On election day, Hillary, Chelsea, and I voted at...
- Posted at 5:44 AM on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 by yanrongli39466
On election day, Hillary, Chelsea, and I voted at Douglas Grafflin Elementary School, our local polling station in ChappaquaIt was a strange and wonderful experience: strange because the school was the only place Id ever voted outside Arkansas, and after twenty-six years in political life, my name wasnt on the ballot; wonderful because I got to vote for HillaryChelsea and I voted first, then hugged each other as we watched Hillary close the curtain and cast a ballot for herself
Election night was a roller coasterHillary won her election, 5543 percent, a much larger margin than she had in all the pre-election polls but oneI was so proud of herNew York had put her through the wringer, just as it had done to me in 1992She had been up, down, and up again, but she kept her bearings and pressed ahead
As we celebrated her victory at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City, Bush and Gore were neck and neckFor weeks everyone had known the election would be close, with many commentators saying that Gore might lose the popular vote but still win the electoral collegeTwo days before the election, as I looked at the map and the latest polls, I told Steve Ricchetti that I was afraid the reverse could occurOur base voters had been activated and would turn out as eagerly gucci leather handbags as the Republicans who wanted the White House backAl was going to win big states by large margins, but Bush was going to win more small rural states, and they had an advantage in the electoral college because every state got one electoral vote for each House member plus two extra ones for its senatorsGoing into election day, I still thought Al would win because he had the momentum and he was right on the issues
Gore did win, by more than 500,000 votes, but the electoral college was in doubtThe race came down to Florida, after Gore won a narrow victory of 366 votes in New Mexico, one of several states that were closer than they would have been had Ralph Nader not been on the ballotI had asked Bill Richardson to spend the last week in his home state, and he may well have made the difference
Of the states I had won in 1996, Bush picked up Nevada, Arizona, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, and New HampshireTennessee had been growing increasingly RepublicanIn 1992, 1996, and 2000, the Democratic vote had held steady at between 47 and 48 percentThe NRA also hurt Al badly there and in several other states, including ArkansasFor example, Yell County, where the Clintons had settled a century earlier, is a populist, culturally conservative chanel body jewelry county a Democrat has to win to carry the state in a tight raceGore lost it to Bush 5047 percentI might have been able to turn it around, but it would have taken two or three days of rural work to do it, and I didnt know how big the problem was until I went home right before the election
The gun lobby tried to beat Al in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and might have done so had it not been for a heroic effort by the local labor unions, which had a lot of NRA members themselvesThey fought back by saying, Gore wont take your gun away, but Bush will take your union away! Unfortunately, in the rural areas of Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri, and Ohio, there werent enough union members to win the war on the ground
In Kentucky, our stand against the big tobacco companies marketing cigarettes to kids hurt Al in the tobacco-growing areasIn West Virginia, he was damaged by the failure of Weirton Steel, an employee-owned company; the employees and their families were convinced the collapse was caused by my failure to limit cheap imported steel from Russia and Asia during the Asian financial crisisThe evidence indicated that the company had failed for other reasons, but the Weirton workers thought otherwise and Al paid the price
New Hampshire went for pink gucci watch Bush by a margin of just over 7,000 because Nader got 22,198 votesEven worse, Nader received more than 90,000 votes in Florida, where Bush was hanging on by a thread in an election contest that would drag on for more than a month
As the Florida vote battle began, it was clear that we had picked up four seats in the Senate and one in the HouseThree incumbent House Republicans were defeated, including Jay Dickey, who lost to Mike Ross in Arkansas, and the Democrats picked up four seats in California, prevailing in all but one of the contested racesAl was at a disadvantage going into the election recount in Florida because the chief election official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was a conservative Republican who was close to Governor Jeb Bush, and the state legislature that would certify the electors was dominated by conservative RepublicansOn the other hand, the state supreme court, which presumably would have the final say on the counting of ballots, had more judges appointed by Democratic governors and was thought to be less partisan
Two days later, still not knowing who my successor would be, I saw Arafat in the Oval OfficeThe violence was subsiding and I thought he might be serious about peaceI told him that I had only ten weeks left to make an louis vuitton purple bag agreementIn a private moment I held his arm, stared straight at him, and told him I also had a chance to make an agreement with North Korea to end its long-range missile production, but I would have to go there to do itThe whole trip would take a week or longer by the time I made the obligatory stops in South Korea, Japan, and China
If we were going to make peace in the Middle East, I knew I would have to close the dealI told Arafat I had done everything I could to get the Palestinians a state on the West Bank and Gaza while protecting the security of IsraelAfter all my efforts, if Arafat wasnt going to make peace, he owed it to me to tell me, so that I could go to North Korea to end another serious security threatHe pleaded with me to stay, saying that we had to finish the peace and that if we didnt do it before I left office, it would be at least five years before wed be this close to peace again
That night, we had a dinner to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the White HouseLady Bird Johnson, President and MrsFord, President and MrsCarter, and President and MrsBush were all there to mark the birthday of the peoples house, which every President since John Adams had inhabitedIt was a wonderful moment in American history, but a tense one for President and hermes birkin bags Mr
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