A narrow choice, a costly race, an Electoral College puzzle By Mike Feinsilber, Associated Press, 11/7/00 WASHINGTON -- In what held the prospect of being the closest election in 40 years, Americans elected a new president Tuesday, choosing from between Republican George W. Bush, who promised to be a "uniter not a divider" and Democrat Al Gore, who claimed he alone has the experience to "fight for you and win." The country also elected a new Congress and 11 governors. Exhausted by the effort, the candidates -- Bush, the governor of Texas and son of a president, and Gore, the vice president, for eight years a presidential understudy -- surrendered their fate to the voters and joined them at the polls. Two voters seemed to sum up many people's views of the race. In the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, dentist John Scovic said integrity was the issue that led him to vote for Bush. "I just think George Bush has more leadership skills and a more principled, centered-type personality," Scovic said. But Bruce Mitzit, who works in information technology at the University of Chicago, said he chose Gore because Bush "wants to make life easy for big business and for the wealthy." Gore and his wife, Tipper, voted at the Forks River Elementary School in Elmwood, near his home town of Carthage, Tenn. Then Gore conducted a seminar with the school children about the importance of voting. He got a big laugh after asking one child what he thought the president ought to do and the youngster answered: "Improve Congress." Bush, after taking coffee to his wife, Laura, telephoned his parents. "I can understand why they're nervous," he said. "They're nervous for the vote, they're nervous for me personally." Before voting, Bush also made several phone calls to friends around the country, read the Bible to himself and spoke by phone on radio shows broadcast in San Francisco; Portland, Ore., and Seattle. He also called a few voters, telling a woman in Detroit who pledged her support: "Thank you from the bottom of my heart." President Clinton, admitting he felt nostalgic as an election bystander, voted for his wife for the Senate at their new home in Chappaqua, N.Y., and telephoned radio stations to make a case for voting for Gore. "There is a feeling in the country, that I pick up, that people want to keep the prosperity going," the president told voters. At a fire station in Little Rock, Ark. the line of voters was 200 deep and it took nearly 90 minutes to complete the process. To help move things along, faster, election workers let voters take the paper ballots into a garage. With felt-tip pens in hand, they leaned against the trucks' bumpers, making their marks. Weather proved an Election Day obstacle to some votes. Up to a foot of snow prevented poll workers from reaching their posts in part of New Mexico, and snowplows delivered ballots through blowing snow on part of the northern Plains. GOP vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney stood in line to vote in a firehouse in Wilson, Wyo., in subfreezing temperatures and without a topcoat. His wife, Lynne, and his granddaughter, Kate Perry, 6, were at his side. Joseph Lieberman, Gore's running mate, the first Jew on a major party ticket, said, "Anything is possible in America" after he voted in Connecticut. His wife, Hadassah, emerged from the voting booth with tears running down her cheeks. Behind the presidential candidates was the most expensive election in history -- $3 billion on presidential and congressional races, about $30 for every vote cast -- but one that failed to stir much excitement. In addition to replacing Clinton, the people were electing all 435 members of the House, 34 senators and 11 governors, filling their state legislatures and settling 204 ballot issues in 42 states, ranging from legalizing marijuana in Alaska to fluoridating the water in San Antonio, Texas. Despite millions of automated phone calls and waves of television advertising, analysts predicted that fewer than half the adult population would vote, about the same as the 96 million who cast ballots in 1996. With peace and prosperity both at hand and not big issues, the fight was chiefly over how to divide the spoils: in the big tax cuts the Texas governor proposes or in shoring up Medicare, Social Security and education, as the vice president favors. Bush portrayed himself as more trustworthy and capable of ending bickering in Washington -- "a uniter." Gore said his two decades in government give him the experience to prevail in taking on the special interests. In some cases, factors barely raised in the campaign influenced how voters decided. Ray Bettge, 42, of Sioux Falls, S.D., who escorted his Vietnamese-born wife to the polls to vote in her first U.S. election, said he voted for Gore in part because of Bush's views on capital punishment. "I think Bush is a rather cruel person," Bettge said. "He executes people and enjoys doing it." And in Buffalo, N.Y., college student James Park, 26, said he voted for Bush for a simple reason: "I liked his father." Bush led in most national polls and enjoyed a potentially decisive enthusiasm edge among likely voters. But late polls showed a tightening of the race. An unusually large number of states were in the tossup camp. Even Gore's Tennessee and Clinton's Arkansas were close calls. Gore's task was complicated by "Clinton fatigue" -- a weariness of the sex scandal that led to an impeachment ordeal -- and by the base-eroding threat posed by the insurgent Nader, who argued both major parties are captives of the same corporate money. If Nader can win 5 percent of the national vote, his Green Party would be assured of federal financing in 2004. Voter William Slugg, a factory manager in Albany, Ga., gave vent to exasperation with Clinton. "I'm a broken-glass Republican -- that is what I would crawl across to get those guys out of office," he told a reporter. "Bill has screwed up the White House." In Rochester, N.Y., Maryanne Lettis, a retired state government worker, was one voter who turned away from Nader out of concern that Bush would benefit. "If I had thought Nader had a chance to win, I could have gone that way," she said. The battle for Congress after six years of Republican dominance was just as murky. Democrats hoped to regain control of the Senate, where the GOP holds sway, 54-46, and the House, where Republicans hold a 222-209 majority, with two independents and two vacancies.