WASHINGTON –– At 2:17 a.m. Nov. 8, there was no one left at the Ralph Nader Election Party except for me, the clean–up crew, five other haggard reporters staring at CNN in the filing room, and one last Green Party guy, about 6'4", with a ponytail, beard, wild eyes and a dozen buttons advocating various dadaist principles. He'd been canvassing the National Press Club's West Room all night for "hot ladies," and bellowing at the throngs of nervous Greens gathered around MSNBC: "I didn't come here to watch TV!!"
Just as I was about to press "send" on my last e–mail dispatch of the night, Bernard Shaw announced that the next president of the United States would be George W. Bush. While the reporters moaned softly, the crazy Green yelled out, weirdly: "Go ahead! Pump it up for Nader!"
Instead of taking his advice, I packed up my laptop, took the elevator to the lobby, and headed outside to smoke and brood. After all these months of Nader dancing around the question of whether a "vote for Nader is a vote for Bush," or "if it matters which candidate wins the election," the Green Party's Cinderella–story election –– in which Ralph would get his 5 percent while Dubya loses, barely –– finally had turned into the rottenest of Halloween pumpkins. Bush was president by a nose, 271–269, based on a margin in Florida exponentially narrower than Nader's 90,000 or so votes there, and the Greens came home with a terribly disappointing 3 percent.
A dozen taxis idled by, waiting to whisk me to the Nader kids' after–party, but I thought the only way to process the astounding events was to take my first stroll ever around the neighboring White House.
Like many visitors, the first thing that caught my eye were the homeless guys, shivering violently on park benches wrapped in whatever they could find.
I continued on to the familiar backyard view of the White House, with the Washington Monument looming behind me. There were three restless white teens hanging out, talking like Eminem and wearing backwards baseball caps and baggy jeans. I nodded in their direction, and paused to enjoy the view.
"Yo man, you know where them parties are at?" one asked. I shook my head. "'Cause, I heard that Bush was gonna have a huge party on Capitol Hill or some shit."
"No, I think he's still in Austin," I said, as a weird roar came from the other side of the White House. "So, how are y'all doing with the election?" I asked.
"Awww, I wanted Gore, but I didn't vote," he said. The others nodded. "Anyways, we're gonna find them parties."
Next, I headed around the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building in the direction of the roaring. Right in front of the White House, I found 75 or so drunk Young Republicans –– crew–cut frat boys with navy blazers and khakis, Texas sorority belles with white plastic cowboy hats and little Bush/Cheney buttons –– singing "Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye!!!" and shaking their fists at Bill Clinton's bedroom.
"No more Communist country!"
"Who's house? OUR HOUSE!! Who's house? OUR HOUSE!!
One group started singing Madness’ "Our House in the Middle of Our Street." The white–teeth gals tried a couple verses of "Deep in the Heart of Texas." One of the only middle–aged people in the crowd, one Steve Isaacs from Castro Valley, near Oakland, approached me.
"This is just like watching the fall of the Berlin Wall!" said Isaacs, who had traveled all the way across the country just to enjoy this moment. "Those countries over there got rid of Communism 10 years ago, and now it's our turn! This here" –– motioning toward the restraining fence –– "is like our Brandenburg Gate!"
He walked off to high–five some more fraternity brothers, who were beginning a chant that would have sent a chill through the Nader after–party, if they could have heard it:
"Thank you, Ralph!! Thank you, Ralph!! Thank you, Ralph!!"
A Spanish TV crew asked the kids if any of them spoke Espanol. "Absolut–a–mente!!" one guy screamed, cracking everybody up. "Yo quiero Bush!! Viva Bush!!" A new chant began.
One of the girls on the side said, quietly: "Thank you, Monica."
Rather than figure out what she might have meant by that, I started the slow walk through Lafayette Square and toward my hotel. In front of me was a blissful young Republican couple, around 30–35–years old, walking arm–in–arm. Before leaving the area, though, the man turned around, pointed his finger, and finished off an argument he'd been having with one of the homeless protesters who sleeps outside the White House gates every night: "You'll be sleeping in the exact same place eight years from now, pal!"
He turned back around and continued on. At a corner church where 16th Street begins, a homeless woman asked the couple for some change. "I already gave everything I have to a guy up there!" the panhandled woman said irritably, waving a vague hand and not breaking stride. I stopped and chatted with the panhandler, a sweet–tempered and dirt–faced woman named Christine, who was the liveliest of the 20 or so ragged humans slumped around the yellow corner church.
"We're the homeless, and we're cold," she shrugged. "We keep all our stuff in the dumpster in the alley, but last night they emptied the dumpster, and we lost most of it. We need thermal sleeping bags in this cold, and now some of us don't even have blankets. Can you tell people about us?"
I gave her all my change and continued up the street. There was a terrific racket out front of the Capital Hilton, limos and taxis everywhere, women stumbling around in expensive evening gowns, fast–talking street hustlers cadging money (one somehow separated me from $5). I walked into the red plush lobby and up three stairs to a bar–lounge area, where 50 very sloppy and very white Young Republicans smoked foot–long cigars, barked orders to the all–black hotel staff and howled insults at Tom Brokaw.
"I'm sorry you're so disappointed, Tom! Liberal Bastard!"
Al Gore's face appeared on the screen.
"We shut you down!" one guy yelled. "Nu–uh! Nu–uh! You're done!"
"Just suck it up! You lost, there's nothing you can do about it!"
"Concede, asshole!!"
The cameras showed Bush supporters in Austin waiting in the rain for their man's victory speech.
"Yaaaa!!! Bay–bee!!"
Just then my cellphone rang. It was my dear friend and colleague Ken Layne in Los Angeles, and his tone was decidedly unfriendly.
"I would like to INTERVIEW you, in REAL–TIME, on the INTERNET," he slurred. I braced myself, and walked to a quiet corner of the lobby where I could speak freely. "What I want to know –– what the WORLD wants to know, is how exactly do YOU feel, right now, after being DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for electing a NAZI!"
I laughed nervously and tried to change the subject ... sure were crazy, these elections, weren't they! "NO! I want to know if you are SATISFIED, after BENDING OVER backward to give that filthy Jew Nader LEGITIMACY by writing about him EVERY DAY, instead of IGNORING his BULLSHIT!!"
As offbase as he obviously was –– honest and critical news coverage is always good for the democracy, right? –– I had no solid rebuttals at 3:30 a.m. on the very morning that Ralph Nader had gift–wrapped four long years to a truly embarrassing Republican who couldn't think in complete sentences except when executing people. Especially when there was a pack of mean, privileged dullards 20 feet away from me, screaming for the blood of imaginary young communists. (Later, I would find out that my editor at NewsForChange.com faced a similar, though marginally less violent ostracism – pillows were thrown, but not threatening expletives –– from his own household on Election Night).
I walked back to the TV monitor, and suddenly the room was silent and surly while Tim Russert explained that Al Gore was not going to be making a concession speech after all. Layne finally lost the ability to speak, and handed me off to a German friend, who kept asking if I was "wearing short–pants." Mercifully, the phone battery ran out.
The Election was back in doubt, and the Republicans were sent to their rooms. I went to the bathroom to wash my hands, and the place was just trashed, half–empty beer cups with ashes spilled everywhere, paper strewn all over the floor. As I walked out of the hotel, staffers were shaking their heads bitterly.
It was only four blocks to the Holiday Inn, and the first 3.75 were totally uneventful. Then I heard footsteps running toward me from behind, and I wheeled to find a young black man putting his hand inside his baggy brown vinyl jacket as if he had a gun.
"Give me your wallet RIGHT NOW or I'ma blow your fucking head off!!" he said.
I tried to slow down time as I reached into my pocket, thinking of ways I could manage to hold onto my driver's license and credit cards, or maybe engage the young man in sympathetic dialogue....
"Hurry UP!! I'm SERIOUS!!"
I handed over the wallet and he ran off. I turned and walked the 15 steps to my hotel, trying with all my might not to laugh out loud.
Postscript
After two hours of sleep, I woke up the next morning and vomited bile.
Nader was holding a morning–after press conference at the National Press Club, and I was a little short on taxi money, so I staggered down 15th Street, trying not to smell the car fumes or think unproductive thoughts. For reasons beyond my control, my mind kept replaying a scene from the Green Party party the night before (though it felt like it might have been years ago), in which one middle–aged Nader supporter said to a friend, without a hint of a smile: "I wouldn't vote for Al Gore if we was running against Adolf Hitler."
As if on cue, the first person I saw up at the Press Club was none other than Pat Buchanan. The dozens of reporters there to cross–examine The Spoiler largely ignored the Reform Party candidate, leaving him to stand awkwardly in the lobby until a couple of wide–eyed young buzzcuts shyly asked if they could take a picture with him.
The tall crazy Green from the night before then strode in, took one look at Buchanan's leathery red face, and boomed out: "Shoulder–to–shoulder on trade! Shoulder–to–shoulder on trade!" Pat laughed that weird laugh of his.
I leaned my own shoulder against the staircase, trying to get through a sudden head rush and gag reflex. There were more reporters than at any Nader press conference I had been to, and I wondered if now wouldn't be a bad time to head straight for the Western Union near the crackhouses on 13th Street, and leave this depressing post–mortem exercise to the professional Beltway cynics.
Then Nader walked in. The man whose supporters had been so anxious the night before about Gore losing –– to the point of creating, even before the first polls closed, a bogus mathematical "formula" to "prove" Nader didn't tip the election to Bush –– had the biggest grin I'd ever seen on his face before noon.
"Fearless leader!" Buchanan yelled. "Hey, fearless leader!"
Nader finally understood what was going on, and the two shook hands warmly.
"Congratulations, you ran a terrific campaign," Buchanan said.
"Well, Pat, you know how hard it is to challenge this entrenched two–party system!"
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