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.
george w. bush of texas or vice president al gore. wow, that was fast. look at that. november 7th, 2000, an election day like no other begins. among the high profile races, the first lady of the united states, new york senator. hillary clinton s run has been full of twists and turns. since the beginning of the campaign, her expected opponent was rudy giuliani, but six months prior to the election he drops a bombshell. when i was first told i had cancer, i thought this was going to be a much easier decision. in giuliani s place steps rick lazio, a moderate congressman from long island. today, i announce i m a candidate for united states senate of new york. at the time, it was a remarkable campaign not just because the first lady was running for the senate, but also because it was at that point the most expensive senate campaign
we didn t want to reveal the dea was on to the case, so we arranged to have two highway patrol officers pull over both the ryder truck and the surveillance vehicle that pickard was driving. one way we did underestimate pickard is we didn t know he was a marathon runner. he started to race away, but then he jumped off road and ran into the kansas woods. so now we had a manhunt. we re waiting for governor bush, but obviously he s going to speak after vice president gore.
and the suspense was enormous, 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. so, i switched to tide pods. they re super concentrated, so i get a better clean. tide. number one rated. it s got to be tide
al gore s campaign strategist rushes to warn him not to concede. the only thing you could do because the vice president wasn t answering his phone was call david moorehouse. so the car pulls up. gore gets out. he said, i m going straight to the stage. david said, no, we have to go to the holding room. carter and bob said we have to go to the holding room. i arrived breathless in the holding room as he was wrapping up his phone conversation with george w. bush where he was withdrawing his concession. are you going to go out there like a man and say we re waiting for the recount? but there was a great moment where bush says, my brother says i won. i don t think your brother gets to decide if you re president of the united states. the secretary of state has al