Spin, exposed live and wriggling. In 1995, Brian Springer released an hour-long documentary film comprised of incredibly revealing moments caught from raw satellite feeds. Not only do we get to hear the spin-doctor coaching candidates received during various commercial breaks, there are also some amazing moments such as Larry King suggesting to Clinton that Ted Turner could "serve him," an anchor suggesting to her expert that during the L.A. riots his frank diagnosis of inner-city hope is "too obtuse," and the exclusion and exclusion of Larry Agran from the 1992 Democratic primaries — and, really, there's much more.
posted by WCityMike on Jul 4, 2006 - 23 comments

Own a piece of national tragedy. Rehnquist's original signed decision on the 2000 election recount, throwing the country over to the loser of the popular vote (and, quite possibly, the loser of the electoral college) is up for auction.
posted by jonson on Sep 10, 2005 - 39 comments

Al Gore claims the Bush administration is not helping America, but hurting it by focusing on all the wrong things. Gore:The administration is still not investing in local government training and infrastructures where they could make the biggest difference. The first responder community is still being shortchanged. In many cases, fire and police still don’t have the communications equipment to talk to each other. The CDC and local hospitals are still nowhere close to being ready for a biological weapons attack. The administration has still failed to address the fundamental disorganization and rivalries of our law enforcement, intelligence and investigative agencies. In particular, the critical FBI-CIA coordination, while finally improved at the top, still remains dysfunctional in the trenches. The constant violations of civil liberties promote the false impression that these violations are necessary in order to take every precaution against another terrorist attack. But the simple truth is that the vast majority of the violations have not benefited our security at all; to the contrary, they hurt our security.
posted by skallas on Nov 10, 2003 - 29 comments

Al Gore calls the Bush administration on their lies, says he won't run but will pick a candidate in the near future. Insightful excerpt: "Robust debate in a democracy will almost always involve occasional rhetorical excesses and leaps of faith, and we're all used to that. I've even been guilty of it myself on occasion. But there is a big difference between that and a systematic effort to manipulate facts in service to a totalistic ideology that is felt to be more important than the mandates of basic honesty."
posted by skallas on Aug 8, 2003 - 69 comments

Election 2000 Enchantment: A love, crime story... From the author's geocities site: "Election 2000 Enchantment," by Elaine North, is a fun-filled adventure of two young women, who are ballot hand recounters during the Florida election crisis. The young women encounter intrigue, romance, passion, crime, danger and deception as they meet some of the many people from across the country that converge upon Florida due to the derailed presidential election. Exploitation or creativity? You decide.
posted by krewson on Jun 11, 2002 - 6 comments

At the risk of reopening this recount thread - The Economist is running this rather sarcastic correction in their current edition, along with this strange little 'What if Gore Was President' article. Does this signal that the Age of Irony is not, in fact, dead - or did someone at The Economist just not get the memo?
posted by anastasiav on Nov 16, 2001 - 10 comments

The Secret Vote That Made Bush President Credit actually goes to Drudge who put this up on his site. The irony in this story was the Russian judges telling Supreme Court justices that "in Russia, we would never allow judges to pick the President."
posted by Rastafari on Sep 9, 2001 - 66 comments

NYTimes: "How Bush Took Florida: Mining the Overseas Absentee Vote" "Their goal was simple: to count the maximum number of overseas ballots in counties won by Mr. Bush, particularly those with a high concentration of military voters, while seeking to disqualify overseas ballots in counties won by Vice President Al Gore.

A six-month investigation by The New York Times of this chapter in the closest presidential election in American history shows that the Republican effort had a decided impact. Under intense pressure from the Republicans, Florida officials accepted hundreds of overseas absentee ballots that failed to comply with state election laws. "
posted by owillis on Jul 14, 2001 - 71 comments

Unrepentant Nader Is Nader a Sancho Panza, the realist, or Don Quixote, the dreamer, when he says Bush policies toward environment help ignite attention to our needs and thus good to have? Or is he just a guy who can't believe he might have been wrong?
posted by Postroad on Apr 23, 2001 - 76 comments

Palm Beach Butterfly Ballot Reportedly Cost Gore "The newspaper said the ballot confusion also hurt President George W. Bush; 1,631 people voted for both Bush and Buchanan, whose hole was directly under that of Bush"
posted by owillis on Mar 11, 2001 - 34 comments

Nat Hentoff on the Supreme Court and Bush v Gore: "Far from stealing the election for Bush, the majority of the Supreme Court shamed the politicians of both parties who, for so long, have failed to secure everyone's meaningful right to vote."
posted by aaron on Jan 9, 2001 - 10 comments

George W. Bush is elected President of the United States. Affirmed by no less than Al Gore himself. The electoral votes have been tallied and certified. It. Is. Over.
posted by aaron on Jan 6, 2001 - 30 comments

"the new director of the Environment Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman, has proposed that the Florida ballots be sealed for 10 years. " Fuck the Christmas ceasefire. While the Anglo-Saxon world stuffs itself comatose, the forces of conservatism are busy mobilising. Yum.
posted by holgate on Dec 24, 2000 - 15 comments

FLASH: Gore Concedes. Ok, I guess *now* it's over. Bye, Alec...
posted by baylink on Dec 13, 2000 - 35 comments

Bush apparently wins... and the New York Times is apparently speechless. 54k
(The original page has already changed; please forgive the link to the image on my site.)
posted by Mo Nickels on Dec 13, 2000 - 15 comments

Supreme Court II: Election Boogaloo. Programs, getcher programs here! Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, you can get your grubby hands on the Bush and Gore briefs right now. Fascinating reading. PDF files, of course.
posted by aaron on Dec 10, 2000 - 2 comments

HEADLINE: Metafilter so jaded by the U.S. election that this post will draw zero comments.
posted by lagado on Dec 9, 2000 - 30 comments

That dude that's been doing the Gore vs. Bush graphics for CNN has outdone himself. It looks like Gore is actually trying to bite Bush's head... Egads!
posted by Niccola Six on Nov 29, 2000 - 16 comments

The first step in setting up a parallel government? "Republican vice-presidential candidate Dick Cheney said if the General Services Administration will not assist George W. Bush's transition to the White House, the campaign is prepared to go ahead on its own. 'We will proceed drawing on other sources,' Cheney told reporters in Washington on Monday." Yeah, I just bet they will.
posted by tranquileye on Nov 27, 2000 - 18 comments

The Greenwood Position. Partisan perhaps, but will Peggy Noonan's latest OpEd in the WSJ be a rallying cry for frustrated conservatives? She offers compelling arguments and solid suggestions for proactive redress. Talk amongst yourselves.
posted by netbros on Nov 25, 2000 - 6 comments

The end is near (again) Looks like the one Florida county that was actually finding some Gore votes, Miami-Dade, is calling off the recount.
posted by tranquileye on Nov 22, 2000 - 2 comments

Whip it good with Bush and Gore. The Hampster Dance has made it into the White House.
posted by 120degrees on Nov 15, 2000 - 0 comments

Hand count in Palm Beach County agreed upon. History in the making.
posted by tiaka on Nov 11, 2000 - 9 comments

"If Dubya steals the White House, American democracy will be a joke." A vehemently liberal polemic from the UK, which I don't necessarily agree with, but still: "President Dubya will be barren of legitimacy at home and devoid of moral authority abroad. The Saddam Husseins of the planet, every petty, vicious dictator around the world, will scoff in the face of America."
posted by holgate on Nov 11, 2000 - 9 comments

I know it's short notice but if you're in one of these cities, and agree that the popular vote of the people should be honored and upheld, there's gonna be a lot of spontaneous protests happening tomorrow afternoon.
posted by ZachsMind on Nov 10, 2000 - 19 comments

Other countries are looking at us and giggling about our democratic process. It's rather enlightening to see what they think, provided the attitude the US newsmedia takes when other countries' elections appear "fixed", "inefficient," or "ineffective."
posted by tatochip on Nov 10, 2000 - 6 comments

My vote doesn't count. [more]
posted by ZachsMind on Nov 8, 2000 - 10 comments

Hello, Mr. President... 'sup
posted by Haveed on Nov 7, 2000 - 62 comments

GOP Supports Gore! Well, sort of. The GOP Web site was defaced last night with a well-written diatribe about why Bush shouldn't be President.
posted by bkdelong on Nov 7, 2000 - 6 comments

Bush narrowly defeats Gore by 26 electors and 0.1 percent of the popular vote. That's the average of 14 predictions in the Washington Post. I thought it would be interesting to see how MetaFilter's pundits fare in predicting the Electoral Count and popular vote, so I'm offering a bribe ...
posted by rcade on Nov 6, 2000 - 71 comments

The Campaign Scandal Generator. Just in time for the lightning round of the campaign!
posted by john on Nov 3, 2000 - 6 comments

Most of the map is red but the candidates are still neck-and-neck. Bush has the lead in a whole lot of huge states with small populations. But Gore has CA, NY, NJ and IL. Thus it is with the electoral college.

If they were electing by square mile, Bush would have it sewn up.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Nov 3, 2000 - 18 comments

Gore Campaign Tactics Sink to New Low (via unknown news)
posted by snakey on Nov 3, 2000 - 22 comments

Bush vs. Gore vs. Nader (51 minute RealAudio file) Listen to the 3 way debate.
posted by snakey on Oct 27, 2000 - 4 comments

Apparently, Bush and Gore really are the same . . . While it looks like a brillant AdBusters culture jamming experiment, this was apparently just a simple 'proofreading' mistake.
posted by aladfar on Oct 22, 2000 - 11 comments

The Real Gore/Bush Debate Transcript -- "The candidates have agreed on these rules: I will ask a question. The candidate will ignore the question and deliver rehearsed remarks designed to appeal to undecided women voters. The opponent will then have one minute to respond by trying to frighten senior citizens into voting for him."
posted by rcade on Oct 20, 2000 - 9 comments

The Republicans make character assassination an art form. Several people have linked to this already on their sites and I haven't had a chance to update my own yet, but Phil Agre's latest piece about Republican dirty tricks is a must-read. "The past ten days will go down as a turning point in American history. This is what it's like when the far right is taking over your country: the people support Al Gore's policies, but the polls are shifting toward George W. Bush because the media is filled with false attacks on Al Gore's character."
posted by Medley on Oct 16, 2000 - 73 comments

Monkeyfist has some alternate questions for the two candidates.
posted by queequeg on Oct 4, 2000 - 3 comments

Arrggg!!! LA NBC is showing baseball! I should have figured that people in Southern California would be more interested in watching sports than the debates.
posted by Brilliantcrank on Oct 3, 2000 - 7 comments

"The vice president says he would rather protect this refuge than gain the energy, but this is a false choice ..."
~G.W. Bush (on Gore's plan to keep the protected status of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, while Bush plans to open up parts of the protected land to oil prospecters.)
posted by tamim on Sep 30, 2000 - 25 comments

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: GORE MOLE SUSPECTED TO HAVE INFILTRATED BUSH CAMPAIGN; FBI MOVES IN; DEBATE PREP TAPE EXPOSED BREACH This could be big. I remember when I read about the whole Moncia dress incident on the Drudge Report and look what happened... I hope to god it is not true, I couldn't stand Bush winning because of something like this.

PS, don't yell at me for the caps, it's Drudge. What do you expect?
posted by Brilliantcrank on Sep 22, 2000 - 5 comments

Will Bush or Gore do anything viable to help the environment? I can't even believe Bush agreed to submit answers. On the other hand, Al "Earth in the Balance" Gore doesn't have much credibility either.
posted by norm on Sep 21, 2000 - 1 comment

Bush: 342 / Gore: 224
Bush leads Gore in the number of jokes made about him on late night talk shows.
posted by tamim on Sep 19, 2000 - 0 comments

The lead that Al Gore once enjoyed in most presidential polls in wake of the Democratic convention has all but disappeared, according to the latest Voter.com Battleground 2000 poll released Thursday. The survey reports that the vice president’s numbers are slipping and George W. Bush is back on top for the first time in weeks.
posted by aaron on Sep 14, 2000 - 22 comments

Last week, Bush was up by 16 points. Today, Gore is up by 3. Who are all of these “swing” voters that can't make up their minds in the face of clear differences between the candidates?
posted by quirked on Aug 18, 2000 - 19 comments

In polls, the Separation of Church and State does not rank as one of the top election issues for many Americans. However, with recent Supreme Court rulings on the posting of the 10 Commandments, aid to religious schools and school prayer, the debate has been very contentious with numerous groups both for and against. Now as the election approaches, Bush is for more Church in our State and Gore generally is for the continued separation.
posted by quirked on Aug 9, 2000 - 16 comments

Monday morning quarterbacking: Gore/Lieberman '00 I could've sworn it was going to be Massachusetts' own John Kerry. With New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and Missouri's Dick Gephardt removing themselves from the running, this was probably the most courageous choice, and makes Cheney look even sillier than before. The downside is that the Connecticut senator's disapproval of Clinton during the Monicagate scandal may wind up calling more negative attention to Gore than positive. And then there's the bigotry, both veiled and unveiled, that no doubt is already on the way in ads, whisper campaigns and so on. I wonder to what extent was Gore's choice rushed by Bush's huge post-convention bounce. Did I miss any ramifications? Anyone care to play Dennis Miller here?
posted by allaboutgeorge on Aug 7, 2000 - 17 comments