At Any Cost

This was an in-depth look at the major events surrounding the 2000 election. Gore supporters will no doubt paint the author as a Gore-hating, staunch Conservative because he says nothing bad about Bush or his backers, and Gore pretty much oozes sleaziness.

Early on in the book there's a lot of good analysis on the early vote call in Florida, and the joke disguised as the Voter News Service. The network bias in calling Gore states early while not calling Bush states for up to two hours after polls closed is well documented.

One of the more fascinating tidbits was early in the recount when Gore gathered his people around him for a motivational meeting. He drew four concentric circles on paper. The inner circle he put "Me". The next circle show more had "Supporters", the next one "Democratic Party", the last one "USA". This was his Circle of Responsibility. Me first. You second. The party third, and the country forth. Quite telling.

Several chapters were dedicated to the recounts and the chaos that ensued. The Florida supreme court who re-wrote the election laws...after the election to boot. Also of interest was the US Supreme Court's decision. It was actually by a 7-2 vote that hand recounts were unconstitutional. Not 5-4 like some have said. The 5-4 vote was to stop the madness.
I was vaguely familiar with Bob Beckel's attempt to sway electors. This was actually one story about which I didn't know the whole truth. Some had theorized that Beckel was trying to blackmail electors. He planned only to try to convince people he thought were "swayable" to have a change of heart.
Many people claimed that Bush stole the election. This is technically impossible because at no time in the tallying of votes was he ever behind. This was Gore's election to steal.

The clincher was the disection of Gore's "heartfelt" concession speech. Gore was trying to put himself above the events. To say that he and Bush were equal outsiders looking in on the election chaos. In reality, he caused it all. Bush was hanging back on the defensive. He never "took" votes from Gore.

Although I follow the election and it's aftermath closely, there were some aspects that I found quite interesting in this book. Even though I was familiar with all the topics, I did get more of an inside look at what actually happened.

Good stuff, if you can stomach getting to the core of the 2000 election.. show less