11/17/00 4:05 p.m.
V-F Day
What Bush should do on Saturday.

By NR’s John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru

eorge W. Bush has a remarkable opportunity to transform the post-election atmosphere tomorrow, assuming Secretary of State Katherine Harris certifies the Florida vote total and Bush maintains his lead over Vice President Gore. The Democrats are in a near panic that he will hold something like a victory celebration — and that the media will buy it. This morning, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw said Gore partisans are already working the phones: "There were people [from the] Gore campaign calling around, saying 'Well, if there are balloons and victory speeches on Saturday morning, it's going to make it all the tougher for us to make our legal claims. What are your plans for coverage?'"

The danger for Bush is that he'll risk looking arrogant if says the wrong thing at this moment of triumph. He must choose his words and the setting for Saturday's announcement carefully. He will need the media — and the country — to buy it. Sometime after the certification, he should walk into a room full of cheering supporters. The room should be packed, and it should be loud. The cameras should be in the back of the room, where they'll pick up a sea of shimmering Bush-Cheney signs. Maybe a few of them should read, "President Bush." The governor should have a big smile on his face. He should look relieved and confident. He should shake a few hands and wave to the crowd. Then he should step to a podium — not a bushel of press-conference microphones — and say something like this:

"My friends, and my fellow Americans, I'm heartened by the certification of the final vote in Florida. The votes there have been counted, and they have been recounted, throughout the whole state. The overseas ballots from America's men and women in uniform have come in, and they, too, have been counted. The election was close — very close. My opponent ran a vigorous campaign. This has been a long race, and it has dragged on longer than I think anybody has wanted it to. But we now have finality and certainty. I will be inaugurated as president on January 20. Because of that, I am going to begin planning for a new administration. It would be irresponsible to wait any longer. Starting today, even as my opponent continues to pursue his long-shot legal challenges to the final, certified election result, I will prepare for that moment. I will be your next president, and I am ready to lead. The American people deserve nothing less. Thank you very much."

Bush should take no questions. He should shake a few more hands, and leave the room. Republicans everywhere should say he is the winner into TV cameras, and they should ask when Al Gore will set aside his desperate attempts to overturn the election and make good on his promise to travel to Austin so that the public will have no doubts about Bush's legitimacy. The point is to increase the pressure on Gore so much he won't feel like he has a choice. The public-relations battle still could tip either way; Bush's challenge, tomorrow, is to win it all. He may not have a second chance.

Pet Peeve
New Republic editor Martin Peretz apparently has run out of nasty things to say about George W. Bush, because he attacks the governor's pet in his magazine's latest issue: "George W., in fact, may not know much of anything. The other night on television, the Texas governor introduced his dog to the American people, and — do you believe it? — his dog is named Spot. Young Bush is not an entitled man; he is an ordinary man."

And Al Gore, Peretz's former student? An entitled man. An extraordinary man. An extraordinarily entitled man who owns a dog named "Daisy."

Gore owns a second dog, too; its name is "Shiloh." Perhaps Peretz considers this a less pedestrian — and more presidential — name for a canine. But then there was Shilohgate, the ugly spectacle of Gore thrusting his black lab into national politics when he said his mother-in-law pays more for the same prescription drugs he gives Shiloh. This, of course, turned out not to be true.

Spot, by contrast, is spotless.