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Speaker 1: On Thanksgiving morning nineteen ninety nine, a Florida man from
Speaker 1: outside Fort Lauderdale named Donado Dalrymple went on an impulse
Speaker 1: fishing trip with his cousin. The water was choppy as
Speaker 1: they took their motorboat out into the Atlantic Ocean in
Speaker 1: search of Mahi mahi.
Speaker 2: My cousin he said, look for seaweed and debris, anything
Speaker 2: floating on the ocean. And I point out with my
Speaker 2: finger and I said, like that inner tube that's there.
Speaker 2: He goes, Yeah, let's go around that inner tube.
Speaker 1: Dalrymple was thirty nine years old and he wasn't much
Speaker 1: of a fisherman. He owned a house cleaning business, which
Speaker 1: he still does. Out on the water, he followed his
Speaker 1: cousin's lead as they scouted for a good place to
Speaker 1: throw out their lines. Then dal Rymple saw something.
Speaker 2: We were about twenty five yards from the inner tube,
Speaker 2: never that close to it, and I told my cousin,
Speaker 2: I said, there looks like there's somebody on there, but
Speaker 2: they look like they're dead.
Speaker 1: When dal Rymple got closer, he noticed a tiny hand
Speaker 1: moving in the inner tube. His cousin jumped into the
Speaker 1: water to investigate.
Speaker 2: My cousin's in the water and he's screaming, it's a baby,
Speaker 2: and he's pushing up and I'm leaning over, almost falling
Speaker 2: into the water. That's how rough the seas were, and
Speaker 2: I snatched what we know today as Ellon Gonzalez.
Speaker 1: Eleon Gonzalez was five years old. His mother had to
Speaker 1: bring him to the United States from Cuba in a
Speaker 1: small aluminum boat. He had just barely survived the journey.
Speaker 1: His mother drowned along with ten other people. After dal
Speaker 1: Rymple and his cousin brought Elean ashore, they delivered him
Speaker 1: to the Coastguard. When it was discovered that Eleon had
Speaker 1: a great uncle living in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami,
Speaker 1: the boy was sent to stay with him and his family.
Speaker 1: Eleon's story was seen as a miracle by some in
Speaker 1: the local Cuban community.
Speaker 3: He was highlighted in the local news. This little kid survived,
Speaker 3: the mother died, everybody died.
Speaker 1: This is Carlos Saladriguez, a Miami businessman who fled Cuba
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty one. Because of his deep ties to
Speaker 1: the city's Cuban American community. Saladriguez was able to watch
Speaker 1: the Elian Gonzales ordeal unfold from close range.
Speaker 3: There were rumors circulating around that dolphins had saved the
Speaker 3: kid from drowning and from being eaten by charge.
Speaker 4: He was safe by God, but the dolphins.
Speaker 5: Is a miracle.
Speaker 1: A few days after Eleon's rescue, his father back in
Speaker 1: Cuba made it known that his son had been taken
Speaker 1: to America without his permission.
Speaker 6: The father, back in their hometown of Cardinis keeps asking
Speaker 6: his son when he's coming back, and demanding his return
Speaker 6: by the United States.
Speaker 1: The custody battle instantly ballooned into a diplomatic crisis, as
Speaker 1: Cuba's President Fidel Castro started putting pressure on the US
Speaker 1: to send Elyon back.
Speaker 7: Now to the young refug j caught in the custody
Speaker 7: dispute between the US and Cuba today.
Speaker 3: And that sort of became an opportunity to hidelight the
Speaker 3: plight of the Cuban victims of the communists, and all
Speaker 3: of that, he had all the qualities of becoming a
Speaker 3: good political football.
Speaker 6: Relatives here claim Eleon's father is being pressured by the
Speaker 6: Cuban government to ask for his son's return.
Speaker 1: Miami Dade County was home to six hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand Cuban Americans, many of them first generation exiles. These
Speaker 1: were people who hated Cuba's communist regime with a passion
Speaker 1: to them. It didn't make a difference what Eleon's father
Speaker 1: or Fidel Castro said. The boy's life would obviously be
Speaker 1: better if he was allowed to grow up in America.
Speaker 1: The US government did not see it that way. In
Speaker 1: January of two thousand, six weeks into Elyon's stay in Miami,
Speaker 1: the Clinton administration announced that he would have to be
Speaker 1: sent back to Cuba.
Speaker 6: The US Attorney General Janet Reno says the child should
Speaker 6: be returned to his father in Cuba as soon as possible,
Speaker 6: especially in light of the hardships he endured coming to
Speaker 6: this country.
Speaker 1: The news did not go over well in Little Havana.
Speaker 8: Dozens of Cuban Americans were arrested while protesting the US
Speaker 8: government's decision to return Eleon Gonzalez to his father in Cuba.
Speaker 1: A standoff ensued as Eleon's Miami relatives looked for ways
Speaker 1: to keep him in the country.
Speaker 3: Because it was a child, he sort of brought down
Speaker 3: the political issue and gave it a human face and
Speaker 3: the face of a of a young child who lost
Speaker 3: his mother. And it just became a very emotional and
Speaker 3: deeply emotional issue, and it consumed the Quean American community
Speaker 3: into that drama.
Speaker 1: As the custody battle over Eleon dragged on, many Cuban
Speaker 1: Americans in Miami came to despise the Clinton administration for
Speaker 1: its handling of the case.
Speaker 9: President Clinton, have you no shame.
Speaker 1: But in the end, it was not Bill Clinton who
Speaker 1: had to answer for the Elyon case. It was the
Speaker 1: guy running to replace him.
Speaker 10: Vice President Al Gore today formally declared himself a candidate
Speaker 10: for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Speaker 7: Today I announced that I am a candidate for President
Speaker 7: of the United States.
Speaker 1: Al Gore was five months into his presidential bid when DONALDO.
Speaker 1: Dalrymple and his cousin pulled Eleon Gonzales out of the water.
Speaker 1: There are those who believe that Gore's fate was sealed
Speaker 1: right then and there, that the Elyon controversy placed the
Speaker 1: vice president on the path to inevitable defeat in Florida.
Speaker 1: But as you're about to hear, the real story of
Speaker 1: Gore's loss in two thousand was messier, richer, and harder
Speaker 1: to arrange in a straight line of cause and effect.
Speaker 1: And none of it could have happened anywhere but Florida.
Speaker 1: I'm Leon Nafok from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries. This
Speaker 1: is fiasco Bush v.
Speaker 11: Gore.
Speaker 12: The rice with the White House is incredibly close.
Speaker 1: It's election like we haven't seen in decades.
Speaker 10: Uncharted Territorge Tonight, the outcome and history itself on Home
Speaker 10: and the battled ground is Florida.
Speaker 1: Episode one, Homestead. What happened in Florida before everything else
Speaker 1: that happened in Florida. I'll just tell you now. Al
Speaker 1: Gore lost Florida to George W. Bush by a margin
Speaker 1: of five hundred and thirty seven votes out of nearly
Speaker 1: six million cast. The outcome played out in slow motion
Speaker 1: over thirty six days, as vote totals across the state
Speaker 1: came under dispute, Hundreds of thousands of ballots were recounted,
Speaker 1: and the two campaigns went to war with each other
Speaker 1: in the courtrooms of Tallahassee. Now, many people believe, quite
Speaker 1: reasonably that Gore lost the two thousand election because of
Speaker 1: the way the recount played out in Florida. But the
Speaker 1: roots of Gore's defeat can be traced back to the
Speaker 1: earliest days of the campaign itself. Because what's striking when
Speaker 1: you think back on two thousand is that, in most respects,
Speaker 1: the fundamentals of the race were strongly in Gore's favor.
Speaker 8: Now, Governor Bush likes to say that we should go
Speaker 8: back to the policies of eight years ago.
Speaker 7: I think that reflects perhaps a fuzzy memory.
Speaker 13: This is the asan al Gore's deck, as it were,
Speaker 13: the strength of the economy.
Speaker 11: It's probably too late for George W.
Speaker 14: Bush.
Speaker 1: He had been vice president for nearly eight prosperous years.
Speaker 1: The economy was booming, crime was down, the budget was balanced,
Speaker 1: and the country was at peace. Yes, Bill Clinton's sex
Speaker 1: scandal and impeachment created a serious challenge for Gore, but
Speaker 1: on paper, at least, it should not have been that
Speaker 1: hard for him to convince voters to stay with the
Speaker 1: winning formula.
Speaker 7: Bill Clinton worked hard to get this economy right, and
Speaker 7: I'm pledging to you here today, i am not gonna
Speaker 7: let the other side wreck it and take it away
Speaker 7: from us. We're gonna keep the prosperity going.
Speaker 1: So what happened? What was it about Al Gore and
Speaker 1: his candidacy and the way he ran his campaign that
Speaker 1: made the race so incredibly close? The general election was
Speaker 1: ten months away when the Clinton administration announced that Elian
Speaker 1: Gonzales would have to be sent home to Cuba. The
Speaker 1: situation placed Gore in political quicksand if he sided with
Speaker 1: his own administration, he would surely forfeit the crucial Cuban
Speaker 1: American vote in Miami to his Republican opponent. But if
Speaker 1: he broke with the White House and pushed for l
Speaker 1: On to stay in America, he would alienate his own party.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Gore was never going to have
Speaker 1: an easy time winning the Cuban American vote. For decades,
Speaker 1: the perception had been that Democrats were soft on Castro
Speaker 1: and soft on communism. In nineteen eighty, about eighty percent
Speaker 1: of the Cuban American vote in Dade County went from
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan and in nineteen eighty eight, the same percentage
Speaker 1: voted for George HW. Bush.
Speaker 14: President Bush is a beacon of hope for the millions
Speaker 14: seeing Cuba who want liberty and democracy. President Bush has
Speaker 14: shown his loyalty to the Q and people.
Speaker 1: But despite that history, al Gore had reason to be optimistic.
Speaker 1: For one thing, he had an ally in the powerful
Speaker 1: mayor of Miami Dade County, Alex Penelis. The rare Cuban
Speaker 1: American politician who also a Democrat.
Speaker 15: Alex Panels has propelled himself to the center of South
Speaker 15: Florida's political stage. He's making himself heard far beyond his state.
Speaker 1: Panellus was considered a rising star in national politics. In
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, he was named America's sexiest politician by
Speaker 1: People magazine.
Speaker 15: With two million constituents, he is Florida's second most powerful
Speaker 15: politician after the governor, and some say the most influential
Speaker 15: Hispanic politician in America.
Speaker 1: In addition to Penelus, Gore owe his chances in Little
Speaker 1: Havana to Bill Clinton, who had made a steady and
Speaker 1: concerted effort over the course of his presidency to make
Speaker 1: inroads with the Cuban American community. Here's journalist Michael Grunwald,
Speaker 1: who wrote about Clinton's courtship of the Cuban American elite
Speaker 1: in his book The Swamp.
Speaker 5: And Bill Clinton is a political animal. You know, he's
Speaker 5: a precinct by precinct vote counter, and he knows the demographics,
Speaker 5: and he knows who matters in each demographic. And he
Speaker 5: recognized that Cuban American voters who had been traditionally extremely
Speaker 5: Republican could be made somewhat less Republican, and in Florida,
Speaker 5: margins really matter.
Speaker 1: The charm offensive dated all the way back to Clinton's
Speaker 1: first presidential campaign. During that spring of nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: Clinton voiced his support for a hardline bill to intensify
Speaker 1: the Cuban embargo, a bill that George H. W. Bush
Speaker 1: initially declined to support. Then the following August, when the
Speaker 1: Category five storm Hurricane Andrew caused twenty five billion dollars
Speaker 1: in damage across South Florida, Clinton was presented with a
Speaker 1: chance to build ties with the Cuban American power brokers
Speaker 1: who would be steering the recovery effort. One of the
Speaker 1: worst hit areas in Hurricane Andrew's path was a small
Speaker 1: city in Dade County called Homestead. Before the storm, the
Speaker 1: city's economy had revolved around the federally owned Homestead Air
Speaker 1: Force Base.
Speaker 16: Homestead received the most damaged.
Speaker 17: Witnesses say almost every building was damaged, many destroyed.
Speaker 1: Homestead Air Force Base was almost completely destroyed in the storm.
Speaker 1: The base had been there since nineteen forty two and
Speaker 1: had played an important role in military relations between Washington
Speaker 1: and Havana. When more than a thousand prisoners of war
Speaker 1: returned to the United States after being captured during the
Speaker 1: failed Bay of Pigs invasion, they landed at Homestead.
Speaker 18: It certainly looked like a happy New Year to the
Speaker 18: eleven hundred and thirteen captives returning from Cuba. Homestead Air
Speaker 18: Force Base, Florida was their first taste of freedom after
Speaker 18: being Castro's prisoners for twenty months.
Speaker 1: In Clinton, on a campaign swing through South Florida not
Speaker 1: long after Hurricane Andrew visited the ruins of the Homestead
Speaker 1: Air Force Base and made a promise that if elected president,
Speaker 1: he would use the power of the federal government to
Speaker 1: revitalize the area. Here's Michael Grunwald again.
Speaker 5: So he had a sort of kitchen cabinet of some
Speaker 5: prominent Cuban American advisors, and they let him know early
Speaker 5: that Homestead Air Force Base was a good issue, not
Speaker 5: just on the merits where it seemed like the right
Speaker 5: thing to do to rebuild a destroyed air Force base,
Speaker 5: but that it would be a way of sort of
Speaker 5: signaling culturally that he cared about South Florida generally and
Speaker 5: the sort of Cuban American slice of South Florida specifically.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety four, a group of Cuban American investors
Speaker 1: unveiled the proposal to convert Homestead Air Force Base into
Speaker 1: a commercial airport. The proposal promised to turn Homestead into
Speaker 1: a hub of international travel, but in order to get
Speaker 1: off the ground, it needed the Clinton administration's approval.
Speaker 5: It was federal land, you know, as a US air
Speaker 5: Force base, and the Pentagon was going to be running
Speaker 5: the show in terms of what to do with this land.
Speaker 5: It was going to be a federal process, and you know,
Speaker 5: the White House clearly was going to play a role
Speaker 5: in directing the Pentagon which direction it wanted to go.
Speaker 1: The promise of a brand new airport in Homestead gave
Speaker 1: Clinton in an opening to forge political alliances with the
Speaker 1: Cuban American power brokers who are pushing for it.
Speaker 5: One way to show some of the Cuban elites that
Speaker 5: he was on their side was to really emphasize his
Speaker 5: support for this airport. He knew it was something that
Speaker 5: they wanted, and he knew that those business and political
Speaker 5: leaders had a fair amount of influence with making actual
Speaker 5: votes and dollars happen.
Speaker 1: All of this behind the scenes work paid off. In
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, Clinton managed to get between thirty five
Speaker 1: and forty four percent of Miami's Cuban American vote. This
Speaker 1: astonishing result helped Clinton become the first Democrat to win
Speaker 1: Florida in twenty years. As Al Gore looked ahead to
Speaker 1: two thousand, it seemed possible that the Cuban community's goodwill
Speaker 1: towards Clinton would carry over to him. But then Elian
Speaker 1: Gonzales happened.
Speaker 19: We will not forget Elyon, we will not forget his mother,
Speaker 19: and we will not live peaceably and until we see freedom.
Speaker 1: Gore initially tried to step lightly around the Elyon issue.
Speaker 1: I would insist, he told reporters upon due process of
Speaker 1: law within the appropriate tribunal. On the substance, Gore was
Speaker 1: putting distance between himself and the Clinton administration by saying
Speaker 1: that the question of custody should not be handled by
Speaker 1: federal immigration authorities. But as far as Bold stands go,
Speaker 1: it left something to be desired and did not win
Speaker 1: him a ton of credit. In Little Havana, George W. Bush,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, spoke about the Elyon issue simply
Speaker 1: and freely. The boy should just be given US citizenship,
Speaker 1: he said, and his father should be allowed to come
Speaker 1: to the United States and join him.
Speaker 10: The man ought to be brought to the United States,
Speaker 10: given a whiff of freedom so he can see how
Speaker 10: wonderful our country is.
Speaker 8: I want to say something about Cuban our hemisphere.
Speaker 1: As anti Castro demonstrations flared around Miami Eli, young Gonzales
Speaker 1: settled into a strange life under the glare of international
Speaker 1: media attention.
Speaker 10: Ellon today trying to roller skate outside his house in
Speaker 10: Little Havana in its stand off with the government and
Speaker 10: the boy's father.
Speaker 1: A few days after his sixth birthday, his family took
Speaker 1: him to Disney World, where he was followed around by
Speaker 1: a pack of reporters and sheriff's deputies while people chanted
Speaker 1: his name.
Speaker 16: The case of the smiling six year old is so
Speaker 16: entangled in American politics that even his new puppy came
Speaker 16: from a member of Congress.
Speaker 1: Donardo Dalrymple meanwhile made regular visits to the house where
Speaker 1: Ellion was staying, driving there most days after work to
Speaker 1: spend time with the boy and his family.
Speaker 2: I just felt that I wanted to see this child again.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not every day that you pull a
Speaker 2: child out from the ocean, and I want to know
Speaker 2: what was going to happen with his life.
Speaker 20: What your name, sir, My name is Donado dal Rymple.
Speaker 1: Dalrymple would regularly give interviews to the reporters camped out
Speaker 1: in front of Ellon's house.
Speaker 20: To see this gift of God. I believe that's what
Speaker 20: he really is. To hang on the water for that
Speaker 20: many days. I don't know how long it was, but
Speaker 20: I mean, he's definitely a gift of God, and I'm
Speaker 20: really privileged to be now to him.
Speaker 21: That's awesome, Thank you, that is awesome.
Speaker 22: What a beautiful kid.
Speaker 1: Soon, Dalrymple became a media sensation in his own right.
Speaker 23: So who is Donando Dalrymple, the man widely known as
Speaker 23: the Fisherman.
Speaker 1: In the Washington Post story headlined a Fisherman in his
Speaker 1: fifteen Minutes, Dalrymple was cast as the Miami equivalent of kato' kalan,
Speaker 1: the actor who lived in OJ Simpson's guest house and
Speaker 1: briefly became famous after Simpson was charged with murder. In
Speaker 1: the Post story, Dalrymple was described signing autographs and talking
Speaker 1: about how Howard Stern had mentioned him on the radio.
Speaker 1: His own cousin, the same one who helped pull elli
Speaker 1: On out of the water, was quoted in the story
Speaker 1: saying that Dalrymple was a desperate man looking for publicity.
Speaker 7: He says, you're.
Speaker 19: Using the child for fame and glory, and that you
Speaker 19: believed from the start a child should be with his father.
Speaker 24: I like to tell my cousin I love him very
Speaker 24: much and that it's very interesting, h how he's making
Speaker 24: these accusations. I've never made an accusation towards him or anybody,
Speaker 24: so I don't know where he's coming with that.
Speaker 1: Dal Rymple, who was born in Poughkeepsie, says he came
Speaker 1: to identify with a Cuban American cause.
Speaker 2: They embraced me as one of their own. And I
Speaker 2: listened to literally hundreds of stories of older men that
Speaker 2: were in political prisons in Cuba and they came here.
Speaker 2: And this is what made me see life a little
Speaker 2: bit different. Is when they seen Elion, they seen themselves.
Speaker 1: Dal Rymple absorbed a great deal from his new Cuban
Speaker 1: American friends, including their resentment towards Clinton and their view
Speaker 1: of al Gore as complicit in the administration's policies.
Speaker 2: I just thought that he was one and the same
Speaker 2: with him. They served together, and those decisions were made together.
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton just wasn't the be all end all. I
Speaker 2: mean he as a vice president, yet they have to
Speaker 2: consult each other. And if al Gore thought different, he
Speaker 2: might have stood up and said, you know, I don't
Speaker 2: think this is right.
Speaker 1: That winter Gore watched that the Clinton administration became more
Speaker 1: and more radioactive in Little Havana.
Speaker 4: I used to be a Democrat up to the time
Speaker 4: of the Leon Gonzalez incident. My loyalty did not belong
Speaker 4: in the Democratic Party. I believe that our government, the
Speaker 4: United acting in the best interests of all Americans.
Speaker 1: In March, the Cuban American National Foundation announced that it
Speaker 1: would work actively against Gore's election. Meanwhile, on the Cuban
Speaker 1: exile radio station Radio Mambi, an influential commentator named Armando
Speaker 1: Perez Rua, sometimes referred to as the Cuban American Rush Limbaugh,
Speaker 1: called on his listeners to punish their enemies with their votes.
Speaker 1: Even the mayor of Miami Dade County, Cuban American Democrat
Speaker 1: Alex Panelis, took a hard line against the Clinton administration.
Speaker 9: And if the Justice Department's handling of this matter, if
Speaker 9: their continued provocation leads to civil unrest and violence, we
Speaker 9: are holding the federal government responsible and specific Lee Janet
Speaker 9: Reno and the President of the United States.
Speaker 16: To some, Panella seemed to be inviting trouble when he
Speaker 16: said local police would not participate if the government removed Elyon.
Speaker 1: Panellis's aggressive stance was bad news for Gore, who had
Speaker 1: been counting on the mayor's enthusiastic endorsement in his quest
Speaker 1: to win over Cuban American voters. Penelos's support was Gore's
Speaker 1: best chance to convince people that he was his own
Speaker 1: man and that he shouldn't be held responsible for the
Speaker 1: sins of the Clinton administration. On March thirtieth, two thousand,
Speaker 1: Gore made a dramatic bid to distance himself from Clinton
Speaker 1: on the Elyon issue. He did so by coming out
Speaker 1: in favor of proposed legislation that would allow Eleon to
Speaker 1: stay in the United States while his case was adjudicated.
Speaker 10: The Vice President stepped elbows deep into the Elian Gonzales
Speaker 10: controversy quite suddenly.
Speaker 25: This afternoon, Vice President Gore, now running for president, said
Speaker 25: that Congress should change the law.
Speaker 10: That seems to put Gore in direct conflict with his
Speaker 10: own administration, which says the fight over Elion is an
Speaker 10: immigration issue, not the custody battle.
Speaker 1: Gore's move looked transparently cynical. Republicans and Democrats alike criticized
Speaker 1: him as a craven political chameleon.
Speaker 25: Already some Democrats, Congresswoman Maxine Waters on our air earlier
Speaker 25: when this news broke, said she would reconsider her support
Speaker 25: for the Vice president.
Speaker 17: I was just overwhelmed, surprised, blindsided. I didn't think he
Speaker 17: would go so far as to support right wing legislation
Speaker 17: that would give him permanent status, Nor did I expect.
Speaker 1: A few days later, Gore went on The Today Show
Speaker 1: to clarify his positions.
Speaker 25: Mister Vice President, good morning, Good morning, Matt, how are you.
Speaker 11: I'm fine.
Speaker 22: Thanks.
Speaker 11: It seems like we're about.
Speaker 1: But when he was pushed on what he actually believed,
Speaker 1: Gore seemed to equivocate.
Speaker 25: With all due respect, you haven't answered my question.
Speaker 1: Should he be given custody of his son if he
Speaker 1: arrives in the United States?
Speaker 25: If the father says on Free Soil that he believes
Speaker 25: that the son should go back to Cuba with him, that,
Speaker 25: of course, is likely to be determinative and will be determinative.
Speaker 1: The Washington Post ran a story the next day under
Speaker 1: the headline, Gore struggles to explain his position on Elyon.
Speaker 1: The worst part was that Gore's break with Clinton didn't
Speaker 1: even seem to win him any points. One month after
Speaker 1: his last ditch effort to get on the right side
Speaker 1: of the Elyon issue, the Chicago Tribune quoted one Miami
Speaker 1: resident saying that she wouldn't vote Democratic if Gore came
Speaker 1: to Florida with a Cuban flag in his hands. That
Speaker 1: more or less was where things stood. As Attorney General
Speaker 1: Janet Reno was conducting final negotiations with Eleon's Miami relatives.
Speaker 1: The question at this point was not whether Eleon would
Speaker 1: be sent back to his father, but how.
Speaker 6: And when officials here say they're determined to reunite the
Speaker 6: father with his son, they describe Attorney General Reno as
Speaker 6: quote leaning toward action.
Speaker 26: And if the Miami family resists, well, the government is
Speaker 26: ready to plan to deal with that as well.
Speaker 1: On the night of April twenty second, TV crews, hoping
Speaker 1: to be on hand for whatever was going to happen,
Speaker 1: staked out Eleon's house from row of tents across the street.
Speaker 14: As a crowd of Eddie Castro hardliners maintains its vigil
Speaker 14: outside the Miami house.
Speaker 1: Inside, Carlo Saladriguez, the Miami businessman you heard at the
Speaker 1: top of the show, was helping Ellion's family with the negotiations.
Speaker 3: You got to think of this simple house. He had
Speaker 3: a little living room, a couple of bedrooms, and in
Speaker 3: the back of the house was a family room in
Speaker 3: a kitchen. That's where we were sitting. In that family room,
Speaker 3: and in front of the house, there were hundreds of
Speaker 3: people demonstrating and there were media station even with towers
Speaker 3: built so that they could film from higher up, and
Speaker 3: mean everything was set up for a media show.
Speaker 26: And so for now, much of the attention remains squarely
Speaker 26: on that small house in the section of Miami they
Speaker 26: call Little Havana, and the family inside that does not
Speaker 26: seem anxious to give up that little boy.
Speaker 1: DONALDO. Dalrymple was at his home in Broward County when
Speaker 1: he heard on the news that Elyon might be seized
Speaker 1: by federal agents at any moment. It was around ten
Speaker 1: o'clock at night, but Dalrymple got in his car and
Speaker 1: drove the roughly thirty miles to Miami. He made his
Speaker 1: way past the reporters and into the house where Saladriguez
Speaker 1: and lawyers for Eleon's relatives conducted negotiations, and Eleon was
Speaker 1: trying to fall asleep in his race car bed. At
Speaker 1: five pin fifteen in the morning, three white vans carrying
Speaker 1: a team of federal agents pulled up next to the house.
Speaker 2: There was a battering ram at the door, and people
Speaker 2: were screaming. There was mayhem. There was so much confusion
Speaker 2: going on, and I thought to myself, I'm dreaming.
Speaker 1: Dalrymple, who had been asleep on the living room couch,
Speaker 1: stirred awake as twenty heavily armed agents broke through the
Speaker 1: chain link gate in the front yard, sprang teargas and
Speaker 1: yelling for the gathered crowd to disperse. Dalrymple grabbed Eleon
Speaker 1: and ran into a closet as agents stormed the house
Speaker 1: and demanded to know where the boy was. When one
Speaker 1: of the agents pointed a gun at the closet where
Speaker 1: Dalrymple was holding Eleon in his arms, a news photographer
Speaker 1: captured the moment in an instantly iconic snapshot.
Speaker 2: And this was occurring within seconds. A woman appears in
Speaker 2: the room and right away I handed Ellon over to
Speaker 2: this woman and they all I heard this word I heard,
Speaker 2: and it's clear as I'm talking to you right now.
Speaker 2: I heard bingo and they ran out.
Speaker 10: They got the boy.
Speaker 13: They've got the boy.
Speaker 11: They took the boy. They're got the boy.
Speaker 13: Three minutes.
Speaker 26: In three minutes, six year old elli On Gunzanes, dressed
Speaker 26: in a T shirt, draped in fee was gone.
Speaker 1: Dell Rymple ran after the agents, carrying eli On to
Speaker 1: the van parkin street.
Speaker 2: I wanted to go in this vehicle with them to
Speaker 2: wherever they were taking him, just so he'd have a
Speaker 2: sense of comfort. He knew me from the ocean, he
Speaker 2: knew me from for months playing down there with him.
Speaker 2: You know, I was thinking in my mind, how did
Speaker 2: this all go wrong? One minute we saved them, and
Speaker 2: now they're coming in with guns to take them out.
Speaker 2: It was just so ugly and horrible. But they wouldn't
Speaker 2: let me in that vehicle, so I just I lingered
Speaker 2: behind with the rest of everybody else as they sped
Speaker 2: off down the road.
Speaker 1: Soon, Elian Gonzalez was in a US Marshall's plane, destined
Speaker 1: for Washington, where his father would be waiting for him.
Speaker 1: It was just after six am. As the plane took
Speaker 1: off from Homestead Air Force Base. One of the federal
Speaker 1: agents keeping Elion company opened the window shade next to
Speaker 1: him so that he could see the sunrise over Florida.
Speaker 1: In the aftermath of the raid, the Cuban American community
Speaker 1: in Miami was left reeling, and their rage at the
Speaker 1: Clinton administration intensified. Here is Carlos Saladriguez again.
Speaker 3: The raid was the slap in the face. It was
Speaker 3: sort of the hurt, the wound that took a long
Speaker 3: time to heal. It was the snatching of this kid
Speaker 3: from her mist that subtle became painful.
Speaker 1: Clinton would never live it down, neither would al Gore.
Speaker 1: The slogan that immediately took hold in Miami was we
Speaker 1: will remember. In November, days before the election, Armando Perez Rua,
Speaker 1: the Radio Mambi commentator, appeared with George W. Bush at
Speaker 1: a rally in Florida and reminded the crowd to think
Speaker 1: of Elion when they saw Gore's name on the ballot.
Speaker 3: He was guilty by association. I don't think there is
Speaker 3: another instance in the history of the United States where
Speaker 3: you can look at one single evant and see clearly
Speaker 3: that he decided the presidency of the United States.
Speaker 1: The idea that the raid on Elian Gonzales cost al
Speaker 1: Gore the two thousand election hardened into conventional wisdom November seven,
Speaker 1: when the vice president only received about half as many
Speaker 1: Cuban American votes in Florida as Clinton did in ninety six.
Speaker 1: But there was a second controversy that played out in
Speaker 1: Florida during the campaign, one that's much less well known
Speaker 1: two decades later, but which was arguably no less decisive
Speaker 1: in shaping the outcome of the race. This second controversy
Speaker 1: was intertwined with the Elion case in tantalizing ways, and
Speaker 1: Gore's handling of it was strikingly similar. Yet in some respects,
Speaker 1: this one cut even deeper, both because it concerned an
Speaker 1: issue that was uniquely close to Gore's heart and because
Speaker 1: it lost him votes to a candidate who wasn't even
Speaker 1: trying to win.
Speaker 16: Suddenly it's a two front war against George Bush and
Speaker 16: a new headache, consumer advocate, Ralph Nader.
Speaker 1: While George W. Bush nibbled at Gore's margins on the
Speaker 1: right and in the center, Ralph Nader, representing the Green Party,
Speaker 1: attacked him from the left.
Speaker 21: Don't worry about George doy Buss. The problem is Al Gore.
Speaker 21: We're going to pull Al Gore into progressive politics, and
Speaker 21: he's not going to be pulled. He's going to lose,
Speaker 21: and his Democratic Party's going to lose more and more
Speaker 21: year after year.
Speaker 1: Nader had been America's pre eminent consumer protection crusaders since
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five, when he published Unsafe at Any Speed,
Speaker 1: an indictment of the auto industry. Later, he found success
Speaker 1: lobbying Congress to pass the Clean Water Act, the Whistleblower
Speaker 1: Protection Act, and the Freedom of Information Act, But despite
Speaker 1: encouragement from his legions of fans, it was not until
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties that Nator decided to run for president.
Speaker 22: Because the inequities of power lead to huge inequities of wealth,
Speaker 22: which lead to huge inequities of income, which lead to
Speaker 22: cruelty to the children in our country and their parents who.
Speaker 11: Care got a decent paying job.
Speaker 1: Nader's goal in two thousand was to win just five
Speaker 1: percent of the vote nationwide. That was the threshold for
Speaker 1: securing public funding for the green Park in future elections.
Speaker 1: But Nader's visibility throughout the race belied his modest ambitions.
Speaker 1: By presenting himself as a fresh alternative to a corrupt
Speaker 1: and self perpetuating two party system, he attracted the support
Speaker 1: of young people, disaffected Democrats, and celebrities like Bill Murray,
Speaker 1: Susan Sarandon, Anita Franco and Eddie Vedder.
Speaker 3: All these other.
Speaker 2: Rallies that Ralph's done with ten thousand people that hasn't
Speaker 2: got any attention.
Speaker 18: It's going to stop tonight because they can't ignore this.
Speaker 2: May I love my commenture because my.
Speaker 1: Computer While Bush and Gore held fundraising dinners for millionaires.
Speaker 1: Nator sold cheap tickets to massive rallies at venues like
Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden, and promoted the idea that Gore and Bush,
Speaker 1: for all their supposed differences, were actually cut from the
Speaker 1: same corporatist cloth.
Speaker 11: Third world country.
Speaker 22: Strike a harder bargain with these multinational corporations than we do.
Speaker 11: You're gonna put a stuff to this once and for all.
Speaker 2: With at.
Speaker 1: Gore supporter saw Nader as a unique danger, a candidate
Speaker 1: who could siphon just enough votes from the Democratic ticket
Speaker 1: and key swing states that Bush could win them in
Speaker 1: a squeaker Nader rejected this argument at the time, and
Speaker 1: he still does.
Speaker 13: Ralph Nader, the spoiler in two thousand, has no nuanced
Speaker 13: the way that media covers these things, and they get
Speaker 13: away with it by using the words spoiler.
Speaker 1: This is Ralph Nader speaking to me about his role
Speaker 1: in the two thousand election.
Speaker 13: It was not an exciting election. You had boring candidates.
Speaker 13: Al Gore is very boring candidate. George W. Bush was
Speaker 13: a boring candidate. Somebody counted once that Bush and Gore
Speaker 13: agreed with each other over twenty times in one presidential debate.
Speaker 1: Nator had known Gore for decades, and back in the
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties he had considered him an ally, but
Speaker 1: the Al Gore running for president in two thousand did
Speaker 1: not strike Nader as a man who deserved theive vote well.
Speaker 13: Because he was a front runner, he was too cautious,
Speaker 13: and because he was too cautious, he didn't take pioneering stands,
Speaker 13: and when napoles started closing in on him, he couldn't
Speaker 13: make himself into the original Al Gore. He didn't know
Speaker 13: who he was at any given time.
Speaker 1: This was a common knock on Gore that he was
Speaker 1: a shape shifter who didn't have a core identity and
Speaker 1: took all his cues from polsters and political advisors. Early
Speaker 1: in the campaign, he came in for criticism and ridicule
Speaker 1: for hiring the feminist writer Naomi Wolf to serve as
Speaker 1: an image consultant for fifteen thousand dollars a month. Even
Speaker 1: a lot of Democrats saw Gore as inauthentic, tepid, and gauzy.
Speaker 1: Here's Joan Walsh, who served as news editor at Salon
Speaker 1: during the two thousand election and wrote what is arguably
Speaker 1: the definitive analysis of Gore's political defects.
Speaker 12: During the campaign, he would kind of pick up on
Speaker 12: issues and drop them. He really couldn't find a theme,
Speaker 12: a defining set of themes and stick to them, and
Speaker 12: all of these things I think kind of came together
Speaker 12: to create this image of a guy who didn't know
Speaker 12: what he stood for.
Speaker 1: Walsher members coming across an old photograph of Gore dressed
Speaker 1: up for Halloween as Frankenstein's Monster, it just was.
Speaker 12: Like, dude, don't do this, because this image of this
Speaker 12: guy who's been stitched together and you know, parts that
Speaker 12: don't fit and clothes that don't fit in bolts, and
Speaker 12: you know, some of it was just the stiffness of
Speaker 12: his persona, but also this sense that he had literally
Speaker 12: been stitched together.
Speaker 1: For a small but significant subset of the Florida electorate.
Speaker 1: There was no better example of Gore's ideological wishy washiness
Speaker 1: than his stance on a fairly obscure issue dating back
Speaker 1: to the nineteen ninety two campaign. That issue was the
Speaker 1: proposed redevelopment of Homestead Air Force Base. Homestead, as your recall,
Speaker 1: was the city in Miami Dade County that was destroyed
Speaker 1: by Hurricane Andrew. On the campaign that year, Bill Clinton
Speaker 1: vowed to help rebuild the base and revive the local economy,
Speaker 1: a commitment that endeared him to a group of Cuban
Speaker 1: American power brokers in Miami who wanted to replace Homestead
Speaker 1: Air Force Base with a new international airport. Here again
Speaker 1: is reporter Michael Grunwald.
Speaker 5: This was an incredibly lucrative opportunity. This was going to
Speaker 5: be a massive construction project. The idea was that it
Speaker 5: was going to revitalize this area that was pretty downtrodden
Speaker 5: even when the air base was functioning, and was in
Speaker 5: real trouble now that the air base had been ripped
Speaker 5: to shreds.
Speaker 1: Among the most enthusiastic backers of the airport plan was
Speaker 1: the Mayor of Miami Dade County, Alex Penelis.
Speaker 23: Homestead Air Force Base has become all things to all people.
Speaker 23: Miami Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas, as well as South
Speaker 23: Miami Dade's political and business interests, support a commercial airport,
Speaker 23: toutas bringing in thirty eight thousand jobs and a billion
Speaker 23: dollars to the economy.
Speaker 1: There was a problem, though, Homestead was situated in between
Speaker 1: two protected nature preserves Biscayne National Park to the east
Speaker 1: and the Everglades National Park to the west. To environmentalists
Speaker 1: in Florida, the idea of building an airport so close
Speaker 1: to these precious lands was obscene.
Speaker 5: When Harry Truman established Everglades part and his speech was
Speaker 5: about how this is going to be a place of solitude,
Speaker 5: a place where Americans can come and appreciate the quiet
Speaker 5: of nature. It's this kind of lonely quiet place is
Speaker 5: part of what makes the Everglades the Everglades. I think
Speaker 5: the idea that right on its doorstep there was going
Speaker 5: to be this massive commercial airport seemed like it would
Speaker 5: really take away from the uniqueness of the Everglades.
Speaker 1: All through the nineties, as the airport plan slowly advanced
Speaker 1: through layers of local and federal bureaucracy, environmentalists in Florida
Speaker 1: fought it however they could.
Speaker 23: The Sierra Club is launching a new campaign against the development.
Speaker 23: Today's full page newspaper add his own the opening salvo,
Speaker 23: and it is promising a protracted court battle if necessary.
Speaker 1: Environmentalists in Florida had every reason to expect that during
Speaker 1: the two thousand campaign, al Gore would come out against
Speaker 1: the Homestead Airport plan. Even putting aside his overall record
Speaker 1: on the environment, Gore had been a driving force behind
Speaker 1: major legislation to fund Evergwaye's restoration. And yet whenever Gore
Speaker 1: was asked about Homestead on the campaign trail, he seemed
Speaker 1: only to hem in haw. Instead of just saying that
Speaker 1: the airport was a terrible idea, Gore would have his
Speaker 1: spokesman issue wan statements about how it wasn't appropriate for
Speaker 1: him to weigh in. The air Force was still conducting
Speaker 1: an environmental impact study, and the Vice President did not
Speaker 1: want to pre judge the project until the results were in.
Speaker 1: At one point, Gore took the incendiary position that continued
Speaker 1: discussion was needed of how a balanced solution can be
Speaker 1: found that can help the community without hurting the environment.
Speaker 5: Gore had a choice to make, and he decided to
Speaker 5: avoid the choice. It was waffle City.
Speaker 1: What was going on. Gore was the most prominent environmentalist
Speaker 1: in American politics, the guy who, back in nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: had held the first ever Congressional hearings on global warming.
Speaker 1: As Vice President, Gore had traveled to Kyoto to help
Speaker 1: negotiate a transformative international treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaker 1: Gore had never been shy about his passion for the environment,
Speaker 1: not even when his political rivals made fun of him,
Speaker 1: as President George H. W. Bush did in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: two when he coined a special nickname for his opponent's
Speaker 1: running mate.
Speaker 27: If you listen to Governor Clinton and ozone Man, if
Speaker 27: you listen to them, you know why I call him
Speaker 27: ozone Man. This guy is so far off, and the
Speaker 27: environmental extreme will be up to our neck in owls
Speaker 27: and out of work for every American.
Speaker 1: This guy's crazy.
Speaker 11: Is way out, far out man.
Speaker 1: Given this history, environmentalists in Florida were infuriated by Gore's
Speaker 1: refusal to come out against the Homestead Airport plan. One
Speaker 1: activist told The Washington Monthly that gore silence on the
Speaker 1: issue called into question whether he himself knew what his
Speaker 1: campaign stood for. In a column for The Miami Herald,
Speaker 1: Florida novelist Karl Hyason wrote that Gore, who claims the
Speaker 1: greenest pro environmental credentials of all the presidential candidates, is
Speaker 1: showing a flash of yellow by deciding to wimp out
Speaker 1: and keep quiet on South Florida's most controversial environmental issue.
Speaker 5: The Gore people could not believe they were even having
Speaker 5: this conversation.
Speaker 13: You know.
Speaker 5: Their attitude was, where else are environmentalists going to go?
Speaker 5: You know, he's Al Gore, leave us alone, and the
Speaker 5: environmentalist did not agree to do that.
Speaker 1: Three weeks before the election, the Gore campaign sought to
Speaker 1: quell the growing mutiny in South Florida by sending a
Speaker 1: pair of Gore's advisors, Mitchell Berger and Katie McGuinty, to
Speaker 1: meet with environmentalist groups at the South Miami headquarters of
Speaker 1: the Tropical Audubon Society. During this tense meeting, McGuinty and
Speaker 1: Berger tried to convince the assembled group that Gore was
Speaker 1: on their side.
Speaker 28: Here's Berger I remember saying to them, this man went
Speaker 28: to Kyoto and his risk, sacrificing his entire career for
Speaker 28: what he believes.
Speaker 29: And this man, I know.
Speaker 30: For a fact, orchestrated the purchase of forty thousand acres
Speaker 30: in the middle of the Everglades and fought everyone in
Speaker 30: the administration to do that.
Speaker 5: They were just making the case. You know, Al Gore
Speaker 5: is one of you. He has spent his entire career
Speaker 5: fighting for places like the Everglades and specifically the Everglades.
Speaker 5: Why are you torturing him over this issue that is
Speaker 5: going to potentially cost him the election.
Speaker 1: The anti airport activists were not impressed. Take our friendship
Speaker 1: back to the vice president. One of them said to mcguinteenberger,
Speaker 1: only a true friend will tell you what you don't
Speaker 1: want to hear. You are going to lose this election
Speaker 1: because of Homestead. If gordonn't condemned the airport plan, the
Speaker 1: activist said, a lot of environmentalists were going to vote
Speaker 1: for Ralph Nader. The environmental controversy around the Homestead Airport
Speaker 1: was a perfect issue for Ralph Nader. It was a coherent,
Speaker 1: little emblem of everything that was wrong with Al Gore.
Speaker 1: During the final days of the election, Nader embraced Homestead
Speaker 1: with Gusto while campaigning in Florida.
Speaker 13: I was at the Radison Center in South Florida, and
Speaker 13: it was packed, and all they wanted to talk about
Speaker 13: was the fungus attack that was destroying the citrus trees
Speaker 13: and the Homestead Air Force Base. And again and again
Speaker 13: the questions were, why doesn't Gore come out of it.
Speaker 13: A woman came up to me and kept saying he
Speaker 13: would get so many votes if you would just put
Speaker 13: out a statement, even now, this late in the game,
Speaker 13: and I too raised the question, why isn't Gore opposing it?
Speaker 1: Nader believed that the answer was purely political. Gore was
Speaker 1: afraid of alienating the Cuban American leaders who had been
Speaker 1: pushing the airport project since Hurricane Andrew. The person Gore
Speaker 1: was most concerned with appeasing, Nator thought was Alex Penellis. Now,
Speaker 1: the game theory here is a little tricky to parts,
Speaker 1: but the idea was that Gore, having lost Cuban Americans
Speaker 1: because of the Elon raid, was trying to salvage whatever
Speaker 1: support he could by playing nice with penelas Al.
Speaker 5: Gore was clearly concerned about the Cuban vote, but after
Speaker 5: Eleon one environmentalist told him, look, it doesn't matter if
Speaker 5: you come out tomorrow for landing the one hundred and
Speaker 5: first airborne in Havana. You've lost the Cuban vote. You
Speaker 5: are screwed with the Cuban vote. You have got to
Speaker 5: tend to your base, and you are losing your base
Speaker 5: because of Homestead Air Force Base.
Speaker 1: Mitchell Berger, Gore's friend and advisor, told me unequivocally that
Speaker 1: when it came to Homestead, Gore was not acting out
Speaker 1: of political calculation. The actual reason for his reticence was
Speaker 1: much more mundane. Burger said, he really did just want
Speaker 1: to wait until the Air Force finished its study, because
Speaker 1: if he interfered beforehand, the developers would have standing to sue.
Speaker 1: This was not a reflection of Gore's cowardice or cynicism,
Speaker 1: but rather his commitment to process.
Speaker 29: Gore said, I cannot prejudge this publicly by law, and
Speaker 29: that is what the boy scout did. He said, until
Speaker 29: it is re reviewed, I cannot prejudge it, and that's
Speaker 29: technically correctly true under the law. Notwithstanding what he said,
Speaker 29: no one heard it.
Speaker 1: Whatever the merits of his position, Gore's refusal to take
Speaker 1: a stand on Homestead fit easily into a storyline that
Speaker 1: his opponents on both the right and the left had
Speaker 1: been tapping into all through the election. That he didn't
Speaker 1: know who he was, that he wasn't willing or able
Speaker 1: to say what he really thought, that even on the environment,
Speaker 1: he was driven to equivocate in the same way Gore's
Speaker 1: avowal of due process in the Ellon case had fallen
Speaker 1: on deaf ears in Little Havanah. Gore's strict adherence to
Speaker 1: procedure in the Homestead controversy read to his critics as
Speaker 1: a cop out, and that provided an opening for Ralph Nader.
Speaker 29: Nader amplified the narrative, and Nader was happy to use
Speaker 29: his ego to say this is why Gore is no
Speaker 29: different than anyone else.
Speaker 1: It's worth noting that if Nader was right about al
Speaker 1: Gore's motivations on Homestead, if he really did hold his
Speaker 1: tongue because he was trying to placate Alex Panellis and
Speaker 1: make up for Elion, the plan didn't work at all.
Speaker 1: Starting in the fall of two thousand, Panellis declined to
Speaker 1: speak out in Gore's favor even once, and three weeks
Speaker 1: before the election, he left town for trip to Spain.
Speaker 29: Alex Penellis, instead of endorsing Gore, left town deliberately left
Speaker 29: him at the podium in front of the Cuban community.
Speaker 29: Anyone who says that that didn't hurt Gore more than
Speaker 29: anything in Florida doesn't understand in my view of Florida politics.
Speaker 1: Penellis, who declined to be interviewed for this podcast, became
Speaker 1: something of a pariah within the Democratic Party after the
Speaker 1: two thousand election. When he ran for a Florida Senate
Speaker 1: seat in two thousand and four, al Gore issued a
Speaker 1: statement calling him the single most treacherous and dishonest person
Speaker 1: he dealt with during the entire campaign. As for the
Speaker 1: Homestead Airport, it was never built, labeling the project inappropriate,
Speaker 1: the Air Force killed it just days before Bush took office.
Speaker 1: All these years later, it's impossible to know how many
Speaker 1: votes Gore lost by refusing to speak out against the
Speaker 1: Homestead Airport, but there are those who believe confidently that
Speaker 1: it cost him the election. Among them is Ralph Nader,
Speaker 1: who received ninety seven thousand votes in Florida in two
Speaker 1: thousand and who is bold enough in our conversation to
Speaker 1: draw a causal link between Gore's stance on Homestead and
Speaker 1: the invasion of Iraq.
Speaker 13: The tragedy is in the fate of human affairs. One
Speaker 13: can have a direct link between the loss of the
Speaker 13: votes on the Homestead issue and a million dead iraqis
Speaker 13: that's the way the winner take all system works. But who,
Speaker 13: of course, could have predicted that.
Speaker 1: It's easy to spot mistakes when you look back at history.
Speaker 1: When you know how everything started and what it took
Speaker 1: for it to end, it doesn't require a lot of
Speaker 1: imagination to say, ah, if they'd done ex instead of why,
Speaker 1: it would have all turned out differently. Regardless of whether
Speaker 1: you think al Gore should have won the election, there
Speaker 1: are lots of hinge points like that in the story
Speaker 1: of how he ended up losing. If only Gore had
Speaker 1: broken more sharply with the Clinton administration on Elian Gonzales,
Speaker 1: maybe he wouldn't have lost as many Cuban Americans to Bush.
Speaker 1: If only he had condemned the Homestead Airport plan, maybe
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have lost as many Florida environmentalists to Nadir. Remember,
Speaker 1: this election was ultimately decided by just five hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty seven votes, with a margin that then it's not
Speaker 1: a stretch to say that one tiny decision out of
Speaker 1: god knows how many actually was responsible for the outcome.
Speaker 1: And if our goal with this first episode of Fiasco
Speaker 1: was to explore why the two thousand election was so close,
Speaker 1: we could have focused on so many other things besides
Speaker 1: Elyon and Homestead, so many little subplots that moved the
Speaker 1: vote one way or another, we could have talked about
Speaker 1: how George W. Bush benefited from the fact that his
Speaker 1: brother Jeb was the governor of Florida, Or if we
Speaker 1: wanted to come at it from the other direction and
Speaker 1: explore how Gore came within spitting distance of victory, we
Speaker 1: could have talked about Jeb's effort to end affirmative action
Speaker 1: in Florida and how that helped Gore by inspiring a
Speaker 1: massive voter registration movement among black voters. The point is
Speaker 1: the two thousand election was close for about a million
Speaker 1: different reasons, and because it was so close, because so
Speaker 1: many of the subplots were plausibly decisive, every little detail
Speaker 1: looks incredibly high stakes in retrospect. This six part podcast
Speaker 1: will tell the story of how the two thousand election
Speaker 1: turned out the way it did, and what it was
Speaker 1: like during those five shaky weeks after election Day, when
Speaker 1: no one in the country knew who the next president
Speaker 1: was going to be, and every little zig and zag
Speaker 1: looked like it might decide the result. The process of
Speaker 1: breaking the two thousand stalemate was, by turns chaotic and deadening.
Speaker 1: More than anything, it was a collective act of frantic
Speaker 1: improvisation conducted by a throne together cast of bureaucrats, partisans,
Speaker 1: and white collar gladiators. Along the way, all kinds of
Speaker 1: boundaries were scrambled, between lawyers and politicians, between truth and narrative,
Speaker 1: between hypocrisy and hustle. At around midnight and November seventh,
Speaker 1: seven hours before poles were set to open, Al Gore
Speaker 1: was in Miami Beach leading one last rally. Gore may
Speaker 1: have lost Alex Panelis and the rest of the Cuban
Speaker 1: American community. He may have lost the environmentalists, but here
Speaker 1: he was flanked by John bon Jovi, Stevie Wonder, and
Speaker 1: Ben Affleck. Despite Elyon, despite Homestead, Gore's numbers in Florida
Speaker 1: had him running dead, even with Bush, who was seventy
Speaker 1: three degrees in the middle of the night, and Gore's
Speaker 1: crowd was energized. Addressing his supporters, Gore tried to articulate
Speaker 1: what was at stake in the two thousand election. He
Speaker 1: spoke clearly and emphatically in a way that had often
Speaker 1: eluded him during the campaign.
Speaker 8: We in this nation have the ability in this US
Speaker 8: election to make the United States of America what America
Speaker 8: is intended to be. I asked for your help and
Speaker 8: your vote, because I want to fight for you.
Speaker 11: God, bless you, Florida, Thank you.
Speaker 1: It was about to be over no matter what. In
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, the campaign would be done and the
Speaker 1: country would have a new president elect. Well probably, as
Speaker 1: Gore's top strategist saw it, there was a conceivable scenario
Speaker 1: that would take the game into overtime. Based on all
Speaker 1: the available data, it seemed possible that Gore would win
Speaker 1: the electoral College, but Bush would win the popular vote.
Speaker 1: The Gore team was worried if that happened, how is
Speaker 1: the vice president going to convince the American people that
Speaker 1: his victory was legitimate? On the next episode of Fiasco,
Speaker 1: how election analysts working with America's top news networks got
Speaker 1: the two thousand election wrong, not once, but twice in
Speaker 1: a single night.
Speaker 12: As much as we honestly believe that you don't want elections,
Speaker 12: so you have all the numbers, in some ways you
Speaker 12: can win or lose an election based on what.
Speaker 1: The TVs say. For a list of books, articles, and
Speaker 1: documentaries that we relied on in our research, click the
Speaker 1: link in the show notes. Fiasco is a production of
Speaker 1: Prolog projects, and it's distributed by Pushkin Industries. The show
Speaker 1: is produced by Andrew Parsons, Madeline kaplan Ula Kalpa and
Speaker 1: me Leon Nafock. Our script editor was Daniel Riley. Our
Speaker 1: editorial consultant was Camilla Hammer, and we received additional editorial
Speaker 1: support from Lisa Chase. Our music and score are by
Speaker 1: Nick Silvester of god Mode, with additional music from Alexis Quadrado.
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Spatial Relations. Our artwork is
Speaker 1: by Teddy Blanks at Chips and Why. Audio mixed by
Speaker 1: rob Byer, Michael Raphael and Johnny Vince Evans. A final
Speaker 1: Final V two special thanks to Luminary. Thanks to c SPAN,
Speaker 1: NBC News Archive, and CNN for the archival material you
Speaker 1: heard in today's show. Additional thanks to Laura Castro de Cortes,
Speaker 1: Tasha Cole, Oliver Bernstein, Monica Meyer, c R. Rooters, and
Speaker 1: Matt Mullenwag of WordPress dot com for letting us have
Speaker 1: the prolog project's domain name. Thanks for listening.