Florida or bust.
That was the bumper sticker slapped on the suitcases of George W. Bush and Al Gore as the presidential candidates made the final trek down the highway toward the White House.
At nearly 2:30 a.m., the mystery of who won Florida - and its precious 25 electoral votes - was finally revealed. The major news networks bounced the state from one candidate’s column to the other’s all Tuesday evening, with most required to backtrack on projections that Gore owned the state governed by Bush’s brother, Jeb.
The Bush-Cheney campaign strongly disputed those network results, claiming by 1 a.m., Florida would belong to the Republicans.
The southern mecca for senior citizens put the Texas governor and GOP candidate over the top of the 270 required electoral votes by a single tally. Bush and running mate Dick Cheney will assume office Jan. 20.
Cheney is a former Wyoming congressman and defense secretary in former President George Bush’s administration.
As of 3 a.m., neither candidate had issued a statement, although a large crowd waited in Austin, Tex. to hear from the president-elect. Many danced to Ricky Martin’s hit “La Copa de la Vida,” an unofficial campaign theme song of the Bush troupe.
The win for Bush came despite victories for Gore in several key battleground states, including Michigan and Pennsylvania. Gore also carried California and its bounty of 54 electoral votes.
Bush and Cheney carried Florida, Texas and the “Bible Belt” states.
The race brought back memories for American historians of the 1960 campaign between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Kennedy barely defeated Nixon by about 100,000 votes. With 89 percent of the vote in, Bush led by nearly 500,000 votes.
At nearly 3 a.m., Bush narrowly led Gore in the popular vote, but experts speculated the vice president could take the lead in that tally before all ballots were counted.
But in the end, the Bush campaign owned the all-important votes of the electoral college - the process that actually will elect the 43rd president sometime in December.
The two candidates’ campaigns focused largely on protecting Social Security and Medicare, as well as whether to spend an expected budget surplus on tax relief or government programs including expanded health care for seniors.
The candidates spent the final hours before Election Day on an all-night campaign tour, appearing on C-SPAN throughout the early morning hours.
Jeremy W. Steele can be reached at steelej7@msu.edu.
