Down & Dirty (52 page)

Harris’s office is a virtual greenhouse, packed as it is with flowers from well-wishers all over the country. But things are
not so great for her. She’s received death threats, so she now has sheriff’s deputies following her around. She eats most
meals in her office. She doesn’t sleep. She’s heard the
rumors about her and Jeb, and though her husband laughs them off, they still bother her.

She starts to think of herself as Queen Esther, a biblical figure known for being both brave and beautiful.

Esther was also plucked randomly into a position of power in which she made history, but it’s assuredly not the most humble
thought Harris has ever had. The saga of Esther took place during the 400’s b.c. After being adopted by her cousin Mordechai,
the beautiful Esther was chosen for the harem of King Xerxes, known as Ahashverosh in the Bible. Esther kept her Jewish ethnicity
secret until Prime Minister Haman—outraged after Mordechai refused to bow down to him—tried to have all the Jews in the empire
killed. It was against the law to appear before the king without being summoned; nonetheless, Esther went before King Xerxes—“If
I perish, I perish,” she said. She did this not once but twice, “begging him with tears,” according to the Book of Esther,
“to stop Haman’s evil plot against the Jews.” Xerxes heeds her request, the Jews survive, and the whole deal is celebrated
in the Jewish holiday of Purim, the only Jewish celebration that requires intoxication. Esther is also the Persian name for
Hadassah, Lieberman’s wife’s name.

“I reread a book about Esther last night,” Harris e-mails a fan. “She has always been the specific character in the Bible
that I have admired.” “Esther has long served as one of my favorite role models,” Harris writes to another. “Queen Esther,”
she e-mails a fellow Republican, “has been a wonderful role model.” She makes the comparison out loud, in the office. “If
I perish, I perish,” she says—so much so that she starts to annoy her staff.

Of course, Esther saved Jews from being slaughtered by a Babylonian despot. As opposed to working steadfastly to apply law
rigidly so as to benefit her preferred presidential candidate. But whatever.

On Monday in Plantation, Broward County, with 544 of 609 precincts done, Gore has a net gain of 117 votes.

The bigger task ahead lies in the thousands of questionable ballots that the canvassing board has to review personally. But
suddenly Elections Supervisor Jane Carroll makes a surprise announcement. She’s leaving. She’s going on a cruise.

Lee isn’t surprised. Carroll’s seventy years old and not exactly the picture of health. Carroll had told him that her blood
pressure was way up, that her
doctor told her that if she kept going, she might have a heart attack from the stress. But this poses a real problem. Florida
law states that a county commissioner should now fill Carroll’s space. However, this is Broward County, the Massachusetts
of Florida, and all of the county commissioners are Democrats. So the canvassing board, under these rules, will now be entirely
Democratic.

This concerns Lee. We’re fighting a battle here, trying to have some legitimacy, he says. Lee calls chief circuit court judge
Dale Ross, explains to him the problem. We need a Republican, he says. Ross says that he’ll talk to county GOP chair Pozzuoli.
Eventually they settle upon circuit court judge Robert Rosenberg.

When Rosenberg reports for duty on Tuesday, Lee is immediately put off. The first two things Lee hears out of Rosenberg’s
mouth are that they’re never gonna finish this in time and that he’s not working long days.

This isn’t what Lee wants to hear. They have more than 10,000 questionables to look at—6,000-some undervotes, plus the other
questionables that the Republican observers have stacked the deck with to prolong the process. This is going to be work.

Though Lee is technically the junior judge to Rosenberg, he steps up and lays down the law. Just like you replaced Mrs. Carroll,
he says, you can be replaced, too. So you’re either going to do it or tell me now that you’re not, and we’ll get someone to
take your place.

Rosenberg says he’ll get on the program, but he generally keeps his distance from Lee and Gunzburger. He doesn’t eat with
them. Instead, he dines with Georgette Sosa Douglas, the Fort Lauderdale attorney suing them in federal court. Sosa Douglas
doesn’t even
talk
to Lee, even though they once were friends, to the point that she spoke at the ceremony that commemorated his formally becoming
a judge.

Yeah, Rosenberg’s an odd duck, Lee and Gunzburger think. They notice the long, drawn-out way he examines the punch cards.
Taking off his Coke-bottle glasses and bringing the ballot so close to his face that his eyes cross. Or holding up a magnifying
glass to the ballot. Rubbing his eyes exhaustedly. It’s quite theatrical. Lee’s willing to give him the benefit of the doubt,
assuming that Rosenberg’s just trying to be as deliberative as possible. Gunzburger thinks he’s trying to prolong the process,
just like Scherer and the rest.

Gunzburger and Lee do find one silver lining in Rosenberg’s appointment to the board. With Carroll, they’d been joking for
some time about an “ugly picture contest.” Lee’s mother in Duval County would call him to
tell him of unflattering photos of him in the local paper; there was one nottoo-nice one of Carroll in
USA Today
. But once Rosenberg came on board, with his bulging, cross-eyed stare, which made the front page of the
New York Times,
there was no doubt who was the winner. No need for a recount on that one.

Perhaps it’s only appropriate that Jeb Bush’s first public appearance since this all started is in the prison town of Marianna,
where he holds an “Open Office Day” on Tuesday. “It’s like being an Iranian hostage,” Bush tells one Floridian, Bill Slay,
of the last week. “I can’t even walk around outside now. It’s like the seventh day of being held hostage.”

When he finds out that Slay’s a beekeeper, Jeb points to the reporters following him around. “These are my bees, and I’m the
hive,” he says.

Poor Jeb. Throughout the presidential race, W. would joke that “little brother recognizes that Thanksgiving might be a little
chilly,” when asked how important it was that Florida go for him. Jeb surely feels the pressure. Hence, he’s been hiding from
the press, pretending to have recused himself from the contest, while his chief staffers and advisers help run things behind
the scenes and he lights up the phones and makes sure everything’s going on track. Jeb, in fact, was the one who got Barry
Richard to speak today, despite Ginsberg’s and Baker’s insistence on Carvin.

“I’ve been doing my day job here, trying to keep politics out of it,” Bush tells reporters. For instance, he signs two death
warrants.

What an odd position to be in! And yet, it was Jeb who was daddy’s favorite, Jeb who was supposed to be the politico of the
family. Big brother George was still losing daddy’s money on his ill-fated oil company, still boozing to excess, still turning
mom’s hair white while Jeb was married, a successful Miami real-estate developer, then Florida secretary of commerce and well
on his way to power in Florida. When big brother George decided—almost on a whim!—to run for Texas governor in ’94, the same
year Jeb ran, it pissed Jeb off at the time; he thought both of their candidacies would relegate his campaign to half of “a
cute
People
magazine story.” To make matters worse, big brother George won, and he lost! This despite the fact that Jeb was always the
harder worker, the better student, the one who wasn’t drinking and driving and smashing into trash cans. And now here he was,
scrambling behind the scenes, doing what he could for his brother once again. Seemed like he was always picking up for his
family’s mess. There was that time in June 1999, when his wife, Columba, hid $19,000 worth of clothing and jewelry she bought
on a Paris shopping
spree from U.S. Customs officials. And, of course, there’s today’s goddamn story in the
New York Post,
which reports on his sixteen-year-old son, Jebby, being caught naked with a chick in a Jeep Cherokee parked at the Tallahassee
Mall in October.

“My dad will fix it,” Jebby was quoted as saying. And indeed, the
Miami Herald
and the
St. Petersburg Times
got copies of the police report, but they never wrote a word about it. The governor is given great deference in Florida.
And not just by the media.

Burton’s starting to think that maybe Clay Roberts was right, maybe these hand recounts should apply only to machine error.

He sees these little dimples that the Democrats want counted as votes. How can you legitimately call them votes? he wonders.
It reminds him of when he sits in criminal court and a guy comes before him charged with his fourth DUI and says,“You know,
I know I have a drinking problem, but my wife just left me and I lost my job,” blah, blah, blah. It’s everybody’s fault but
his. Burton’s attitude is
gimme a break
. This “just a victim of circumstance” thing doesn’t play well with him. Sooner or later you gotta say that you’re responsible,
that you’re accountable. If it says, “punch out the chad,” you gotta punch out the chad. Is that so complicated?

“Sooner or later isn’t somebody going to assume responsibility and read the goddamn instructions?” an exasperated Burton wonders.
“Or if they don’t know what they’re doing, can’t they ask for help?”

The Supreme Court of Florida rules Tuesday night, offering a victory—at least for now—for Gore. Remarkably, the court essentially
rewrites the election code, extending the deadline for counties to recount votes, or tally unread unrecorded votes that appear
to be Gore’s last hope. Instead of the November 12 deadline for the recounts, fanatically adhered to by Harris, counties now
have until Sunday, November 26, at 5
P.M
.—or Monday at 9
A.M
. if Harris’s office isn’t open Sunday.

“Twenty-five years ago, this Court commented that the will of the people, not a hypertechnical reliance upon statutory provisions,
should be our guiding principle in election cases,” Chief Justice Charles Wells writes in the unanimous opinion. “We consistently
have adhered to the principle that the will of the people is the paramount consideration.”