after all of the shouting and all of the scandal, we can begin again. drive into the future with the democrats going in the right direction. by this time tomorrow, the candidates will be back in their home states waiting for the results, but until then it is a nonstop day campaigning the battleground states. it was becoming clearer and clearer that this was going to be a close race. pushing signs rapidly. they re going out in truckloads. let s not forget it wasn t just bush and gore. let s have affordable tax cuts for middle-class working families. hillary clinton was running for u.s. senate. it s been an emotional day for folks that live here. another headline would have been the death of a senate candidate, a governor, three weeks before the election. there s just so much going on. your vote is going to make a difference. one of the things i ve seen in over 30 years in this business is things move so fast. today it s george w. bush s past that s being looked a
maybe more than we ve ever had before on television because of how close the race was. we re going to now project an important win for vice president al gore. nbc news projects that he wins the 25 electoral votes in the state of florida. it s really hard to cover an election that close and feel the pressure of, a, getting it on quickly, and, b, getting it right. something new has arrived. uniquely designed for the driven. introducing the first-ever infiniti qx30 crossover. visit your local infiniti retailer today. infiniti. empower the drive.
we went back up to the state capitol, which was beautifully back-lit. it was 40 degrees and raining and a miserable night. nobody cared. just won the presidency of the united states. al gore stood up and said let s get this thing over with. i m going to go down, put my suit on, we re going to the war memorial, and i m conceding. that began a bit of a comedy of errors. brian, we are expecting the vice president to show up any moment. the vice president called bush and conceded before he left for the war memorial. we did see some dejected types walk away, but the vast majority of people stayed here. i missed the motorcade and i got a call from a network correspondent saying don t concede. the florida numbers are wrong. apparently, al gore is still planning to be here and give
state of florida. that is a very, very, very important state for al gore, and now the pressure is on george w. bush. florida is called for vice president al gore and gore s march to the white house picks up momentum. that sent a little bit of a shock wave of panic through the headquarters. karl rove to his credit recognized that there was something wrong with the results. and i d also suggest that florida has been prematurely called. first of all, i thought it was a little bit irresponsible of the networks to call it before the polls closed in the western part of florida. as the day progressed on november 7th, you got nothing but good news. florida, pennsylvania, and michigan in his column. we had set up a speech prep room for al gore to practice his victory speech. i told eli addy, who was the speech writer, that we also needed the alternati version.
people. then a few miles southwest of the town of wamego, a local farmer found an individual in one of his vehicles. in florida, the polls have barely been open and the first reports of voting irregularities begin to surface. i got a call from my sister early in the morning who lived in boca raton, florida, at the time and who said i think the ballot here is very confusing. i just looked at it and looked at it and looked at it. it took me about 10 to 15 minutes to try to make sure i voted for al gore. we didn t have a name for it at that point, but it was called the butterfly ballot. they had that so-called butterfly ballot where a lot of people presumably voted for al gore, but the way it was actually done they voted for pat buchanan. there was nothing we could do about it.