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At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election
Drawing on exhaustive, on-the-scene reporting and exclusive interviews with the key players - including President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney - Washington Times reported Bill Sammon has written the definitive account of the most contentious presidential election in U.S. history.
- GenresPoliticsNonfiction
294 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 8, 2009
This was an in-depth look at the major events surrounding the 2000 election. Gore supporters will no doubt paint the author as a Gore-hating, staunch Conservative because he says nothing bad about Bush or his backers, and Gore pretty much oozes sleaziness.
Early on in the book there's a lot of good analysis on the early vote call in Florida, and the joke disguised as the Voter News Service. The network bias in calling Gore states early while not calling Bush states for up to two hours after polls closed is well documented.
One of the more fascinating tidbits was early in the recount when Gore gathered his people around him for a motivational meeting. He drew four concentric circles on paper. The inner circle he put "Me". The next circle had "Supporters", the next one "Democratic Party", the last one "USA". This was his Circle of Responsibility. Me first. You second. The party third, and the country forth. Quite telling.
Several chapters were dedicated to the recounts and the chaos that ensued. The Florida supreme court who re-wrote the election laws...after the election to boot. Also of interest was the US Supreme Court's decision. It was actually by a 7-2 vote that hand recounts were unconstitutional. Not 5-4 like some have said. The 5-4 vote was to stop the madness.
I was vaguely familiar with Bob Beckel's attempt to sway electors. This was actually one story about which I didn't know the whole truth. Some had theorized that Beckel was trying to blackmail electors. He planned only to try to convince people he thought were "swayable" to have a change of heart.
Many people claimed that Bush stole the election. This is technically impossible because at no time in the tallying of votes was he ever behind. This was Gore's election to steal.
The clincher was the disection of Gore's "heartfelt" concession speech. Gore was trying to put himself above the events. To say that he and Bush were equal outsiders looking in on the election chaos. In reality, he caused it all. Bush was hanging back on the defensive. He never "took" votes from Gore.
Although I followed the election and it's aftermath closely, there were some aspects that I found quite interesting in this book. Even though I was familiar with all the topics, I did get more of an inside look at what actually happened.
Good stuff, if you can stomach getting to the core of the 2000 election..
Early on in the book there's a lot of good analysis on the early vote call in Florida, and the joke disguised as the Voter News Service. The network bias in calling Gore states early while not calling Bush states for up to two hours after polls closed is well documented.
One of the more fascinating tidbits was early in the recount when Gore gathered his people around him for a motivational meeting. He drew four concentric circles on paper. The inner circle he put "Me". The next circle had "Supporters", the next one "Democratic Party", the last one "USA". This was his Circle of Responsibility. Me first. You second. The party third, and the country forth. Quite telling.
Several chapters were dedicated to the recounts and the chaos that ensued. The Florida supreme court who re-wrote the election laws...after the election to boot. Also of interest was the US Supreme Court's decision. It was actually by a 7-2 vote that hand recounts were unconstitutional. Not 5-4 like some have said. The 5-4 vote was to stop the madness.
I was vaguely familiar with Bob Beckel's attempt to sway electors. This was actually one story about which I didn't know the whole truth. Some had theorized that Beckel was trying to blackmail electors. He planned only to try to convince people he thought were "swayable" to have a change of heart.
Many people claimed that Bush stole the election. This is technically impossible because at no time in the tallying of votes was he ever behind. This was Gore's election to steal.
The clincher was the disection of Gore's "heartfelt" concession speech. Gore was trying to put himself above the events. To say that he and Bush were equal outsiders looking in on the election chaos. In reality, he caused it all. Bush was hanging back on the defensive. He never "took" votes from Gore.
Although I followed the election and it's aftermath closely, there were some aspects that I found quite interesting in this book. Even though I was familiar with all the topics, I did get more of an inside look at what actually happened.
Good stuff, if you can stomach getting to the core of the 2000 election..
July 22, 2024
A COMMENTATOR CHARGES THAT GORE REFUSED TO GIVE UP…
Bill Sammon is Senior White House Correspondent for the Washington Times and a political analyst for FOX News Channel, who has also written book such as 'The Evangelical President: George Bush's Struggle to Spread a Moral Democracy Throughout the World,' 'Strategery: How George W. Bush Is Defeating Terrorists, Outwitting Democrats, and Confounding the Mainstream Media,' 'Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, Media Bias, and the Bush Haters,' etc.
He wrote in the Prologue to this 2001 book, "In the end, when (Gore) knew all was lost, he tried to inflict mortal wounds on Bush's fledgling presidency. In the process, he all but obliterated any chance for a political comeback of his own. In short, Al Gore had tried... to seize the presidency---at any cost."
Sammon argues that "the premature and erroneous declaration of a Gore victory... caused Bush a net loss of about 10,000 votes." (Pg. 19) He asserts that by the Thursday after the election, "it had become clear that Bush's lead, however, diminished, would hold... But the standoff had just begun." (Pg. 74)
Of the 4-3 Florida Supreme Court decision, Sammon observes, "the Court gave Gore... far more than he had ever requested---or even dreamed possible. In one bold stroke of judicial activism, the four liberal justices had thumbed their noses at the U.S. Supreme Court and opened a Pandora's box of unimaginable mischief..." (Pg. 240)
He strongly makes the point that "only two justices found the Florida recount constitutional... Still, Democrats stubbornly refused to portray the Supreme Court's ruling as a 7-to-2 decision... The landmark decision would forever be described by Democrats and the press as a 5-to-4 vote." (Pg. 255)
Most of the entire books written about the 2000 election controversy are written from the pro-Gore side, which makes this challenging book all the more interesting.
Bill Sammon is Senior White House Correspondent for the Washington Times and a political analyst for FOX News Channel, who has also written book such as 'The Evangelical President: George Bush's Struggle to Spread a Moral Democracy Throughout the World,' 'Strategery: How George W. Bush Is Defeating Terrorists, Outwitting Democrats, and Confounding the Mainstream Media,' 'Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, Media Bias, and the Bush Haters,' etc.
He wrote in the Prologue to this 2001 book, "In the end, when (Gore) knew all was lost, he tried to inflict mortal wounds on Bush's fledgling presidency. In the process, he all but obliterated any chance for a political comeback of his own. In short, Al Gore had tried... to seize the presidency---at any cost."
Sammon argues that "the premature and erroneous declaration of a Gore victory... caused Bush a net loss of about 10,000 votes." (Pg. 19) He asserts that by the Thursday after the election, "it had become clear that Bush's lead, however, diminished, would hold... But the standoff had just begun." (Pg. 74)
Of the 4-3 Florida Supreme Court decision, Sammon observes, "the Court gave Gore... far more than he had ever requested---or even dreamed possible. In one bold stroke of judicial activism, the four liberal justices had thumbed their noses at the U.S. Supreme Court and opened a Pandora's box of unimaginable mischief..." (Pg. 240)
He strongly makes the point that "only two justices found the Florida recount constitutional... Still, Democrats stubbornly refused to portray the Supreme Court's ruling as a 7-to-2 decision... The landmark decision would forever be described by Democrats and the press as a 5-to-4 vote." (Pg. 255)
Most of the entire books written about the 2000 election controversy are written from the pro-Gore side, which makes this challenging book all the more interesting.
January 22, 2017
The amount of research and interviews displayed in this book is amazing. Highly recommend for the objective scope and depth of research on the events from Election Day to the slating of electors. For a book on what some would consider a dry subject, it had an easy flow and a steady pace. In other words, it wasn't boring and didn't drag. ;)
August 6, 2013
This book opens by calling the recount in Palm Beach a "jihad" which should give you some idea of what stance Sammon takes on the event. It's not a bad retelling of the recount process and surrounding drama, but it's far, far from unbiased and there are times when Sammon's personal views interrupt the narrative. Too Close to Call by Jeffrey Toobin is a really great book about the same events and unless you have a need to compare two books about the same subject as I did, I don't recommend reading this one unless you truly believe that Gore "tried to steal the election".
November 28, 2007
good chronology of the election, and while i am sympathetic to the author's perspective, he makes no attempt to be objective. nonetheless, it uses facts and timelines to convincingly refute the canard that bush stole the election.
September 1, 2012
Totally false. Anyone with any sense knows that GWB stole the election and we're still paying for it.
October 8, 2015
This is the exact reason the electoral college should be done away with. The wrong people can get elected. This whole thing was such a fiasco while they were sorting out the vote in Florida.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews