Down & Dirty (67 page)

“Five,” LePore says.

“Five,” Burton says.

“Three,” says LePore, meaning a Bush vote.

They finish the batch. Six 3’s. Burton counts the 5’s for Gore. Bolton thinks that Burton messed up the count, so they ask
Roberts to count them. She gets annoyed. “Come on, guys,” she snaps. “I want to get through this.”

“Nobody’s trying to obstruct the process,” says Wallace.

“Ninety number fives” is the final count for Gore in this batch.

But that doesn’t mean 90 new votes for Gore—it just means 90 Gore votes that GOP observers categorized as questionable were
now officially, firmly Gore.

It might have been a net gain of 1 or 2 for Gore, or 1 or 2 for Bush, or nothing at all.

General Baker is calling in the troops. The Gorebies are going to contest this election, and General Baker’s friend’s son
needs the best trial lawyers around.

There’s mistrust of Fred Bartlit, especially by Ginsberg, Terwilliger, and the political people. Quietly they snicker at him,
his bluster, the way Judge Bubba Smith slapped him, how badly the overseas military-absentee-ballot case went, even though,
in reality, there was very little case there to begin with. There are mean and cruel comments—the “Ted Baxter
^*
of the legal profession,” one of the Bush lieutenants calls him.

Bartlit, for his part, doesn’t care what these political lawyers think. He’s no kid, and he doesn’t have to genuflect before
any of these guys.

There are doubts about Phil Beck, too. No one knows him, no one trusts him, no one has any idea what to think. All they know
is what they saw in Bartlit and that Beck and Bartlit are a team. Ginsberg and Terwilliger want some other trial lawyers brought
in. Some people they can trust. The other side has Boies! They need some more firepower!

Can’t you bring some folks in from Baker Botts? General Baker is asked.

On November 25, Irv Terrell’s at his beach house in Galveston with friends, when he checks his office voice mail. There are
a couple messages from Kirk Van Tine, a fellow Baker Botts partner. “Look, Baker really needs to talk to you,” Van Tine says
when Terrell calls him back. “Call him back; you gotta come to Tallahassee.”

He calls him back. Baker is somber. The legal situation has become paramount, he says. They have to win at court. “You could
really make a difference for us, Irv,” Baker says.“I know you’re busy, but this has to be the most important thing, Irv.”

Terrell is torn. Baker’s an icon around the office, around Houston, around Texas, and he wants to help him. And though Terrell
leans left on some things, he grew up with George W., and voted for him happily—if with some concern about what his childhood
friend might do to
Roe v. Wade
.

That said, Terrell is worried about some other matters. He’s overworked already, for one. “How will I ever survive physically
doing all this stuff?” he wonders. He’s also concerned about joining another high-profile suit; he didn’t like the ugly stuff
he saw in his colleagues and even occasionally in himself during the
Pennzoil v. Texaco
case. If he joins up, he wants to conduct himself appropriately.

“I’ll let you know tomorrow,” Terrell says.

There’s a long pause. Baker’s silence conveys loads.

“I’m calling Daryl, too,” Baker says, referring to Daryl Bristow, a fellow Baker Bottsian and one of Terrell’s close friends.

Another pause.

“Irv, you
do
need to come,” Baker says.

A couple hours later, Terrell calls back. “OK, I’ll be there tomorrow morning,” he says.

Bristow’s in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, for his wife, Janet’s, thirtieth high school reunion, and the Tallahassee fight is
the farthest thing from his mind. Baker had called him on November 8 to join the team, and Bristow—a craggy, white-haired
Texan—was excited to be part of the legal case of the century (especially considering how young the century is!). So he’d
returned the call and left a message, and that was the end of that. Bristow just figured that Baker had eventually just decided
against using him.

Janet knows how disappointed her husband was, so when she calls home to check the phone messages back in Houston, she’s skeptical
of what she hears.“I swear somebody’s playing a joke on you,” she tells him,“but there’s a message from Jim Baker, and it
sure sounds authentic!”

Bristow plays the message. “Daryl, this is Jim Baker. I’m in Tallahassee and would like to talk to you,” the recording says.

Nope, that’s him.

“Secretary Baker, to use an old phrase, I thought you’d never call!” Bristow says.

“What do you mean?” Baker asks.“I
did
call. I was told that you were too busy.”

The reverence for General Baker is truly a remarkable thing to behold.

To a man, Team Bush praises him for his smarts, his cool, his legal mind, his political skills. When Bartlit and Beck came
on board, they expected that Baker would be something of a figurehead. They’re surprised. To Bartlit, he’s “the CEO of the
enterprise.” To Beck, Baker’s “the man,” making the key decisions, directing traffic, there seven days a week. Ginsberg knows
how revered Baker is as a pol, but he’s stunned by his legal skills. To Ginsberg, there isn’t a legal document that Baker
peruses that, after reviewing, he doesn’t make a suggestion to or observation of that isn’t important.

On the other side of the border, Daley and Christopher have long since gone. But Ron Klain’s the one who has earned a degree
of awe. He sleeps maybe two hours a night. His dedication is absolute. He seldom loses his temper, and when he does, the anger
is at circumstances, never at a colleague or an underling’s screw-up, and it’s aimed at a door or a desk, never anywhere else.
Klain—far more so than any of the advisers and consultants who told Gore what to do and who to be during the campaign—is utterly
devoted to the cause.

Whatever happens, to their respective teams, both Baker and Klain have earned respect in a way that the mere word could never
convey. But Klain is no Jim Baker, even combined with the spiritual guidance of Whouley in Palm Beach. Whouley himself frets
about this. They don’t have a Jim Baker, they don’t have a warrior, an Attila the Hun. They have Christopher, a diplomat,
and Daley, who’s back in D.C. But, Whouley wonders, when you get down to it, who do the Democrats
have,
anyway? Bob Rubin? Maybe the Democrats just don’t have anyone like Baker.

Broward County completes its work late Saturday—567 new net Gore votes.

Lee says that he feels “confident, confident that there were many more votes that should have been counted,” that never would
have been, had they not devoted the last ten days to the insanity. One ballot, for instance, on which was written: “I’m voting
for George Bush.” “We were able to count it, where a computer couldn’t,” Lee says.

A reporter asks Lee if he thinks that their political views may have played a role in how they looked at ballots. Lee tries
to give an honest answer. It is not one that Republicans find reassuring. “Well, I don’t know that it was overt political
bias,” Lee says,“but I think it’s just natural that, y’know, your own personal feelings and beliefs are going from time to
time to shape how you perceive something.” Scherer and other Republicans do a double-take. Did he
really
just say that?!

D day, Sunday, November 26, finally arrives.

Now the world turns its weary eyes north to Palm Beach County, where it’s pretty clear that the canvassing board hasn’t a
snowball’s chance in Hell of finishing up before 5
P.M
. tonight. Was it their Thanksgiving break? Was it the day before that, when the Democrats hauled Burton into LaBarga’s court?
Was it the Republicans’ effective dragging out of the process? Katherine Harris? Jeb? God?

It’s been a long day for everyone, especially the members of the canvassing board. LePore is wearing the same white sweater
that she had on Saturday. Carol Roberts is dressed in the same multicolored ensemble she was sporting yesterday as well. Burton
apparently brought a change of clothes, because he has switched from the aqua golf shirt he once wore into a yellow oxford
with a tie. The three of them have been here recounting the last batch of approximately 14,500 “questionable” ballots for
more than thirty-one hours, but the question of the moment is: Will it be enough?

Sunday morning, Terrell and Bristow hop on the corporate jet of one of the big Baker Botts clients, Reliant Energy, and land
in Tallahassee by noon. They meet with Van Tine, who briefs them on all the lawsuits out there, in particular the contest.

When Baker gets off a call, Terrell and he sit down and catch up.

“Well, I’m here,” Terrell says. “Just trying to get my lay of the land.”

“Well, look,” Baker says, “you need to talk to Ben Ginsberg.”

“Fine,” Terrell says. “Who’s he?”

Baker explains that Ginsberg, immediately below him in the hierarchy, is ultimately in charge of the Florida litigation, while
Van Tine is making the trains run on time in terms of getting all the papers filed.

Soon Terrell and Bristow meet with Ginsberg, who is clearly concerned about the contest the Gore lawyers are about to file.
Ginsberg explains the concern about Bartlit—the Bubba Smith case didn’t go so well, the guy doesn’t take direction very well,
and no one has any idea who this Beck guy is.