War puts patriotism above politics

For months, Cathy Dubin and a group of loyal Democrats had gathered here to plan how they would commemorate the darkest political day of their lives.

They decided on a stadium-size rally with a rock band, big-name politicians and movie stars. They chose Nov. 7, the day the 2000 presidential race ended and 36 days of electoral upheaval began.

Their last meeting, on the morning of Sept. 11, was interrupted by a telephone call from Dubin’s husband. He wondered whether she had heard anything about a plane crash in New York City.

Suddenly, the very issue that had fueled Democratic ire for nine months seemed barely important. The rally was postponed. And God Bless America posters took the place of political signs in the headquarters of the Palm Beach County Democratic Party.

“It took our breath away,” said Dubin, the party’s executive director, whose office is adorned with snapshots of her with the 2000 Democratic ticket of then-Vice President Al Gore and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, among others. “Our immediate stance was we had to support the president.”

Until that horrific September morning, many people in this Democratic bastion at the epicenter of the messy presidential recount had a difficult time swallowing the fact that George W. Bush was in the White House. Time had done little to soften the blow of an election decided by the slightest of margins, a monthlong legal tussle and, finally, a split decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.

But when the hijacked airplanes slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside, the anger that had so consumed Democrats across Florida and the nation disappeared. While a quiet undercurrent of mistrust remains, patriotism has replaced the bitterness.

“I don’t care what happened a year ago,” said Charles Dorman, an 80-year-old lifelong Democrat from neighboring Martin County. “You must support the president.”

One year after the most uncertain election night in the nation’s history, when the state of Florida was first called for Gore, then Bush and finally declared a virtual draw, the ballots have been studied by political strategists, authors and academics. The most comprehensive review of controversial ballots, conducted by a group of news organizations including the Tribune, will be reported soon.

Controversy creates reforms

Florida lawmakers and Gov. Jeb Bush responded to the controversy by approving sweeping election reform. Punch card ballots have been banned across the state. New equipment, including machines that allow touch-screen voting, will be in place for the 2002 election.

In Palm Beach County, where the infamous butterfly ballot was at the root of the election’s controversy, the punch-card voting machines will be sold Wednesday to the highest bidder on eBay. Profits will be used to buy $15 million worth of voting equipment that resembles automated teller machines.

Palm Beach County elections supervisor Theresa LePore, who rose from obscurity to a figure of ridicule in the presidential drama, proposed selling the machines not only to raise money for the new equipment, but also to reassure voters that elections would start anew.

Elections as moneymakers

The election reform brought an unexpected sideshow to Florida. The presidential race had yet to be decided when a small parade of salesmen arrived in offices of the state’s 67 county election supervisors, promising error-free elections for a price.

“There’s an opportunity to make some money in the election process,” said John Correggio, a Boca Raton businessman who jumped into the election business on Nov. 8, 2000. “You’d be a fool not to get into it.”

The entrepreneurial twinkle was short-lived for Correggio. The Florida Division of Elections in Tallahassee rejected his concept of a handheld electronic voting machine. Others who had hoped to get a piece of the $32 million needed to implement statewide voting reforms met similar fates.

“You can’t believe the yahoos who come in here wanting to sell us an election system,” Dick Carlberg, the deputy supervisor of elections in Duval County, said on an exhausting summer day when his office seemed overrun by salesmen.

Under the new election reform laws, 41 counties must have new voting systems in place by September 2002, the primary election for Florida governor. Democrats had long planned to channel their frustration from the last presidential race into the race for Gov. Bush’s re-election.

In fact, keeping alive anger and resentment was a key strategy for Democrats in Florida and across the country. Democratic Party leaders created a group called the Voting Rights Institute to raise money in the name of electoral reform.

Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, traveled across the country in the first nine months of the year, trying to keep Florida’s election fresh in the minds of voters and party stalwarts.

“Al Gore won that last election. They stole that last election. That’s not right, that’s not democracy,” McAuliffe said in Detroit in June, echoing similar statements from coast to coast.

Even before the terrorist attacks, the tolerance for such rhetoric was dwindling within the Democratic Party. When the country went to war and President Bush’s popularity soared, talk of stolen elections ended and Gore proudly saluted Bush during a speech in Iowa as his commander in chief.

In interviews with nearly three dozen Florida Democrats last week, even the most vocal activists said the troubled election shouldn’t be a dominant issue in future campaigns.

“It sounds like sour grapes if we keep saying we were handed a raw deal,” said Terry Nolan, chairman of the Democratic Party in Martin County.

Instead, as Democrats gear up for a bruising governor’s race against Jeb Bush--who faces either former U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno or one of four lesser-known candidates--they are focusing on the state’s financial health. Bush and the Republican-controlled Legislature must trim $1.3 billion from the budget for it to balance before year’s end, as prescribed by law.

Changes for election figures

Since that seesaw of an election night one year ago, much has changed for the little-known local officials who would become household names in the ensuing 36 days.

Secretary of State Katherine Harris, the Florida election czar vilified by many Democrats and hailed as a hero by many Republicans, is running for Congress.

LePore, the supervisor of elections in Palm Beach County, left the Democratic Party to become an independent in the wake of stinging criticism for designing the butterfly ballot that produced 3,411 votes for conservative Pat Buchanan, who later conceded that most of the votes almost certainly were intended for Gore. After the election turmoil subsided, LePore acknowledged the double-page ballot was “not the wisest thing.”

State Rep. Lois Frankel, perhaps the loudest critic of George W. Bush during the presidential recount, is using her political name recognition in her candidacy for Florida governor.

At a Democratic dinner last weekend, Frankel urged supporters to stand behind President Bush but not shy away from the two-party system.

“It is patriotic to have a difference of opinion as long as we do it without rancor,” Frankel, a West Palm Beach Democrat, told the crowd. “The anger is still there. It’s just an undercurrent for now.”