorsement in his quest

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Speaker 1: to win over Cuban American voters. Penelos's support was Gore's

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Speaker 1: best chance to convince people that he was his own

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Speaker 1: man and that he shouldn't be held responsible for the

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Speaker 1: sins of the Clinton administration. On March thirtieth, two thousand,

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Speaker 1: Gore made a dramatic bid to distance himself from Clinton

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Speaker 1: on the Elyon issue. He did so by coming out

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Speaker 1: in favor of proposed legislation that would allow Eleon to

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Speaker 1: stay in the United States while his case was adjudicated.

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Speaker 10: The Vice President stepped elbows deep into the Elian Gonzales

378
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Speaker 10: controversy quite suddenly.

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Speaker 25: This afternoon, Vice President Gore, now running for president, said

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Speaker 25: that Congress should change the law.

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Speaker 10: That seems to put Gore in direct conflict with his

382
00:21:06,830 --> 00:21:09,510
Speaker 10: own administration, which says the fight over Elion is an

383
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Speaker 10: immigration issue, not the custody battle.

384
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Speaker 1: Gore's move looked transparently cynical. Republicans and Democrats alike criticized

385
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Speaker 1: him as a craven political chameleon.

386
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Speaker 25: Already some Democrats, Congresswoman Maxine Waters on our air earlier

387
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Speaker 25: when this news broke, said she would reconsider her support

388
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Speaker 25: for the Vice president.

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Speaker 17: I was just overwhelmed, surprised, blindsided. I didn't think he

390
00:21:33,150 --> 00:21:36,071
Speaker 17: would go so far as to support right wing legislation

391
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Speaker 17: that would give him permanent status, Nor did I expect.

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Speaker 1: A few days later, Gore went on The Today Show

393
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Speaker 1: to clarify his positions.

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Speaker 25: Mister Vice President, good morning, Good morning, Matt, how are you.

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Speaker 11: I'm fine.

396
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Speaker 22: Thanks.

397
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Speaker 11: It seems like we're about.

398
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Speaker 1: But when he was pushed on what he actually believed,

399
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Speaker 1: Gore seemed to equivocate.

400
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Speaker 25: With all due respect, you haven't answered my question.

401
00:21:54,191 --> 00:21:56,150
Speaker 1: Should he be given custody of his son if he

402
00:21:56,231 --> 00:21:57,431
Speaker 1: arrives in the United States?

403
00:21:57,671 --> 00:22:01,711
Speaker 25: If the father says on Free Soil that he believes

404
00:22:01,751 --> 00:22:05,231
Speaker 25: that the son should go back to Cuba with him, that,

405
00:22:05,311 --> 00:22:09,111
Speaker 25: of course, is likely to be determinative and will be determinative.

406
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Speaker 1: The Washington Post ran a story the next day under

407
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Speaker 1: the headline, Gore struggles to explain his position on Elyon.

408
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Speaker 1: The worst part was that Gore's break with Clinton didn't

409
00:22:18,911 --> 00:22:21,871
Speaker 1: even seem to win him any points. One month after

410
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Speaker 1: his last ditch effort to get on the right side

411
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Speaker 1: of the Elyon issue, the Chicago Tribune quoted one Miami

412
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Speaker 1: resident saying that she wouldn't vote Democratic if Gore came

413
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Speaker 1: to Florida with a Cuban flag in his hands. That

414
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Speaker 1: more or less was where things stood. As Attorney General

415
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Speaker 1: Janet Reno was conducting final negotiations with Eleon's Miami relatives.

416
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Speaker 1: The question at this point was not whether Eleon would

417
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Speaker 1: be sent back to his father, but how.

418
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Speaker 6: And when officials here say they're determined to reunite the

419
00:22:48,830 --> 00:22:51,670
Speaker 6: father with his son, they describe Attorney General Reno as

420
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Speaker 6: quote leaning toward action.

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Speaker 26: And if the Miami family resists, well, the government is

422
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Speaker 26: ready to plan to deal with that as well.

423
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Speaker 1: On the night of April twenty second, TV crews, hoping

424
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Speaker 1: to be on hand for whatever was going to happen,

425
00:23:04,991 --> 00:23:08,111
Speaker 1: staked out Eleon's house from row of tents across the street.

426
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Speaker 14: As a crowd of Eddie Castro hardliners maintains its vigil

427
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Speaker 14: outside the Miami house.

428
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Speaker 1: Inside, Carlo Saladriguez, the Miami businessman you heard at the

429
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Speaker 1: top of the show, was helping Ellion's family with the negotiations.

430
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Speaker 3: You got to think of this simple house. He had

431
00:23:21,671 --> 00:23:24,590
Speaker 3: a little living room, a couple of bedrooms, and in

432
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Speaker 3: the back of the house was a family room in

433
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Speaker 3: a kitchen. That's where we were sitting. In that family room,

434
00:23:31,191 --> 00:23:34,230
Speaker 3: and in front of the house, there were hundreds of

435
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Speaker 3: people demonstrating and there were media station even with towers

436
00:23:41,311 --> 00:23:43,870
Speaker 3: built so that they could film from higher up, and

437
00:23:44,031 --> 00:23:46,991
Speaker 3: mean everything was set up for a media show.

438
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Speaker 26: And so for now, much of the attention remains squarely

439
00:23:50,471 --> 00:23:53,151
Speaker 26: on that small house in the section of Miami they

440
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Speaker 26: call Little Havana, and the family inside that does not

441
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Speaker 26: seem anxious to give up that little boy.

442
00:24:00,431 --> 00:24:03,031
Speaker 1: DONALDO. Dalrymple was at his home in Broward County when

443
00:24:03,031 --> 00:24:04,991
Speaker 1: he heard on the news that Elyon might be seized

444
00:24:04,991 --> 00:24:07,870
Speaker 1: by federal agents at any moment. It was around ten

445
00:24:07,911 --> 00:24:10,470
Speaker 1: o'clock at night, but Dalrymple got in his car and

446
00:24:10,551 --> 00:24:13,231
Speaker 1: drove the roughly thirty miles to Miami. He made his

447
00:24:13,271 --> 00:24:16,430
Speaker 1: way past the reporters and into the house where Saladriguez

448
00:24:16,471 --> 00:24:20,190
Speaker 1: and lawyers for Eleon's relatives conducted negotiations, and Eleon was

449
00:24:20,231 --> 00:24:23,630
Speaker 1: trying to fall asleep in his race car bed. At

450
00:24:23,630 --> 00:24:26,551
Speaker 1: five pin fifteen in the morning, three white vans carrying

451
00:24:26,551 --> 00:24:29,311
Speaker 1: a team of federal agents pulled up next to the house.

452
00:24:29,471 --> 00:24:32,271
Speaker 2: There was a battering ram at the door, and people

453
00:24:32,311 --> 00:24:35,951
Speaker 2: were screaming. There was mayhem. There was so much confusion

454
00:24:35,991 --> 00:24:38,431
Speaker 2: going on, and I thought to myself, I'm dreaming.

455
00:24:39,751 --> 00:24:42,471
Speaker 1: Dalrymple, who had been asleep on the living room couch,

456
00:24:42,830 --> 00:24:45,670
Speaker 1: stirred awake as twenty heavily armed agents broke through the

457
00:24:45,711 --> 00:24:48,470
Speaker 1: chain link gate in the front yard, sprang teargas and

458
00:24:48,551 --> 00:24:52,830
Speaker 1: yelling for the gathered crowd to disperse. Dalrymple grabbed Eleon

459
00:24:52,870 --> 00:24:55,511
Speaker 1: and ran into a closet as agents stormed the house

460
00:24:55,551 --> 00:24:58,470
Speaker 1: and demanded to know where the boy was. When one

461
00:24:58,471 --> 00:25:00,231
Speaker 1: of the agents pointed a gun at the closet where

462
00:25:00,271 --> 00:25:03,710
Speaker 1: Dalrymple was holding Eleon in his arms, a news photographer

463
00:25:03,751 --> 00:25:06,350
Speaker 1: captured the moment in an instantly iconic snapshot.

464
00:25:06,630 --> 00:25:11,071
Speaker 2: And this was occurring within seconds. A woman appears in

465
00:25:11,110 --> 00:25:16,430
Speaker 2: the room and right away I handed Ellon over to

466
00:25:16,511 --> 00:25:20,231
Speaker 2: this woman and they all I heard this word I heard,

467
00:25:20,271 --> 00:25:22,791
Speaker 2: and it's clear as I'm talking to you right now.

468
00:25:22,791 --> 00:25:26,751
Speaker 2: I heard bingo and they ran out.

469
00:25:26,751 --> 00:25:27,350
Speaker 10: They got the boy.

470
00:25:27,350 --> 00:25:27,991
Speaker 13: They've got the boy.

471
00:25:28,671 --> 00:25:30,231
Speaker 11: They took the boy. They're got the boy.

472
00:25:30,911 --> 00:25:31,630
Speaker 13: Three minutes.

473
00:25:32,431 --> 00:25:35,590
Speaker 26: In three minutes, six year old elli On Gunzanes, dressed

474
00:25:35,630 --> 00:25:39,110
Speaker 26: in a T shirt, draped in fee was gone.

475
00:25:39,390 --> 00:25:41,870
Speaker 1: Dell Rymple ran after the agents, carrying eli On to

476
00:25:41,951 --> 00:25:43,150
Speaker 1: the van parkin street.

477
00:25:44,150 --> 00:25:48,910
Speaker 2: I wanted to go in this vehicle with them to

478
00:25:48,951 --> 00:25:51,350
Speaker 2: wherever they were taking him, just so he'd have a

479
00:25:51,390 --> 00:25:57,350
Speaker 2: sense of comfort. He knew me from the ocean, he

480
00:25:57,431 --> 00:26:00,151
Speaker 2: knew me from for months playing down there with him.

481
00:26:00,431 --> 00:26:02,271
Speaker 2: You know, I was thinking in my mind, how did

482
00:26:02,311 --> 00:26:05,750
Speaker 2: this all go wrong? One minute we saved them, and

483
00:26:05,791 --> 00:26:07,911
Speaker 2: now they're coming in with guns to take them out.

484
00:26:08,231 --> 00:26:11,510
Speaker 2: It was just so ugly and horrible. But they wouldn't

485
00:26:11,590 --> 00:26:15,590
Speaker 2: let me in that vehicle, so I just I lingered

486
00:26:15,630 --> 00:26:20,670
Speaker 2: behind with the rest of everybody else as they sped

487
00:26:20,751 --> 00:26:21,590
Speaker 2: off down the road.

488
00:26:24,150 --> 00:26:27,391
Speaker 1: Soon, Elian Gonzalez was in a US Marshall's plane, destined

489
00:26:27,390 --> 00:26:30,591
Speaker 1: for Washington, where his father would be waiting for him.

490
00:26:30,830 --> 00:26:33,830
Speaker 1: It was just after six am. As the plane took

491
00:26:33,830 --> 00:26:36,830
Speaker 1: off from Homestead Air Force Base. One of the federal

492
00:26:36,830 --> 00:26:39,430
Speaker 1: agents keeping Elion company opened the window shade next to

493
00:26:39,511 --> 00:26:41,831
Speaker 1: him so that he could see the sunrise over Florida.

494
00:26:47,870 --> 00:26:50,911
Speaker 1: In the aftermath of the raid, the Cuban American community

495
00:26:50,911 --> 00:26:54,110
Speaker 1: in Miami was left reeling, and their rage at the

496
00:26:54,110 --> 00:26:57,911
Speaker 1: Clinton administration intensified. Here is Carlos Saladriguez again.

497
00:26:58,870 --> 00:27:03,031
Speaker 3: The raid was the slap in the face. It was

498
00:27:03,271 --> 00:27:09,191
Speaker 3: sort of the hurt, the wound that took a long

499
00:27:09,231 --> 00:27:13,311
Speaker 3: time to heal. It was the snatching of this kid

500
00:27:13,350 --> 00:27:16,350
Speaker 3: from her mist that subtle became painful.

501
00:27:17,150 --> 00:27:20,390
Speaker 1: Clinton would never live it down, neither would al Gore.

502
00:27:21,271 --> 00:27:24,111
Speaker 1: The slogan that immediately took hold in Miami was we

503
00:27:24,150 --> 00:27:29,231
Speaker 1: will remember. In November, days before the election, Armando Perez Rua,

504
00:27:29,551 --> 00:27:32,830
Speaker 1: the Radio Mambi commentator, appeared with George W. Bush at

505
00:27:32,830 --> 00:27:35,471
Speaker 1: a rally in Florida and reminded the crowd to think

506
00:27:35,471 --> 00:27:37,870
Speaker 1: of Elion when they saw Gore's name on the ballot.

507
00:27:38,551 --> 00:27:42,190
Speaker 3: He was guilty by association. I don't think there is

508
00:27:42,231 --> 00:27:44,870
Speaker 3: another instance in the history of the United States where

509
00:27:44,911 --> 00:27:48,631
Speaker 3: you can look at one single evant and see clearly

510
00:27:48,870 --> 00:27:52,990
Speaker 3: that he decided the presidency of the United States.

511
00:28:03,830 --> 00:28:06,431
Speaker 1: The idea that the raid on Elian Gonzales cost al

512
00:28:06,511 --> 00:28:10,711
Speaker 1: Gore the two thousand election hardened into conventional wisdom November seven,

513
00:28:11,071 --> 00:28:13,471
Speaker 1: when the vice president only received about half as many

514
00:28:13,471 --> 00:28:16,711
Speaker 1: Cuban American votes in Florida as Clinton did in ninety six.

515
00:28:17,630 --> 00:28:19,590
Speaker 1: But there was a second controversy that played out in

516
00:28:19,590 --> 00:28:22,870
Speaker 1: Florida during the campaign, one that's much less well known

517
00:28:22,870 --> 00:28:26,271
Speaker 1: two decades later, but which was arguably no less decisive

518
00:28:26,350 --> 00:28:30,670
Speaker 1: in shaping the outcome of the race. This second controversy

519
00:28:30,711 --> 00:28:34,311
Speaker 1: was intertwined with the Elion case in tantalizing ways, and

520
00:28:34,390 --> 00:28:38,631
Speaker 1: Gore's handling of it was strikingly similar. Yet in some respects,

521
00:28:38,671 --> 00:28:41,631
Speaker 1: this one cut even deeper, both because it concerned an

522
00:28:41,631 --> 00:28:44,871
Speaker 1: issue that was uniquely close to Gore's heart and because

523
00:28:44,911 --> 00:28:47,431
Speaker 1: it lost him votes to a candidate who wasn't even

524
00:28:47,471 --> 00:28:48,071
Speaker 1: trying to win.

525
00:28:50,591 --> 00:28:53,871
Speaker 16: Suddenly it's a two front war against George Bush and

526
00:28:53,951 --> 00:28:56,751
Speaker 16: a new headache, consumer advocate, Ralph Nader.

527
00:28:58,431 --> 00:29:01,071
Speaker 1: While George W. Bush nibbled at Gore's margins on the

528
00:29:01,111 --> 00:29:04,351
Speaker 1: right and in the center, Ralph Nader, representing the Green Party,

529
00:29:04,551 --> 00:29:05,631
Speaker 1: attacked him from the left.

530
00:29:06,191 --> 00:29:09,391
Speaker 21: Don't worry about George doy Buss. The problem is Al Gore.

531
00:29:10,111 --> 00:29:15,151
Speaker 21: We're going to pull Al Gore into progressive politics, and

532
00:29:15,191 --> 00:29:17,071
Speaker 21: he's not going to be pulled. He's going to lose,

533
00:29:17,111 --> 00:29:19,671
Speaker 21: and his Democratic Party's going to lose more and more

534
00:29:19,911 --> 00:29:20,671
Speaker 21: year after year.

535
00:29:21,271 --> 00:29:24,351
Speaker 1: Nader had been America's pre eminent consumer protection crusaders since

536
00:29:24,431 --> 00:29:27,631
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, when he published Unsafe at Any Speed,

537
00:29:27,911 --> 00:29:31,711
Speaker 1: an indictment of the auto industry. Later, he found success

538
00:29:31,751 --> 00:29:34,951
Speaker 1: lobbying Congress to pass the Clean Water Act, the Whistleblower

539
00:29:34,991 --> 00:29:38,551
Speaker 1: Protection Act, and the Freedom of Information Act, But despite

540
00:29:38,671 --> 00:29:41,311
Speaker 1: encouragement from his legions of fans, it was not until

541
00:29:41,311 --> 00:29:43,871
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties that Nator decided to run for president.

542
00:29:43,951 --> 00:29:48,510
Speaker 22: Because the inequities of power lead to huge inequities of wealth,

543
00:29:48,671 --> 00:29:52,511
Speaker 22: which lead to huge inequities of income, which lead to

544
00:29:52,631 --> 00:29:57,551
Speaker 22: cruelty to the children in our country and their parents who.

545
00:29:57,591 --> 00:29:59,671
Speaker 11: Care got a decent paying job.

546
00:30:02,391 --> 00:30:04,911
Speaker 1: Nader's goal in two thousand was to win just five

547
00:30:04,951 --> 00:30:08,311
Speaker 1: percent of the vote nationwide. That was the threshold for

548
00:30:08,351 --> 00:30:11,191
Speaker 1: securing public funding for the green Park in future elections.

549
00:30:11,791 --> 00:30:15,431
Speaker 1: But Nader's visibility throughout the race belied his modest ambitions.

550
00:30:16,351 --> 00:30:19,031
Speaker 1: By presenting himself as a fresh alternative to a corrupt

551
00:30:19,031 --> 00:30:22,470
Speaker 1: and self perpetuating two party system, he attracted the support

552
00:30:22,471 --> 00:30:25,991
Speaker 1: of young people, disaffected Democrats, and celebrities like Bill Murray,

553
00:30:26,151 --> 00:30:29,151
Speaker 1: Susan Sarandon, Anita Franco and Eddie Vedder.

554
00:30:30,791 --> 00:30:31,470
Speaker 3: All these other.

555
00:30:31,431 --> 00:30:33,951
Speaker 2: Rallies that Ralph's done with ten thousand people that hasn't

556
00:30:33,951 --> 00:30:34,671
Speaker 2: got any attention.

557
00:30:34,751 --> 00:30:38,271
Speaker 18: It's going to stop tonight because they can't ignore this.

558
00:30:39,711 --> 00:30:46,151
Speaker 2: May I love my commenture because my.

559
00:30:46,431 --> 00:30:52,151
Speaker 1: Computer While Bush and Gore held fundraising dinners for millionaires.

560
00:30:52,751 --> 00:30:55,391
Speaker 1: Nator sold cheap tickets to massive rallies at venues like

561
00:30:55,431 --> 00:30:58,671
Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden, and promoted the idea that Gore and Bush,

562
00:30:58,911 --> 00:31:01,710
Speaker 1: for all their supposed differences, were actually cut from the

563
00:31:01,751 --> 00:31:02,950
Speaker 1: same corporatist cloth.

564
00:31:03,551 --> 00:31:04,671
Speaker 11: Third world country.

565
00:31:04,831 --> 00:31:09,351
Speaker 22: Strike a harder bargain with these multinational corporations than we do.

566
00:31:10,031 --> 00:31:13,231
Speaker 11: You're gonna put a stuff to this once and for all.

567
00:31:13,231 --> 00:31:13,711
Speaker 2: With at.

568
00:31:16,591 --> 00:31:19,750
Speaker 1: Gore supporter saw Nader as a unique danger, a candidate

569
00:31:19,751 --> 00:31:22,151
Speaker 1: who could siphon just enough votes from the Democratic ticket

570
00:31:22,151 --> 00:31:24,591
Speaker 1: and key swing states that Bush could win them in

571
00:31:24,631 --> 00:31:28,631
Speaker 1: a squeaker Nader rejected this argument at the time, and

572
00:31:28,671 --> 00:31:29,271
Speaker 1: he still does.

573
00:31:29,791 --> 00:31:33,471
Speaker 13: Ralph Nader, the spoiler in two thousand, has no nuanced

574
00:31:33,551 --> 00:31:37,391
Speaker 13: the way that media covers these things, and they get

575
00:31:37,471 --> 00:31:39,391
Speaker 13: away with it by using the words spoiler.

576
00:31:39,951 --> 00:31:43,111
Speaker 1: This is Ralph Nader speaking to me about his role

577
00:31:43,191 --> 00:31:44,311
Speaker 1: in the two thousand election.

578
00:31:44,911 --> 00:31:48,111
Speaker 13: It was not an exciting election. You had boring candidates.

579
00:31:48,151 --> 00:31:50,950
Speaker 13: Al Gore is very boring candidate. George W. Bush was

580
00:31:50,951 --> 00:31:55,311
Speaker 13: a boring candidate. Somebody counted once that Bush and Gore

581
00:31:55,551 --> 00:31:58,950
Speaker 13: agreed with each other over twenty times in one presidential debate.

582
00:31:59,671 --> 00:32:02,151
Speaker 1: Nator had known Gore for decades, and back in the

583
00:32:02,191 --> 00:32:05,351
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties he had considered him an ally, but

584
00:32:05,431 --> 00:32:07,911
Speaker 1: the Al Gore running for president in two thousand did

585
00:32:07,951 --> 00:32:11,231
Speaker 1: not strike Nader as a man who deserved theive vote well.

586
00:32:11,271 --> 00:32:13,871
Speaker 13: Because he was a front runner, he was too cautious,

587
00:32:14,271 --> 00:32:18,871
Speaker 13: and because he was too cautious, he didn't take pioneering stands,

588
00:32:19,431 --> 00:32:22,871
Speaker 13: and when napoles started closing in on him, he couldn't

589
00:32:22,871 --> 00:32:27,230
Speaker 13: make himself into the original Al Gore. He didn't know

590
00:32:27,311 --> 00:32:29,591
Speaker 13: who he was at any given time.

591
00:32:30,511 --> 00:32:32,991
Speaker 1: This was a common knock on Gore that he was

592
00:32:32,991 --> 00:32:35,271
Speaker 1: a shape shifter who didn't have a core identity and

593
00:32:35,311 --> 00:32:39,231
Speaker 1: took all his cues from polsters and political advisors. Early

594
00:32:39,231 --> 00:32:41,711
Speaker 1: in the campaign, he came in for criticism and ridicule

595
00:32:41,951 --> 00:32:44,710
Speaker 1: for hiring the feminist writer Naomi Wolf to serve as

596
00:32:44,711 --> 00:32:48,631
Speaker 1: an image consultant for fifteen thousand dollars a month. Even

597
00:32:48,671 --> 00:32:52,311
Speaker 1: a lot of Democrats saw Gore as inauthentic, tepid, and gauzy.

598
00:32:52,911 --> 00:32:55,751
Speaker 1: Here's Joan Walsh, who served as news editor at Salon

599
00:32:55,831 --> 00:32:58,471
Speaker 1: during the two thousand election and wrote what is arguably

600
00:32:58,471 --> 00:33:01,391
Speaker 1: the definitive analysis of Gore's political defects.

601
00:33:01,511 --> 00:33:04,230
Speaker 12: During the campaign, he would kind of pick up on

602
00:33:04,551 --> 00:33:10,391
Speaker 12: issues and drop them. He really couldn't find a theme,

603
00:33:10,671 --> 00:33:13,991
Speaker 12: a defining set of themes and stick to them, and

604
00:33:14,271 --> 00:33:16,951
Speaker 12: all of these things I think kind of came together

605
00:33:17,231 --> 00:33:19,591
Speaker 12: to create this image of a guy who didn't know

606
00:33:19,631 --> 00:33:20,311
Speaker 12: what he stood for.

607
00:33:21,031 --> 00:33:23,991
Speaker 1: Walsher members coming across an old photograph of Gore dressed

608
00:33:24,071 --> 00:33:27,871
Speaker 1: up for Halloween as Frankenstein's Monster, it just was.

609
00:33:27,831 --> 00:33:31,591
Speaker 12: Like, dude, don't do this, because this image of this

610
00:33:31,671 --> 00:33:34,991
Speaker 12: guy who's been stitched together and you know, parts that

611
00:33:35,071 --> 00:33:37,751
Speaker 12: don't fit and clothes that don't fit in bolts, and

612
00:33:37,791 --> 00:33:40,231
Speaker 12: you know, some of it was just the stiffness of

613
00:33:40,631 --> 00:33:43,311
Speaker 12: his persona, but also this sense that he had literally

614
00:33:43,391 --> 00:33:44,591
Speaker 12: been stitched together.

615
00:33:45,071 --> 00:33:48,031
Speaker 1: For a small but significant subset of the Florida electorate.

616
00:33:48,551 --> 00:33:52,151
Speaker 1: There was no better example of Gore's ideological wishy washiness

617
00:33:52,511 --> 00:33:55,311
Speaker 1: than his stance on a fairly obscure issue dating back

618
00:33:55,311 --> 00:33:59,230
Speaker 1: to the nineteen ninety two campaign. That issue was the

619
00:33:59,271 --> 00:34:04,871
Speaker 1: proposed redevelopment of Homestead Air Force Base. Homestead, as your recall,

620
00:34:05,351 --> 00:34:07,511
Speaker 1: was the city in Miami Dade County that was destroyed

621
00:34:07,551 --> 00:34:11,231
Speaker 1: by Hurricane Andrew. On the campaign that year, Bill Clinton

622
00:34:11,311 --> 00:34:14,111
Speaker 1: vowed to help rebuild the base and revive the local economy,

623
00:34:14,671 --> 00:34:16,431
Speaker 1: a commitment that endeared him to a group of Cuban

624
00:34:16,511 --> 00:34:19,671
Speaker 1: American power brokers in Miami who wanted to replace Homestead

625
00:34:19,710 --> 00:34:23,551
Speaker 1: Air Force Base with a new international airport. Here again

626
00:34:23,671 --> 00:34:24,991
Speaker 1: is reporter Michael Grunwald.

627
00:34:25,591 --> 00:34:28,790
Speaker 5: This was an incredibly lucrative opportunity. This was going to

628
00:34:28,791 --> 00:34:31,190
Speaker 5: be a massive construction project. The idea was that it

629
00:34:31,230 --> 00:34:33,830
Speaker 5: was going to revitalize this area that was pretty downtrodden

630
00:34:33,911 --> 00:34:37,631
Speaker 5: even when the air base was functioning, and was in

631
00:34:37,671 --> 00:34:40,111
Speaker 5: real trouble now that the air base had been ripped

632
00:34:40,111 --> 00:34:40,591
Speaker 5: to shreds.

633
00:34:41,071 --> 00:34:44,511
Speaker 1: Among the most enthusiastic backers of the airport plan was

634
00:34:44,551 --> 00:34:47,230
Speaker 1: the Mayor of Miami Dade County, Alex Penelis.

635
00:34:47,631 --> 00:34:50,831
Speaker 23: Homestead Air Force Base has become all things to all people.

636
00:34:51,391 --> 00:34:54,671
Speaker 23: Miami Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas, as well as South

637
00:34:54,710 --> 00:34:58,871
Speaker 23: Miami Dade's political and business interests, support a commercial airport,

638
00:34:58,911 --> 00:35:01,911
Speaker 23: toutas bringing in thirty eight thousand jobs and a billion

639
00:35:01,951 --> 00:35:03,190
Speaker 23: dollars to the economy.

640
00:35:04,230 --> 00:35:07,591
Speaker 1: There was a problem, though, Homestead was situated in between

641
00:35:07,671 --> 00:35:12,151
Speaker 1: two protected nature preserves Biscayne National Park to the east

642
00:35:12,311 --> 00:35:16,151
Speaker 1: and the Everglades National Park to the west. To environmentalists

643
00:35:16,190 --> 00:35:19,190
Speaker 1: in Florida, the idea of building an airport so close

644
00:35:19,230 --> 00:35:22,151
Speaker 1: to these precious lands was obscene.

645
00:35:22,431 --> 00:35:27,631
Speaker 5: When Harry Truman established Everglades part and his speech was

646
00:35:27,671 --> 00:35:29,951
Speaker 5: about how this is going to be a place of solitude,

647
00:35:29,991 --> 00:35:34,951
Speaker 5: a place where Americans can come and appreciate the quiet

648
00:35:34,991 --> 00:35:38,951
Speaker 5: of nature. It's this kind of lonely quiet place is

649
00:35:39,031 --> 00:35:41,870
Speaker 5: part of what makes the Everglades the Everglades. I think

650
00:35:41,911 --> 00:35:45,671
Speaker 5: the idea that right on its doorstep there was going

651
00:35:45,750 --> 00:35:48,591
Speaker 5: to be this massive commercial airport seemed like it would

652
00:35:48,631 --> 00:35:54,111
Speaker 5: really take away from the uniqueness of the Everglades.

653
00:35:55,031 --> 00:35:58,551
Speaker 1: All through the nineties, as the airport plan slowly advanced

654
00:35:58,591 --> 00:36:02,751
Speaker 1: through layers of local and federal bureaucracy, environmentalists in Florida

655
00:36:02,871 --> 00:36:04,151
Speaker 1: fought it however they could.

656
00:36:04,391 --> 00:36:07,631
Speaker 23: The Sierra Club is launching a new campaign against the development.

657
00:36:07,951 --> 00:36:11,271
Speaker 23: Today's full page newspaper add his own the opening salvo,

658
00:36:11,631 --> 00:36:15,190
Speaker 23: and it is promising a protracted court battle if necessary.

659
00:36:15,831 --> 00:36:18,671
Speaker 1: Environmentalists in Florida had every reason to expect that during

660
00:36:18,710 --> 00:36:21,591
Speaker 1: the two thousand campaign, al Gore would come out against

661
00:36:21,591 --> 00:36:25,711
Speaker 1: the Homestead Airport plan. Even putting aside his overall record

662
00:36:25,750 --> 00:36:28,350
Speaker 1: on the environment, Gore had been a driving force behind

663
00:36:28,391 --> 00:36:33,151
Speaker 1: major legislation to fund Evergwaye's restoration. And yet whenever Gore

664
00:36:33,270 --> 00:36:36,191
Speaker 1: was asked about Homestead on the campaign trail, he seemed

665
00:36:36,190 --> 00:36:39,031
Speaker 1: only to hem in haw. Instead of just saying that

666
00:36:39,071 --> 00:36:41,790
Speaker 1: the airport was a terrible idea, Gore would have his

667
00:36:41,871 --> 00:36:44,671
Speaker 1: spokesman issue wan statements about how it wasn't appropriate for

668
00:36:44,750 --> 00:36:47,311
Speaker 1: him to weigh in. The air Force was still conducting

669
00:36:47,351 --> 00:36:50,230
Speaker 1: an environmental impact study, and the Vice President did not

670
00:36:50,351 --> 00:36:52,710
Speaker 1: want to pre judge the project until the results were in.

671
00:36:53,911 --> 00:36:57,270
Speaker 1: At one point, Gore took the incendiary position that continued

672
00:36:57,311 --> 00:37:00,511
Speaker 1: discussion was needed of how a balanced solution can be

673
00:37:00,551 --> 00:37:03,871
Speaker 1: found that can help the community without hurting the environment.

674
00:37:04,391 --> 00:37:08,671
Speaker 5: Gore had a choice to make, and he decided to

675
00:37:08,750 --> 00:37:10,911
Speaker 5: avoid the choice. It was waffle City.

676
00:37:12,230 --> 00:37:15,750
Speaker 1: What was going on. Gore was the most prominent environmentalist

677
00:37:15,750 --> 00:37:19,190
Speaker 1: in American politics, the guy who, back in nineteen eighty one,

678
00:37:19,471 --> 00:37:22,351
Speaker 1: had held the first ever Congressional hearings on global warming.

679
00:37:23,151 --> 00:37:25,591
Speaker 1: As Vice President, Gore had traveled to Kyoto to help

680
00:37:25,671 --> 00:37:29,471
Speaker 1: negotiate a transformative international treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

681
00:37:30,230 --> 00:37:32,471
Speaker 1: Gore had never been shy about his passion for the environment,

682
00:37:33,190 --> 00:37:35,310
Speaker 1: not even when his political rivals made fun of him,

683
00:37:35,431 --> 00:37:38,031
Speaker 1: as President George H. W. Bush did in nineteen ninety

684
00:37:38,031 --> 00:37:40,631
Speaker 1: two when he coined a special nickname for his opponent's

685
00:37:40,671 --> 00:37:41,951
Speaker 1: running mate.

686
00:37:42,031 --> 00:37:45,031
Speaker 27: If you listen to Governor Clinton and ozone Man, if

687
00:37:45,031 --> 00:37:47,591
Speaker 27: you listen to them, you know why I call him

688
00:37:47,591 --> 00:37:51,071
Speaker 27: ozone Man. This guy is so far off, and the

689
00:37:51,270 --> 00:37:54,710
Speaker 27: environmental extreme will be up to our neck in owls

690
00:37:54,750 --> 00:37:56,710
Speaker 27: and out of work for every American.

691
00:37:57,431 --> 00:37:58,871
Speaker 1: This guy's crazy.

692
00:38:00,391 --> 00:38:02,830
Speaker 11: Is way out, far out man.

693
00:38:04,831 --> 00:38:08,831
Speaker 1: Given this history, environmentalists in Florida were infuriated by Gore's

694
00:38:08,831 --> 00:38:12,031
Speaker 1: refusal to come out against the Homestead Airport plan. One

695
00:38:12,071 --> 00:38:15,071
Speaker 1: activist told The Washington Monthly that gore silence on the

696
00:38:15,111 --> 00:38:17,951
Speaker 1: issue called into question whether he himself knew what his

697
00:38:18,031 --> 00:38:21,551
Speaker 1: campaign stood for. In a column for The Miami Herald,

698
00:38:21,750 --> 00:38:25,471
Speaker 1: Florida novelist Karl Hyason wrote that Gore, who claims the

699
00:38:25,471 --> 00:38:28,951
Speaker 1: greenest pro environmental credentials of all the presidential candidates, is

700
00:38:29,031 --> 00:38:31,710
Speaker 1: showing a flash of yellow by deciding to wimp out

701
00:38:31,710 --> 00:38:35,750
Speaker 1: and keep quiet on South Florida's most controversial environmental issue.

702
00:38:35,791 --> 00:38:37,950
Speaker 5: The Gore people could not believe they were even having

703
00:38:37,951 --> 00:38:38,710
Speaker 5: this conversation.

704
00:38:39,311 --> 00:38:39,551
Speaker 13: You know.

705
00:38:39,671 --> 00:38:43,310
Speaker 5: Their attitude was, where else are environmentalists going to go?

706
00:38:44,111 --> 00:38:48,471
Speaker 5: You know, he's Al Gore, leave us alone, and the

707
00:38:48,591 --> 00:38:50,511
Speaker 5: environmentalist did not agree to do that.

708
00:38:52,311 --> 00:38:55,310
Speaker 1: Three weeks before the election, the Gore campaign sought to

709
00:38:55,391 --> 00:38:58,270
Speaker 1: quell the growing mutiny in South Florida by sending a

710
00:38:58,311 --> 00:39:01,790
Speaker 1: pair of Gore's advisors, Mitchell Berger and Katie McGuinty, to

711
00:39:01,871 --> 00:39:04,591
Speaker 1: meet with environmentalist groups at the South Miami headquarters of

712
00:39:04,631 --> 00:39:08,830
Speaker 1: the Tropical Audubon Society. During this tense meeting, McGuinty and

713
00:39:08,871 --> 00:39:11,631
Speaker 1: Berger tried to convince the assembled group that Gore was

714
00:39:11,671 --> 00:39:12,551
Speaker 1: on their side.

715
00:39:13,111 --> 00:39:18,991
Speaker 28: Here's Berger I remember saying to them, this man went

716
00:39:19,031 --> 00:39:25,631
Speaker 28: to Kyoto and his risk, sacrificing his entire career for

717
00:39:25,750 --> 00:39:26,790
Speaker 28: what he believes.

718
00:39:26,831 --> 00:39:29,631
Speaker 29: And this man, I know.

719
00:39:29,951 --> 00:39:35,311
Speaker 30: For a fact, orchestrated the purchase of forty thousand acres

720
00:39:35,351 --> 00:39:38,790
Speaker 30: in the middle of the Everglades and fought everyone in

721
00:39:38,831 --> 00:39:41,230
Speaker 30: the administration to do that.

722
00:39:41,991 --> 00:39:44,751
Speaker 5: They were just making the case. You know, Al Gore

723
00:39:45,311 --> 00:39:48,191
Speaker 5: is one of you. He has spent his entire career

724
00:39:48,911 --> 00:39:53,750
Speaker 5: fighting for places like the Everglades and specifically the Everglades.

725
00:39:53,871 --> 00:39:56,991
Speaker 5: Why are you torturing him over this issue that is

726
00:39:57,031 --> 00:39:58,911
Speaker 5: going to potentially cost him the election.

727
00:39:59,831 --> 00:40:03,911
Speaker 1: The anti airport activists were not impressed. Take our friendship

728
00:40:03,951 --> 00:40:06,551
Speaker 1: back to the vice president. One of them said to mcguinteenberger,

729
00:40:07,190 --> 00:40:08,790
Speaker 1: only a true friend will tell you what you don't

730
00:40:08,791 --> 00:40:11,391
Speaker 1: want to hear. You are going to lose this election

731
00:40:11,591 --> 00:40:15,591
Speaker 1: because of Homestead. If gordonn't condemned the airport plan, the

732
00:40:15,631 --> 00:40:19,191
Speaker 1: activist said, a lot of environmentalists were going to vote

733
00:40:19,190 --> 00:40:37,591
Speaker 1: for Ralph Nader. The environmental controversy around the Homestead Airport

734
00:40:37,750 --> 00:40:41,230
Speaker 1: was a perfect issue for Ralph Nader. It was a coherent,

735
00:40:41,270 --> 00:40:43,791
Speaker 1: little emblem of everything that was wrong with Al Gore.

736
00:40:44,471 --> 00:40:47,791
Speaker 1: During the final days of the election, Nader embraced Homestead

737
00:40:47,831 --> 00:40:49,751
Speaker 1: with Gusto while campaigning in Florida.

738
00:40:50,151 --> 00:40:53,951
Speaker 13: I was at the Radison Center in South Florida, and

739
00:40:54,031 --> 00:40:58,111
Speaker 13: it was packed, and all they wanted to talk about

740
00:40:58,391 --> 00:41:01,791
Speaker 13: was the fungus attack that was destroying the citrus trees

741
00:41:02,671 --> 00:41:06,510
Speaker 13: and the Homestead Air Force Base. And again and again

742
00:41:06,591 --> 00:41:10,710
Speaker 13: the questions were, why doesn't Gore come out of it.

743
00:41:11,190 --> 00:41:13,750
Speaker 13: A woman came up to me and kept saying he

744
00:41:13,791 --> 00:41:16,750
Speaker 13: would get so many votes if you would just put

745
00:41:16,791 --> 00:41:20,791
Speaker 13: out a statement, even now, this late in the game,

746
00:41:21,151 --> 00:41:25,631
Speaker 13: and I too raised the question, why isn't Gore opposing it?

747
00:41:27,311 --> 00:41:30,871
Speaker 1: Nader believed that the answer was purely political. Gore was

748
00:41:30,911 --> 00:41:33,631
Speaker 1: afraid of alienating the Cuban American leaders who had been

749
00:41:33,631 --> 00:41:37,230
Speaker 1: pushing the airport project since Hurricane Andrew. The person Gore

750
00:41:37,311 --> 00:41:41,950
Speaker 1: was most concerned with appeasing, Nator thought was Alex Penellis. Now,

751
00:41:42,111 --> 00:41:43,990
Speaker 1: the game theory here is a little tricky to parts,

752
00:41:44,471 --> 00:41:47,391
Speaker 1: but the idea was that Gore, having lost Cuban Americans

753
00:41:47,391 --> 00:41:50,191
Speaker 1: because of the Elon raid, was trying to salvage whatever

754
00:41:50,270 --> 00:41:53,431
Speaker 1: support he could by playing nice with penelas Al.

755
00:41:53,511 --> 00:41:57,231
Speaker 5: Gore was clearly concerned about the Cuban vote, but after

756
00:41:57,270 --> 00:42:00,910
Speaker 5: Eleon one environmentalist told him, look, it doesn't matter if

757
00:42:00,951 --> 00:42:03,871
Speaker 5: you come out tomorrow for landing the one hundred and

758
00:42:03,871 --> 00:42:07,870
Speaker 5: first airborne in Havana. You've lost the Cuban vote. You

759
00:42:07,911 --> 00:42:10,350
Speaker 5: are screwed with the Cuban vote. You have got to

760
00:42:10,431 --> 00:42:13,191
Speaker 5: tend to your base, and you are losing your base

761
00:42:13,391 --> 00:42:15,071
Speaker 5: because of Homestead Air Force Base.

762
00:42:15,871 --> 00:42:19,671
Speaker 1: Mitchell Berger, Gore's friend and advisor, told me unequivocally that

763
00:42:19,710 --> 00:42:22,430
Speaker 1: when it came to Homestead, Gore was not acting out

764
00:42:22,431 --> 00:42:26,071
Speaker 1: of political calculation. The actual reason for his reticence was

765
00:42:26,151 --> 00:42:29,190
Speaker 1: much more mundane. Burger said, he really did just want

766
00:42:29,190 --> 00:42:31,591
Speaker 1: to wait until the Air Force finished its study, because

767
00:42:31,591 --> 00:42:34,911
Speaker 1: if he interfered beforehand, the developers would have standing to sue.

768
00:42:35,471 --> 00:42:38,351
Speaker 1: This was not a reflection of Gore's cowardice or cynicism,

769
00:42:38,471 --> 00:42:40,671
Speaker 1: but rather his commitment to process.

770
00:42:41,551 --> 00:42:47,750
Speaker 29: Gore said, I cannot prejudge this publicly by law, and

771
00:42:47,831 --> 00:42:51,351
Speaker 29: that is what the boy scout did. He said, until

772
00:42:51,391 --> 00:42:57,431
Speaker 29: it is re reviewed, I cannot prejudge it, and that's

773
00:42:57,471 --> 00:43:03,631
Speaker 29: technically correctly true under the law. Notwithstanding what he said,

774
00:43:03,750 --> 00:43:04,591
Speaker 29: no one heard it.

775
00:43:05,391 --> 00:43:08,310
Speaker 1: Whatever the merits of his position, Gore's refusal to take

776
00:43:08,351 --> 00:43:11,071
Speaker 1: a stand on Homestead fit easily into a storyline that

777
00:43:11,111 --> 00:43:13,511
Speaker 1: his opponents on both the right and the left had

778
00:43:13,511 --> 00:43:16,431
Speaker 1: been tapping into all through the election. That he didn't

779
00:43:16,431 --> 00:43:19,111
Speaker 1: know who he was, that he wasn't willing or able

780
00:43:19,391 --> 00:43:22,231
Speaker 1: to say what he really thought, that even on the environment,

781
00:43:22,351 --> 00:43:25,551
Speaker 1: he was driven to equivocate in the same way Gore's

782
00:43:25,551 --> 00:43:27,951
Speaker 1: avowal of due process in the Ellon case had fallen

783
00:43:27,991 --> 00:43:31,270
Speaker 1: on deaf ears in Little Havanah. Gore's strict adherence to

784
00:43:31,270 --> 00:43:34,750
Speaker 1: procedure in the Homestead controversy read to his critics as

785
00:43:34,791 --> 00:43:38,391
Speaker 1: a cop out, and that provided an opening for Ralph Nader.

786
00:43:39,190 --> 00:43:44,270
Speaker 29: Nader amplified the narrative, and Nader was happy to use

787
00:43:44,351 --> 00:43:47,830
Speaker 29: his ego to say this is why Gore is no

788
00:43:47,911 --> 00:43:49,231
Speaker 29: different than anyone else.

789
00:43:50,351 --> 00:43:52,830
Speaker 1: It's worth noting that if Nader was right about al

790
00:43:52,871 --> 00:43:55,991
Speaker 1: Gore's motivations on Homestead, if he really did hold his

791
00:43:56,071 --> 00:43:58,511
Speaker 1: tongue because he was trying to placate Alex Panellis and

792
00:43:58,551 --> 00:44:01,350
Speaker 1: make up for Elion, the plan didn't work at all.

793
00:44:02,431 --> 00:44:04,991
Speaker 1: Starting in the fall of two thousand, Panellis declined to

794
00:44:05,031 --> 00:44:08,271
Speaker 1: speak out in Gore's favor even once, and three weeks

795
00:44:08,270 --> 00:44:10,751
Speaker 1: before the election, he left town for trip to Spain.

796
00:44:12,111 --> 00:44:19,031
Speaker 29: Alex Penellis, instead of endorsing Gore, left town deliberately left

797
00:44:19,111 --> 00:44:22,790
Speaker 29: him at the podium in front of the Cuban community.

798
00:44:24,230 --> 00:44:27,431
Speaker 29: Anyone who says that that didn't hurt Gore more than

799
00:44:27,591 --> 00:44:32,551
Speaker 29: anything in Florida doesn't understand in my view of Florida politics.

800
00:44:34,071 --> 00:44:37,631
Speaker 1: Penellis, who declined to be interviewed for this podcast, became

801
00:44:37,671 --> 00:44:40,151
Speaker 1: something of a pariah within the Democratic Party after the

802
00:44:40,190 --> 00:44:43,391
Speaker 1: two thousand election. When he ran for a Florida Senate

803
00:44:43,391 --> 00:44:45,710
Speaker 1: seat in two thousand and four, al Gore issued a

804
00:44:45,710 --> 00:44:49,191
Speaker 1: statement calling him the single most treacherous and dishonest person

805
00:44:49,190 --> 00:44:53,551
Speaker 1: he dealt with during the entire campaign. As for the

806
00:44:53,551 --> 00:44:58,111
Speaker 1: Homestead Airport, it was never built, labeling the project inappropriate,

807
00:44:58,431 --> 00:45:01,191
Speaker 1: the Air Force killed it just days before Bush took office.

808
00:45:02,991 --> 00:45:05,790
Speaker 1: All these years later, it's impossible to know how many

809
00:45:05,871 --> 00:45:08,431
Speaker 1: votes Gore lost by refusing to speak out against the

810
00:45:08,511 --> 00:45:12,230
Speaker 1: Homestead Airport, but there are those who believe confidently that

811
00:45:12,270 --> 00:45:15,791
Speaker 1: it cost him the election. Among them is Ralph Nader,

812
00:45:16,311 --> 00:45:18,870
Speaker 1: who received ninety seven thousand votes in Florida in two

813
00:45:18,871 --> 00:45:22,111
Speaker 1: thousand and who is bold enough in our conversation to

814
00:45:22,190 --> 00:45:25,031
Speaker 1: draw a causal link between Gore's stance on Homestead and

815
00:45:25,071 --> 00:45:26,071
Speaker 1: the invasion of Iraq.

816
00:45:26,710 --> 00:45:31,390
Speaker 13: The tragedy is in the fate of human affairs. One

817
00:45:31,391 --> 00:45:34,871
Speaker 13: can have a direct link between the loss of the

818
00:45:34,991 --> 00:45:39,230
Speaker 13: votes on the Homestead issue and a million dead iraqis

819
00:45:40,151 --> 00:45:44,271
Speaker 13: that's the way the winner take all system works. But who,

820
00:45:44,351 --> 00:45:45,710
Speaker 13: of course, could have predicted that.

821
00:45:50,431 --> 00:45:52,871
Speaker 1: It's easy to spot mistakes when you look back at history.

822
00:45:53,710 --> 00:45:55,910
Speaker 1: When you know how everything started and what it took

823
00:45:55,911 --> 00:45:58,111
Speaker 1: for it to end, it doesn't require a lot of

824
00:45:58,151 --> 00:46:01,591
Speaker 1: imagination to say, ah, if they'd done ex instead of why,

825
00:46:01,991 --> 00:46:05,510
Speaker 1: it would have all turned out differently. Regardless of whether

826
00:46:05,551 --> 00:46:08,230
Speaker 1: you think al Gore should have won the election, there

827
00:46:08,230 --> 00:46:10,311
Speaker 1: are lots of hinge points like that in the story

828
00:46:10,351 --> 00:46:13,431
Speaker 1: of how he ended up losing. If only Gore had

829
00:46:13,471 --> 00:46:16,351
Speaker 1: broken more sharply with the Clinton administration on Elian Gonzales,

830
00:46:16,791 --> 00:46:19,191
Speaker 1: maybe he wouldn't have lost as many Cuban Americans to Bush.

831
00:46:20,230 --> 00:46:23,270
Speaker 1: If only he had condemned the Homestead Airport plan, maybe

832
00:46:23,270 --> 00:46:27,431
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have lost as many Florida environmentalists to Nadir. Remember,

833
00:46:27,791 --> 00:46:30,471
Speaker 1: this election was ultimately decided by just five hundred and

834
00:46:30,471 --> 00:46:34,230
Speaker 1: thirty seven votes, with a margin that then it's not

835
00:46:34,270 --> 00:46:36,471
Speaker 1: a stretch to say that one tiny decision out of

836
00:46:36,511 --> 00:46:39,911
Speaker 1: god knows how many actually was responsible for the outcome.

837
00:46:41,151 --> 00:46:43,431
Speaker 1: And if our goal with this first episode of Fiasco

838
00:46:43,831 --> 00:46:46,391
Speaker 1: was to explore why the two thousand election was so close,

839
00:46:47,031 --> 00:46:49,271
Speaker 1: we could have focused on so many other things besides

840
00:46:49,311 --> 00:46:53,151
Speaker 1: Elyon and Homestead, so many little subplots that moved the

841
00:46:53,230 --> 00:46:56,710
Speaker 1: vote one way or another, we could have talked about

842
00:46:56,710 --> 00:46:58,911
Speaker 1: how George W. Bush benefited from the fact that his

843
00:46:58,951 --> 00:47:02,071
Speaker 1: brother Jeb was the governor of Florida, Or if we

844
00:47:02,111 --> 00:47:03,991
Speaker 1: wanted to come at it from the other direction and

845
00:47:04,071 --> 00:47:07,270
Speaker 1: explore how Gore came within spitting distance of victory, we

846
00:47:07,270 --> 00:47:09,830
Speaker 1: could have talked about Jeb's effort to end affirmative action

847
00:47:09,871 --> 00:47:13,071
Speaker 1: in Florida and how that helped Gore by inspiring a

848
00:47:13,111 --> 00:47:17,151
Speaker 1: massive voter registration movement among black voters. The point is

849
00:47:17,190 --> 00:47:19,191
Speaker 1: the two thousand election was close for about a million

850
00:47:19,270 --> 00:47:22,790
Speaker 1: different reasons, and because it was so close, because so

851
00:47:22,871 --> 00:47:26,551
Speaker 1: many of the subplots were plausibly decisive, every little detail

852
00:47:26,551 --> 00:47:31,710
Speaker 1: looks incredibly high stakes in retrospect. This six part podcast

853
00:47:31,750 --> 00:47:33,751
Speaker 1: will tell the story of how the two thousand election

854
00:47:33,911 --> 00:47:36,190
Speaker 1: turned out the way it did, and what it was

855
00:47:36,311 --> 00:47:39,551
Speaker 1: like during those five shaky weeks after election Day, when

856
00:47:39,551 --> 00:47:41,471
Speaker 1: no one in the country knew who the next president

857
00:47:41,511 --> 00:47:44,351
Speaker 1: was going to be, and every little zig and zag

858
00:47:44,551 --> 00:47:48,230
Speaker 1: looked like it might decide the result. The process of

859
00:47:48,270 --> 00:47:51,750
Speaker 1: breaking the two thousand stalemate was, by turns chaotic and deadening.

860
00:47:52,710 --> 00:47:55,511
Speaker 1: More than anything, it was a collective act of frantic

861
00:47:55,551 --> 00:48:00,390
Speaker 1: improvisation conducted by a throne together cast of bureaucrats, partisans,

862
00:48:00,431 --> 00:48:04,511
Speaker 1: and white collar gladiators. Along the way, all kinds of

863
00:48:04,591 --> 00:48:09,671
Speaker 1: boundaries were scrambled, between lawyers and politicians, between truth and narrative,

864
00:48:10,270 --> 00:48:22,391
Speaker 1: between hypocrisy and hustle. At around midnight and November seventh,

865
00:48:22,710 --> 00:48:25,910
Speaker 1: seven hours before poles were set to open, Al Gore

866
00:48:25,991 --> 00:48:31,071
Speaker 1: was in Miami Beach leading one last rally. Gore may

867
00:48:31,071 --> 00:48:33,031
Speaker 1: have lost Alex Panelis and the rest of the Cuban

868
00:48:33,071 --> 00:48:36,830
Speaker 1: American community. He may have lost the environmentalists, but here

869
00:48:36,871 --> 00:48:40,391
Speaker 1: he was flanked by John bon Jovi, Stevie Wonder, and

870
00:48:40,471 --> 00:48:45,671
Speaker 1: Ben Affleck. Despite Elyon, despite Homestead, Gore's numbers in Florida

871
00:48:45,710 --> 00:48:48,351
Speaker 1: had him running dead, even with Bush, who was seventy

872
00:48:48,351 --> 00:48:50,751
Speaker 1: three degrees in the middle of the night, and Gore's

873
00:48:50,791 --> 00:48:59,551
Speaker 1: crowd was energized. Addressing his supporters, Gore tried to articulate

874
00:48:59,591 --> 00:49:02,071
Speaker 1: what was at stake in the two thousand election. He

875
00:49:02,151 --> 00:49:04,790
Speaker 1: spoke clearly and emphatically in a way that had often

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00:49:04,831 --> 00:49:06,111
Speaker 1: eluded him during the campaign.

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Speaker 8: We in this nation have the ability in this US

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00:49:10,311 --> 00:49:15,391
Speaker 8: election to make the United States of America what America

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00:49:15,551 --> 00:49:19,391
Speaker 8: is intended to be. I asked for your help and

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00:49:19,431 --> 00:49:21,511
Speaker 8: your vote, because I want to fight for you.

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00:49:21,911 --> 00:49:23,951
Speaker 11: God, bless you, Florida, Thank you.

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00:49:29,511 --> 00:49:32,431
Speaker 1: It was about to be over no matter what. In

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00:49:32,511 --> 00:49:35,511
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, the campaign would be done and the

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00:49:35,551 --> 00:49:41,591
Speaker 1: country would have a new president elect. Well probably, as

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00:49:41,631 --> 00:49:44,991
Speaker 1: Gore's top strategist saw it, there was a conceivable scenario

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00:49:45,031 --> 00:49:48,511
Speaker 1: that would take the game into overtime. Based on all

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00:49:48,551 --> 00:49:51,830
Speaker 1: the available data, it seemed possible that Gore would win

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00:49:51,871 --> 00:49:55,871
Speaker 1: the electoral College, but Bush would win the popular vote.

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00:49:56,230 --> 00:49:59,831
Speaker 1: The Gore team was worried if that happened, how is

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Speaker 1: the vice president going to convince the American people that

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00:50:02,750 --> 00:50:11,710
Speaker 1: his victory was legitimate? On the next episode of Fiasco,

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Speaker 1: how election analysts working with America's top news networks got

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00:50:15,750 --> 00:50:19,230
Speaker 1: the two thousand election wrong, not once, but twice in

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Speaker 1: a single night.

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Speaker 12: As much as we honestly believe that you don't want elections,

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00:50:22,951 --> 00:50:25,151
Speaker 12: so you have all the numbers, in some ways you

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00:50:25,151 --> 00:50:27,870
Speaker 12: can win or lose an election based on what.

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00:50:27,831 --> 00:50:31,551
Speaker 1: The TVs say. For a list of books, articles, and

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00:50:31,591 --> 00:50:34,631
Speaker 1: documentaries that we relied on in our research, click the

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00:50:34,671 --> 00:50:38,031
Speaker 1: link in the show notes. Fiasco is a production of

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00:50:38,071 --> 00:50:42,111
Speaker 1: Prolog projects, and it's distributed by Pushkin Industries. The show

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00:50:42,190 --> 00:50:46,151
Speaker 1: is produced by Andrew Parsons, Madeline kaplan Ula Kalpa and

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00:50:46,270 --> 00:50:50,631
Speaker 1: me Leon Nafock. Our script editor was Daniel Riley. Our

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00:50:50,750 --> 00:50:54,791
Speaker 1: editorial consultant was Camilla Hammer, and we received additional editorial

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00:50:54,831 --> 00:50:58,190
Speaker 1: support from Lisa Chase. Our music and score are by

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00:50:58,270 --> 00:51:02,190
Speaker 1: Nick Silvester of god Mode, with additional music from Alexis Quadrado.

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00:51:02,631 --> 00:51:06,031
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Spatial Relations. Our artwork is

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00:51:06,031 --> 00:51:09,390
Speaker 1: by Teddy Blanks at Chips and Why. Audio mixed by

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00:51:09,471 --> 00:51:12,991
Speaker 1: rob Byer, Michael Raphael and Johnny Vince Evans. A final

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00:51:13,031 --> 00:51:17,430
Speaker 1: Final V two special thanks to Luminary. Thanks to c SPAN,

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00:51:17,791 --> 00:51:21,151
Speaker 1: NBC News Archive, and CNN for the archival material you

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00:51:21,230 --> 00:51:25,511
Speaker 1: heard in today's show. Additional thanks to Laura Castro de Cortes,

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00:51:26,031 --> 00:51:31,230
Speaker 1: Tasha Cole, Oliver Bernstein, Monica Meyer, c R. Rooters, and

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00:51:31,270 --> 00:51:34,190
Speaker 1: Matt Mullenwag of WordPress dot com for letting us have

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00:51:34,270 --> 00:51:37,391
Speaker 1: the prolog project's domain name. Thanks for listening.