Sunday, December 17, 2000

From long-standing national figures like former secretaries of state James Baker and Warren Christopher to previously obscure characters like "butterfly ballot" designer Theresa LePore, the extended presidential election of year 2000 drew dozens of people onto the national, 24-hour media stage. Post-Gazette National Bureau writers Rachel Smolkin and Karen MacPherson sketched these reviews of some key players.

THE GORE TEAM

Joe Lieberman
As Al Gore's pick for vice president, the soft-spoken Lieberman, a moderate U.S. senator from Connecticut, took on a new role during the Florida recount: partisan defender. He played the part with vigor, repeatedly arguing that more Floridians went to the polls on Election Day intending to vote for Gore than Bush.

Whatever happened in the recount battle, Lieberman, 58, was guaranteed a job. Even as he ran for vice president, Lieberman won re-election to a third term in the Senate, where he's well-regarded by Democrats and Republicans alike for his hard work and moral backbone.

William Daley

Daley, 52, abandoned his job as U.S. commerce secretary in early summer to run Gore's presidential campaign, replacing the ailing Tony Coelho. Recruited to rejuvenate the vice president's flagging campaign, the no-nonsense Daley met his own goal of turning the presidential contest into a horse race.

The morning after Election Day, Daley took on another high-risk job -- trying to secure Florida's 25 key electoral votes for Gore. Daley took center stage with former Secretary of State Warren Christopher and helped set an aggressive tone for Gore's recount effort.

Warren Christopher

Gore tapped Christopher to lead his recount campaign in Florida. Crusty and formal, the 75-year-old Christopher went head-to-head against James Baker III, Bush's top recount adviser.

Dapper in trademark double-breasted suits, former Secretary of State Christopher frostily fended off former Secretary of State Baker's suggestions that the vice president should concede. Christopher later faded as the spotlight shifted to the legal eagles hired by both camps to duke it out in state courtrooms across Florida and federal courts up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Chris Lehane

Tireless and self-confident, the 32-year-old Lehane reveled in spinning the news as a spokesman for Gore. A Maine native and Harvard Law grad, Lehane joined Gore's campaign after working in the Clinton administration communications operation.

Known for his love of practical jokes and constant use of his cell phone, Lehane took the offensive in the early days of the Florida recount process. But top Gore officials worried that some people would take offense at Lehane's descriptions of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris as a "Soviet commissar," "lackey" and "hack," and he was replaced as top Florida spokesman by the more diplomatic Doug Hattaway.

David Boies

A hard-charging superlawyer, Boies' space for legal maneuvering was severely limited from the start. Boies, 59, wanted Gore to join lawsuits in Florida charging vote fraud, but the vice president refused to muddy his demand for recounts by arguing that some votes should be thrown out because of questionable actions by election officials.

Widely admired for his exceptional memory and tough cross examinations, the scruffy-haired Boies' relentless questioning appeared to annoy Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls, who eventually upheld the certification of George Bush as winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes.

But Boies successfully pressed Gore's recount case in the Florida Supreme Court , where the justices, in a 4-3 ruling, ordered a hand recount of disputed presidential ballots. The recount was then snuffed out by the U.S. Supreme Court, ending the presidential contest once and for all.

Laurence H. Tribe

Tribe, 59, the Harvard University Law School professor who also argued on Gore's behalf before the U.S. Supreme Court, is highly respected for his scholarship on constitutional law. Tribe has defended many liberal causes, including abortion rights, and helped derail the 1987 Supreme Court nomination of conservative Judge Robert H. Bork. This time around, the conservative justices on the court derailed Tribe.

THE BUSH TEAM

Dick Cheney

The most public face of the new Bush administration, Cheney suffered a mild fourth heart attack soon after Election Day and kept right on ticking. The former defense secretary launched into full Desert Storm mode, appearing informed and in control -- arguably more so than his boss -- as he briefed the nation about the Bush team transition.

Cheney, 59, rebounded from a campaign drubbing in the press, where he often was portrayed as grumpy and aloof. Cheney was praised for his experience and calm demeanor, but his selection was a surprise: He had been assigned to vet the other VP candidates and ended up accepting the task himself.

Karl Rove

Rove has served as Bush family political mastermind for more than 25 years, beginning in 1973 with a job in the office of then U.S. Rep. George Bush, the future president. For the past two years, he's worked as chief strategist for the presidential campaign of Bush No. 2, George W.

A lifelong Republican who has worked as a political consultant and lobbyist for such companies as Philip Morris, Rove is renowned for his political skills. One admirer calls him the "Bobby Fisher of politics, who not only sees the board but about 20 moves ahead."

James Baker III

Bush tapped this Republican Party heavyweight and former secretary of state to oversee the Florida recount and protect his interests amidst partisan maneuvering and a legal onslaught. Baker, 70, was a key player in Bush's father's administration and served as Ronald Reagan's chief of staff. But he did not play a prominent role in George W.'s campaign until the post-election ballot chaos.

Karen Hughes

Bush's take-no-prisoners spokeswoman, Hughes sharply defended her boss and regularly swiped at Gore. A loyal and trusted adviser, Hughes, 43, is a former TV reporter who joined Bush in 1994 as he ran for governor of Texas, and later helped him launch his presidential campaign.

Barry Richard

Bush chose one of Florida's top attorneys to lead his legal team in the Sunshine State during the recount. Richard, 58, an appellate attorney, is a member of the Miami-based Greenberg Traurig, one of the state's most powerful legal firms. He served as campaign counsel to Gov. Jeb Bush, George W.'s brother, and has argued more than 200 appellate cases nationally.

Theodore

Olson

A veteran conservative lawyer, Olson argued Bush's side before the U.S. Supreme Court. Olson, 60, is a member of the high-powered law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He launched his career in California and later served as a top Justice Department aide under President Ronald Reagan; he also defended the Virginia Military Institute in its unsuccessful bid to continue a ban on women.

Olson is a close friend of former independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, who investigated the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and serves as personal attorney to Reagan.

THE FLORIDIANS

Jeb Bush

The Florida governor failed to deliver must-win Florida to his brother George W. on Election Day, then retreated behind the scenes. Jeb recused himself from the state's Elections Canvassing Commission, which certified his brother as the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes, despite ongoing legal challenges by the Gore team.

After losing the 1994 Florida governor's race, Jeb Bush, 47, won in 1998 as a "compassionate conservative." Political pundits had often characterized him as the smarter and more articulate of the two brothers, but his political future was left uncertain after the post-election debacle in Florida.

Katherine Harris

The Republican secretary of state and ally to Jeb and George W. Bush, Harris co-chaired the Texas governor's Florida campaign and then made a string of post-election ballot certification decisions that favored Bush over Gore. Democrats decried her as a puppet of the Bush brothers, Republicans applauded her as a courageous public servant, and late-night talk show hosts made fun of her heavy makeup and hair style.

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Charles E. Burton

The county judge who chaired the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board and its painstaking chad-by-chad manual recount of disputed ballots, Burton initially saw his efforts come to naught: Palm Beach completed its recount two hours late, and Secretary of State Harris refused to include any of its recount numbers in the certified election figures. "It was like someone sticking a knife in your back," Burton said in press reports.

Theresa LePore

LePore, 45, a lifelong Democrat and elections supervisor in Palm Beach County, won unwanted national attention for designing the now infamous "butterfly" ballot. The first hole was to be punched for Bush and the second for Patrick Buchanan, whose name was listed to the right. Gore's name was listed second on the left side of the ballot. Hundreds of voters found this confusing and said it led them to vote for Buchanan instead of Gore.

Tom Feeney

The curly-haired, ultraconservative Feeney, 42, was named Florida's Republican House speaker last year. An Orlando lawyer and graduate of both Penn State University and the University of Pittsburgh law school, Feeney first gained political notice in 1990, when he proposed that Florida secede from the union if the national debt reached $6 trillion. He later was Jeb Bush's running mate in Jeb's unsuccessful first attempt to become governor of Florida.

John McKay

Boyish-looking but cautious, Florida Senate President McKay at first refused Feeney's call for a special legislative session, but reluctantly acceded to the idea. Like Feeney, McKay, 52, has had his share of negative ink. In 1996, he was forced to resign as chairman of a powerful committee after his wife contended in divorce proceedings that he had an affair with a telecommunications lobbyist while he was writing legislation to deregulate the industry. McKay later married the lobbyist.

N. Sanders Sauls

For a while it looked as though Leon County Circuit Court Judge N. Sanders Sauls had settled the presidential contest when he ruled against Gore and refused to order manual recounts. He was quickly reversed by the Florida Supreme Court, with which he had feuded for a long time, and then recused himself from conducting the recount. The high court had stripped Sauls of administrative responsibility for local courts because of complaints about his autocratic approach.

Nikki Clark

Leon County Circuit Court Judge Nikki Clark, a 48-year-old Democrat known as an independent thinker, presided over a case brought by Democratic activist Harry Jacobs, who contended that Republicans had illegally tampered with absentee ballot applications in Seminole County. Jacobs wanted Clark to throw out all 15,000 absentee ballots, most cast for Bush, which would have thrown the election to Gore.

The businesslike Clark, the first African-American and first woman to serve on Florida's 17-judge 2nd Judicial Circuit, rejected a request by the Bush legal team to recuse herself because she had been passed over by Jeb Bush for an appellate judgeship. Clark ended up refusing to throw out the disputed ballots, dealing a significant legal blow to Gore's efforts to win Florida's electoral votes.

Terry Lewis

Lewis, 49, also a Leon County Circuit Court judge, writes mysteries in his spare time and had three turns at resolving one of the biggest mysteries in American politics -- who won the 2000 presidential election?

Lewis rejected Gore's request to extend the state certification deadline to allow more time for hand recounts, a decision that was overruled by the Florida Supreme Court.

Lewis refused to throw out absentee ballots in Martin County after Republican officials had been allowed to fill out information on ballot applications, a decision upheld by the Florida high court.

And Lewis was conducting a Florida Supreme Court-ordered manual recount of "undervoted" ballots in all Florida counties when the process was abruptly stopped by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ultimately decided the election for Bush.

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