Deadlock: The Inside Story of America's Closest Election

by The Washington Post, David von Drehle, Joel Achenbach

Offers an account of the post-election fight for the White House, including the debate over hanging and pregnant chads, butterfly ballots, manual recounts, and the U.S. Supreme Court's role in the conclusion of the election.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2001

About the author

The Washington Post provides authoritative local, national and international news — with reporting on politics, technology, business and culture — offering readers and users entertainment and information they need to know, plus expert original commentary, insight and analysis, 365 days a year.

Reviews

[Tommy]

Hard to not read this as a Washingtonian - turns out if you followed the Bush/Gore saga on a daily basis like most Americans, there's not much more here for you. But, it's certainly good to have a record of this cataclysmic disaster.

[Kenneth]

This is a nice play by play account of the action that went on during the fight between Bush and Gore to secure the presidency in the 2000 election. I saw this writing as very balanced reporting on both sides of the struggle, avoiding the bitterness of the two parties and showing the human side of both men. You come out of this book understanding the State laws and the federal law that contained this fight. As I was reading this book, I was also listening to the audio book “Decision Points”, George W. Bush’s auto-biography as read by him. In his book, “W” comes off as cocky and a bit defensive, in his own words and in his own voice, if only he would have included the excerpts from an interview with George W. Bush with the Washington Post staff from January 11, 2001 as the book “Deadlock” uses in its conclusion.
In this interview, Bush is as candid and articulate as I have ever seen him in recalling these critical days in American history. “W” earns some points here as we see a different side of him. I felt that this interview was the most valuable part of this book and I think that the staff did a very nice job in including it.

[David]

fairly even-handed recap of the 2000 presidential election. It's been long enough that I'd forgotten some of the day to day twists and turns as recounts progressed or stopped, standards (is the chad detached at 3 of the 4 corners? two? zero but merely dimpled?) were debated, etc. Not sure how much progress we've made on setting up fair, concrete standards before the fact, which would be a lot better than leaving it to self-interested arguments and decisions made under deadline pressure.