11/08/00 10:45 a.m.
Angst in Austin
A thousand reporters and nothing to report.

By James A. Cooley, reporter, the Lone Star Report

ore than a thousand of us from the various news media were on hand to provide in-depth coverage. There was a tent for press that extended a full city block down the middle of Congress Avenue. It featured 67 rows of tables with six chairs each. A huge scaffold was also in place facing the stage itself. It had eight risers, with each ascending level occupied by rows of talking heads facing a TV camera. The additional media support vehicles, trailers, and satellite trucks covered what appeared to be a full city block.

A lightning strike on the scaffolding alone could have caused a devastating depletion of the reporter population. Of course, the survivors on the ground would then have had something to cover — and the TV audience might well have cheered.

As everyone knows now, we all ended up with almost no news to be gathered. The media showed up not knowing who was the next president of the United States — and left several hours later in the same condition.

It was all foreplay, no fireworks.

No matter how many times CNN assured us that the events unfolding that night were history in the making, it was, to us, simply cold, wet, and boring.

Here is a brief recap of how the day went.

I headed to the south side of the Capitol, to the Bush celebration site, at about 3:00 P.M. The only portentous thing I saw along the way was a dead rat had been washed out of the drainpipe by the election-day rains onto the Capitol sidewalk. Was the unfortunate rodent a DemocRAT?

I also passed the parking lot where a crew was setting up the fireworks display for the anticipated victory celebration.

There were also several large beer trucks trying to get wedged into some very small parking areas. I noted that each displayed only Lite beer. Did this represent something deeper, concerning the dilution of the hard-core GOP message? Or had I simply been spending too much time with pundits and was now metaphor-hunting in all the wrong places?

Security was everywhere as I approached Bush ground zero. The folks from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), outfitted in bright yellow rainwear, were fairly easygoing. The Secret Service detail looked like they all came directly from the cast of The Matrix, and had a sense of humor to match. A third group of security looked like the Corps of Cadets from Texas A&M. They were all young, had burr haircuts, and were chiefly employed in keeping the press from getting too close to anything that might have news value.

A gauntlet of security restricted access to everything interesting. I emptied my pockets of keys, pager, cell phone, and tape recorder more times than I could count as the evening progressed. My airplane-legal pocketknife was absolutely not allowed. It spent the rest of the evening hidden under a rock outside the perimeter.

My darkest fear was that a big rubber glove labeled "Media Use Only" was waiting somewhere.

One of my colleagues told me not to complain so much. It seems he had been trying to get two meatball subs past the bomb-sniffing dogs. They definitely thought those packages were suspicious.

As a reporter and Austin insider, I had access to the Bush event, a private party hosted by Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) on the ninth floor of the building across the street from the Capitol (1005 Congress Avenue), and an election watch at the Associated Republicans of Texas (ART), held a couple of blocks away. I went back and forth between all of the above during the course of the evening. The access to inside events would prove invaluable for two reasons.

First, the absolute worst place to be to find out what going on was to be in the crush of reporters on the ground. We were basically isolated from the outside world and had to watch CNN on the big projection screens to get presidential vote numbers just like everyone else. I would go to a private party when I wanted to know what was happening in other races.

The other reason for securing a place inside was that it was absolutely freezing outside. A cold wind from the north (another metaphor?) was chilling us and rain fell in quantities that ranged from drizzle to downright street flooding. Standing water was everywhere, mixed in with thousands of electrical cables.

One reporter was observed recording the sound of the rain and rushing waters with his big fuzzy boom microphone. Perhaps he will play it back for his boss when he asks for hazard pay.

The press pack was a miserable, shivering mass most of the night. The GOP crowd present for the Bush event at least had the option to leave. As highly dedicated professionals, we were stuck.

We were also restricted to our own press section for most of the night. Our media-badged bodies were not supposed to be found in the main guest areas. I was nabbed by security trying to follow Lieutenant Governor Rick Perry as he left our enclave following a media availability. I wanted to ask him a question relating to Texas election results, but the security detail saw likely mayhem in the making.

The reason I risked the barrier skirting was I couldn't hear a single word Perry said during the entire availability. Some generic country singer was on stage and the volume drowned out all else. It was typical of the chaos that reigned all night.

Fortunately, the security staff's badge fetish sort of faded as the evening wore on and the press was all over the previously off-limits guest section by the time the event wound down. We behaved ourselves, of course.

There were moments that transcended the merely strange and entered the pantheon of true weirdness. My favorite was when Vegas lounge singer Wayne Newton and Bo Derek took the stage together at one point and warbled "America the Beautiful."

Next was the Willie Nelson lookalike that was mingling with the crowd and handing out autographed photos. I now have a signed 8x10 glossy picture of "Almost Willie" for the newsroom wall.

Then there was the hoax "exit poll" data that was posted on Lucianne.com. It seems the "North Exit" was only getting 18 percent, while the "One on Franklin Street" was up to 34 percent. The "Fire Escape" and "One at the Bottom of Stairs" were getting 22 percent and 26 percent, respectively.

Speaking of polling data, I can report to all that an amazingly accurate summary of what would happen was supplied to me late in the afternoon by the ART. They predicted the race for Bush and gave the five states where the final outcome would hinge. Any one of the five dropping for Bush took it, and Florida was at the top of the list. Their exit polling showed it in the win column, with the military absentees critical to the final outcome.

This only goes to indicate that a handful of very intense people in small crowded rooms tend to know a lot more about what is going on in an election than all the anchors and analysts at CNN.

The biggest news flub of the night was undoubtedly the premature assigning of Florida as a Gore pickup. This depressed the Bush crowd to the point of silence. They began to rally when political commentator Mary Matalin made the case for putting it back in play, and cheered when Karl Rove blasted the media for their call.

The national media collectively spit out crow feathers when they had to move Governor Jeb Bush's turf back in the game. The beak and feet followed when, very late that night, it was declared for Bush — giving him the magic 271 electoral votes

The crowd, which had been trickling away, now swelled and the party was kicked into full swing. The big light show began and the giddy GOP faithful danced. Gore even called to concede. The press pack got ready to finally cover Bush saying something at his own victory party.

Best of all, we could all go home soon!

Then time passed. The wet and cold media waited, not so patiently, perhaps sensing the distant rumblings that the Clinton era was not going to end so easily.

With nothing to do, the press fell back on another round of talk-to-someone-in-the-crowd interviews. Since they had already done all the activists with big funny hats, they were now targeting the rest of us. One reporter approached me for an interview, observed my press pass, and informed me she needed to find some other "normal" person.

Gore finally called Bush back to say he was officially unconceding. Florida had closed to a mere 1,200 or so votes and Gore wanted to wait until the mandatory recount was done before tossing in the towel.

With Gore not willing to declare defeat, Bush was unable to take the stage to proclaim victory.

More time passed. More rain fell.

A Bush spokesman came to the stage and told the stunned audience that they would have to conclude the victory party later. At 3:30 another announcement was made asking everyone to go home.

The fireworks were still intact when I passed them on the way to my truck. The rat was also still dead.