Suggested link:

USA - Election 2000

They've spent campaign money like never before, and peddled their messages through unprecedented exposure – you'd have thought by now America may be able to pick the difference between the two men who want the biggest job in the world.

Not exactly.

As they round the home turn, there's not much daylight between Al Gore and George W. Bush… two distinctly different men with very different ideas and powerful and persuasive spin machines, each with an edge.

Al Gore might have bolted n on the bull run of national prosperity alone, not to mention George Junior's bumbling rhetoric and crooked grin.

Folksy Dubya might have tied wooden old Al to a shamed Clinton White House and moseyed over the line. But both men seem to have squandered those advantages and with policy debate never getting beyond motherhood sound bites, it's no wonder voters have them standing on pretty much the same spot.

Supporters at rallies

Music

02+00

Holmes: The richest, most powerful nation in the world is electing a new leader.

Gore

Gore: It is so great to see this unbelievable crowd. Thank you for being… I am overwhelmed.

Bush

Bush: Thank you all very much…thank you all.

Holmes: It looks like becoming America’s first billion dollar election. For a year and more, the campaign planes have crisscrossed the continent.

02+28

Campaign ads

Advertisement: … to protect social security…

Holmes: Political ads have choked the airwaves.

Advertisement: …George W. Bush… a compassionate, conservative leader… to really take on the big companies.

Bush: We should pass money back to the taxpayers. That's what I've done in Texas.

02+43

Advertisement: With just 23 days to go, Bush and Gore.

Journalist: Who is the real Al Gore…

Holmes: Pollsters have polled, and pundits have pontificated.

Journalist: Which are the two men. Gore as the fibber, and Bush as the dim…

Woman Journalist: Governor Bush smiled when he talked about executing…

Journalist: There is a danger sign for Democrats here.

Band playing at rally

Super:

Republican Convention Philadelphia

August 3

Drums/Brass band

03+12

Holmes: After eight years of Clinton-Gore, Americans are more prosperous than ever in their history – yet for months it seemed they’d opt for the man who promised change – and an end to bitter partisan warfare.

FX: Cheering

Bush

Super:

George W. Bush

Republican Nominee

Bush: I don’t have enemies to fight, I have no stake in the bitter arguments of the last few years. I want to change the tone of Washington to one of civility and respect.

03+34

FX: Cheering

Holmes: But then, Al Gore surged into the lead, by promising to do battle – on behalf of those who feel left behind.

Gore

Super:

Al Gore

Democratic Nominee

Gore: And that’s the difference in this election: they’re for the powerful, we’re for the people.

So I say to you tonight, if you entrust me with the Presidency, I will fight for you.

03+59

Music

Holmes: But now, Gore’s lead has evaporated too. It’s become the closest Presidential race since Kennedy beat Nixon forty years ago.

04+17

Journalist filing story

Journalist: The Democratic Presidential nominee has gotten a tour of the debate hall…

04+31

Holmes: A vast press corps is absorbed by the contest. But if you polled all two hundred and eighty million Americans today, it’s a safe bet most would endorse one view, at least.

Connie

Woman: I’m sick of it, I’m ready for it to end. November can’t come soon enough.

04+50

Press corps on tarmac

Holmes: If you want to join the dogged band of journalists who follow Governor Bush's campaign around the nation, you have to sign up days before you know where you’ll be going.

04+59

And then report to Austin International Airport at 6.30 on a Monday morning.

The regular travelling press corps has had its bags hauled on and off a hundred times – a life of fifteen hour days, seven day weeks, month after month.

05+20

Bush: Good morning everybody– cold snap today.

Holmes: At least they, unlike the candidate, don’t need to be sharply suited, looking fresh and ready for the fray.

Andrews Air Force base

Across the country, at Andrews Air Force base outside Washington DC, the Vice-President is boarding Air Force Two.

05+46

There was a time – weeks and months ago – when the candidates would talk on the record to the airborne press corps.

Gore on plane

Gore: I think that from time to time people bemoan the length of our campaigns. You could make an argument if there was a way to condense and put it into a much shorter period of time, there'd be a lot you could say for that. Under our constitution with freedom of expression I really don’t know how you can do that. So I’m enjoying it myself.

06+04

View from plane

Holmes: But that was then, and this is now: on board the Bush campaign plane, leaving Austin Texas, and heading West.

06+35

The election is neck and neck, there’s just weeks to go - and the slightest slip could cause disaster. The motto of both campaigns is: “keep control.”

Holmes in plane with education policy booklet

Holmes: When we got on the plane this morning we found these glossy brochures about education on our seats. As far as the Bush campaign is concerned, education is going to be THE issue for the next two days. But to make sure it is, they have to control the agenda – and they do. This little red book is a minute by minute account of everything the press corps are going to be doing today and tomorrow.

06+56

Map

We’re flying all the way from Austin Texas to Portland Oregon on the north-west coast, even further north to Spokane, Washington, south to Silicon Valley in northern California, and down to Los Angeles.

07+18

Holmes on plane

And during all of that trip, there’ll only be three events that are open to the cameras, two of them in schools.

So it’ll be really testing the journalists’ ingenuity to write about anything other than education in the next two days.

07+30

Journos on plane

Holmes: Frustrating for the press, I reflected as we crossed the Rocky Mountains, but hardly surprising. George Bush was just recovering from the worst two weeks of his campaign – a fortnight of slip-ups and trivia. There was the time Bush called a New York Times reporter a bad word in front of an open microphone.

07+43

Bush and Cheney at rally

Bush: There’s that Adam Clymer, major-league asshole from the New York Times

Cheney: Oh yeah, big time.

08+02

Bush: I said I'm sorry that remark made it into the public arena. People who know me, I've been the leader of the Governor of Texas…

Advertisements

Advertisement: Gore opposed bipartisan reform. He's pushing a big…

Holmes: And there was the Republican TV ad that seemed to accuse the Democrats – in a subliminal flash frame – of being rats.

Bush: It’s coming out of rotation Dave, I mean it’s not gonna be around…

Holmes: Make that, in Bush speak, subliminable.

Bush: I want to make it clear to people that the idea of putting subliminable messages into ads is you know it’s ridiculous…

Bush on Oprah Winfrey Show

Oprah: The Governor of Texas, George W. Bush…

08+37

Holmes: So Bush stopped talking to the yapping jackals of the political press, and chatted instead to pleasant people like Oprah Winfrey… And daytime chat show host Regis Philbin.

Audience cheering

Philbin: Oh you old devil. He gave Oprah a kiss but he wore my shirt and tie.

Bush on Philbin show

Holmes: The folksy George Dubya image soon eclipsed the bumbling Bush in the public mind. His polls are heading up, and he means to keep them that way.

09+10

Motorcade in Oregon

So now, as we sweep past downtown Portland, along freeways cleared of all traffic for the Governor’s motorcade, we’re trailing in the wake of a man who’s on message.

09+23

Bush: What I’m gonna do, as Laura mentioned, is I’m gonna talk about a subject dear to our hearts, and that’s the education of every single child.

Holmes: And a curious message it was, to me at least. Education in America is a state and local matter, as Bush stresses all the time.

09+42

Bush: See, if you believe in local control of schools like I do…

Holmes: That as Governor of Texas, he takes sole credit for its education policy.

Bush: With reforms in Texas, reading scores have gone up…

09+54

Holmes: Yet both he and Gore claim that somehow, as President, they could rescue America’s failing public schools.

Bush: America today is in the midst of an education recession that can threaten our very future…

10+08

Holmes: It’s a contradiction, I found, that concerns none of his ardent admirers.

Man

Man: Oh I thought he did fine, he really emphasised his focus on education…

10+20

Woman

Holmes: Do you think the President of the United States really has that much to do with education though?

Woman: Absolutely, yeah, he sets the tone for the nation.

10+25

Press corps

Holmes: As for the travelling press, we were bused off to a hotel banqueting hall turned filing centre, to relay to a breathless world the tidings of the Governor’s education policy.

10+35

But I discovered, when they’d got their lines untangled… their laptops plugged in and their mikes switched on….

Man: Okay, your piece is all taped.

Holmes: ...that the last thing they wanted to write or talk about was education.

11+00

Maria on phone

Maria: Which should be interesting I mean he’s getting nastier and nastier and it’s getting sort of more pointed exactly because it at least gives us something to write about.

11+07

Journalist. Sounds good. He also had a crack at Gore over the tax cuts…

Maria

Super:

Maria LaGanga

Los Angeles Times

Holmes: What have you found to write about today?

Maria: Today, well today was a day where, I mean all the details of his education plan he’s talked about before, so the plan itself was not news, what was interesting was the escalation of rhetoric

11+16

with his talk about the education recession and energy prices are rising and farm economy is stagnating, he’s trying to cast some doubt about the future.

11+29

Holmes: Things are not that great after all?

Maria: Things are not that great and could go south sooner.

Press corps

Holmes: Not much of a story, perhaps – but at least it’s about the tactics of the horse race, not boring old policy issues.

11+43

Music

Holmes: And anyway, we’re off again – next stop Spokane, Washington, on the fringes of the northern Rockies.

11+59

Supporters at airport

The Governor is holding an airport rally. There are just minutes to unload and set up.

12+14

Bush at rally

Holmes: There’s a daily ritual about rallies like these – the invited audience of faithful fans, pre-armed with posters and streamers… and the off-the-cuff, spontaneous address that’s been delivered almost word for word a hundred times before – the so-called stump speech.

12+34

Bush: There’s a difference in this campaign – and here it is. Here it is. He would rather spend your money for you. I would rather you have some of your money so you can spend it for yourself.

12+51

FX: Cheers

Gore at rally

Gore: You have got to have somebody who is willing to wield the power of the Presidency in your interests, on your behalf. And that’s what I want to do.

FX: Cheers

13+07

Holmes: On the other side of the country, in the key battleground state of Ohio, before thousands of fervent trade union activists, we caught up with Al Gore delivering his stump speech.

Gore: Because this election is not about George W. Bush and it’s not about me, this election is about you.

13+27

Holmes: It’s called “activating the base”. Most of these people can barely imagine how their city, their state, could bring itself to vote for anyone but their man.

13+37

Man with beard

Man with beard: If it doesn’t were gonna burn the town down.

13+51

Black woman

Black woman: Read my lips, stay out of the Bushes.

13+54

Holmes: Both candidates need these people, to man the phone banks, knock on doors, ferry voters to the booths on the big day.

Man in crowd

Man: I just want Gore and Clinton replaced and he’s the man to do it.

14+07

Man 2: We’ve got to have Bush in there to save the farmers and to save the food.

14+12

Holmes: But the real reason they’re in Washington State, or Ohio, or now in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is because these are the swing states, where a few tens of thousands of uncommitted voters will decide the election – as both campaigns agree.

Donna

Super:

Donna Brazile

Gore Campaign Manager

Donna: In American politics, all politics are local, meaning that you have to come and talk to the local community, the newspapers, the television stations, the radio stations, that reach people in their home and where they work.

14+36

Karen

Super:

Karen Hughes

Bush Communications Director

Karen: The local newspaper, the local television stations, all give that visit tremendous publicity, and statistics show that most Americans actually get their news from local media.

14+46

Holmes piece to camera

Super:

Jonathan Holmes

Holmes: The daily rally may be the most spectacular part of the day but this is the most important. For an hour and a half, Al Gore has been in this hotel

14+56

giving back to back interviews with TV stations from right across the state. That way he can tailor his message very precisely to independent voters in each community, and incidentally give the individual anchors their moment of fame.

Keith and cameraman

KEITH: Well that was good, good interview

Holmes: How did it go, Keith?

KEITH: Oh it was great, they gave us twelve minutes, they gave us twelve we expected five, we asked some great questions

15+26

Super:

Keith Landry

Anchor, WNEM-5 TV

just very interesting to meet him, four feet apart and you sit there and you’re looking into the Vice-President’s eyes and your saying, wow this could be the next President, and it’s just a unique experience

Holmes: Was it the biggest moment of your career so far do you think?

KEITH: It’s yeah, probably, I think so.

15+37

News report

TV Voice: Live from West Michigan’s news leader…

15+56

Holmes: Michigan is the quintessential swing state.

TV Voice: Thousands fill Calder Plaza as Vice-President Al Gore brings his campaign to Grand Rapids.

Connie watching news

Holmes: And Connie Mulder is the quintessential uncommitted voter. Watching the news that night in her home in Grand Rapids, Michigan…

16+07

Gore on TV: I’ll balance the budget every single year.

Holmes: …she’s mildly impressed that Al Gore has held a rally in her city.

16+18

Super:

Connie Mulder

Undecided voter

Connie: I think it probably will make some difference to change people’s minds on whether they are going to vote for him or not. I mean he cares enough about what Michigan does to show up here and that’s important.

News report

TV Journo: This was a big day for Al Gore particularly in West Michigan, when I talked to him…

16+34

Holmes: But the brief one-on-one interview her own local station aired so proudly did little to satisfy Connie’s need for information on the issues.

Gore: I want to put Medicare and Social Security in a locked box and protect them and I want a taxes cut for middle class families.

Connie

Connie: I think that I need more information on the Medicare issues, the tax issue, the big issues, the education issue.

16+53

When the throw around the numbers and one says, yours are off and yours are off, I don’t know.

Motorcade at Univ of Massachusetts

Holmes: A week before, the candidates had convened at the University of Massachusetts, in the Democratic stronghold of Boston.

17+07

Demonstrators: No more Bush-shit, No More Bush-shit!

Holmes: In theory, the televised debates were supposed to have solved Connie Mulder’s problem.

LEHRER: And now the first question, as determined by a flip of a coin, it goes to Vice President Gore.

Karen: I think a lot of Americans who have not made up their minds yet in the campaign are waiting to watch the debates.

17+35

Karen

They get a chance to listen to the candidates for ninety minutes and evaluate the candidates for themselves, not see them through the filter of the nightly news or the morning newspaper.

Gore

Gore: He would spend more money for tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% than all of his new spending that he proposes for education, health care, prescription drugs, and national defence all combined.

Debate

Holmes: But debates in which the candidates are forbidden to speak to each other directly are not much of a forum for pinning down your opponent.

18+02

Bush at debate

Bush: This is a man who has great numbers. He talks about numbers. I'm beginning to think not only did he invent the Internet, but he invented the calculator. It's fuzzy math.

18+10

Press corps

Holmes: And anyway, the filterers and spinners were there en masse. Crowded onto a floored-over ice hockey rink, next door to the debating chamber, were two thousand journalists… And as soon as the debate concluded, an army of spin-merchants crowded in, intent on claiming their man the winner.

18+22

Press interview journos

WILLIAM DALEY: I thought it was a great debate for Al Gore, I think the Vice-President laid out his issues.

18+46

Karen: Governor Bush’s plan which trusts people to make decisions for their own lives and their own healthcare…

BOB SCHRUM: I think Al Gore won the debate, he won the debate on choice as well.

Holmes: The instant pollsters agreed that Al Gore had won. But within two days, the Bush campaign would win the battle of the spin.

Rove

KARL ROVE: Al Gore did not tell the truth when…

19+08

Holmes: They focussed media attention on a couple of trivial Gore inaccuracies – including this one:

Gore at Debate

Gore: First I want to compliment the governor on his response to those fires and floods in Texas. I accompanied James Lee Witt down to Texas when those fires broke out.

19+16

Holmes: But it turned out that Al Gore never visited Texas fire sites with the head of the Federal Emergency Agency.

News report

DAN RATHER: CBS’s Bill Whittacker and John Roberts travelled with the candidates again today…

Holmes: And on the road the next day, the media were in full cry against Al Gore, the serial exaggerator.

19+31

Roberts news report

Roberts: But he would probably like to take back that mistaken reference to a trip that he made to Texas with the head of FEMA back in 1998. Gore needs the Texas Governor to be defending his tax cut, not making fun of another fabricated story by the president. Dan.

19+42

Grand Rapids/Connie

Holmes: Back in Grand Rapids, Michigan, none of it – neither the debate itself, nor the spin – had made much impression on Connie Mulder.

19+56

Connie: I watched as much as I could stay awake for – I think I drifted in and out for a while in the last hour. But it was a lot of generalities, and I really would like to see more specifics on their plans before I make up my mind.

Journo: How do you know that Karen, how do you know they're getting nervous?

20+20

Holmes: The truth is that for all the length of the campaigns, and the massive media coverage, it's very difficult for candidates to get details of their own policies before the average voter.

Bush at rally

Bush: Let me describe the budget, as I see it. First you’ve heard about the budget surplus that’s 4.6 trillion dollars. That means there’s money left over, it’s true, after budgets have been increased.

20+33

Gore at rally

Holmes: Harder still to criticise their opponents.

20+48

Gore: Their proposal works with state programs that are strictly income related. There are about fifteen of them, and a third of them presently run their programs through their welfare offices because it’s income related.

Holmes: The travelling media, obsessed with the horserace, don’t consider it their job.

John

Super:

John King

CNN Correspondent

John: It is difficult in this pace – a guy give a speech, you get on the bus, then you get on a plane, you get on a bus you get another speech, then you get on a bus then you get on a plane – at that pace it is very difficult to have the depth and the context that we should have in our everyday work – which is why you need reinforcements.

21+17

Holmes: Those reinforcements are there – on the inside pages of the Wall Street Journal, or buried in a thousand political web sites. But few voters bother to search them out.

21+33

Holmes to camera

Holmes: They know that when the new President gets to Washington, the details of his policies are unlikely to survive the inevitable battles with Congress, and with fifty independent state governments.

21+47

The real purpose of this extraordinary marathon is to let a hundred and fifty million American voters judge the character, the competence and the overall priorities of two men that they hardly knew before it started.

Regis Philbin show

REGIS PHILBIN: Please welcome Vice-President Al Gore everybody.

22+08

Holmes: Despite its absurdities and its hideous expense, the campaign serves that purpose well enough.

GORE: I was in the House of Representatives for eight years and the Senate for eight years…

Holmes: Everybody knows that Al Gore is experienced, and knowledgeable – and boring.

GORE: …cross party lines working with Republicans…

Holmes: Everybody knows that George Bush is dumber, and makes better jokes.

Bush: Number 7, Make sure the White House Library has lots of books with big print and pictures.

22+30

Connie

Connie: On a personal level I like the way George Bush presents a whole lot better, I just am really put off by Gore’s stiffness and that's just the way he is, I understand he probably can’t help that, that doesn’t make too much difference as far as how they're going to govern I don't think.

22+44

Holmes: Connie Mulder may not think it makes much difference – lots of Americans do.

Perhaps enough, to help Texas’s laid back Governor, against all the odds, scrape across the line.

Credits:

Reporter JONATHAN HOLMES

Camera PETER CURTIS A.C.S.

Sound WOODY LANDAY

VINCENT MAGWENYA

Editor WOODY LANDAY

Research JANET SILVER

Suggested Link:

Russia - Tax Police

In Russia, they've come up with a new tilt on life's gruesome twosome – death and taxes. And that's the untimely deaths of mare than a few tax collectors.

It seems in St. Petersburg at least, there area few things more certain than the profound local loathing of the city's tax men and women.

So much so, tax officers are guarded and nervous, and filing into an early grave. Irris Makler has our postcard.

St. Petersburg/Tax officers revue

Music

23+30

Makler: The St. Petersburg tax service is celebrating its tenth birthday – appropriately enough at the taxpayers' expense.

As you can see, they've cut down on costs by performing some of the acts themselves.

Singing: This holiday is not for everyone but there's no holiday more important than this. The tax service has been filling the motherland's coffers for ten years. Yes… yes… yes… yes! The tax inspectors are celebrating…

23+54

Makler: Adjusting to tax changes is rarely easy – so spare a thought for the Russian taxpayer, for whom the end of communism meant a whole new raft of taxes and bureaucrats.

24+15

Summer camp

The tax police spokesman explains their philosophy – a Russian version of float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

24+30

Vladislav

Super: Vladislav Vinogradov

St. Petersburg Tax Police

Vinogradov: The task of the tax services is to sting the taxpayer for the state, but at the same time to keep him alert and friendly.

24+40

Tax inspector in car with police

Makler: Tax inspectors out on a sting in a poor area of St. Petersburg, taking their police along for protection.

24+56

But it turns out they don't need their guns. At this small vodka kiosk, they find only one woman, an employee, not the owner, who hasn't done her paperwork.

But tax inspector Semyonov says it was worth it.

Semyonov in vodka kiosk

Semyonov: Yes, it's a success. We have uncovered a shop selling alcohol without excise or regional duty stamps. A regional duty stamp looks like this here.

25+35

Makler: The owner of the vodka kiosk cannot be found, and everyone from the adjoining shop scarpered at the first sight of the inspectors.

Inspectors investigate guy in van

They suspect this man hanging around outside of trafficking the bootleg vodka. But without hard evidence, the tax police settle for giving him a warning.

26+10

Inspector: You don't work here, so what are you doing here?

Man: I've just come here to take a look.

Inspector: I mean what are you doing here in Russia?

Man: I'm not doing anything.

Inspector: Go back to Azerbaijan – we have enough of our own swindlers.

Man: Okay, okay.

Inspector: If I come here and see you again you will regret it, I promise you.

Tax police load guns

Makler: The tax police were set up eight years ago, to protect the inspectors from the public, who were angry about a new tax.

26+51

It's a dangerous job. In one year here in St. Petersburg, six tax police were kidnapped, 41 had their homes burnt down, and 26 were killed.

Tax policeman

Tax policeman: If you wake any of our men at night and ask them why they do it they'll tell you they work for the good of their country and of their city – because without taxes the state cannot exist.

27+15

Hermitage

Look at the Hermitage. You can’t do that without these police.

Tax police at summer camp

Makler: Mostly ex-military and ex-KGB, the tax police play to their tough guy image.

27+41

Here they're staging a kidnapping for kids at a summer camp. It's a warm-up for a show of their skills, including how to beat and choke reluctant taxpayers. The kids are suitably impressed.

Girls at summer camp

Girl 1: Yes, I'm it for the third year in a row, and it gets better each year. New tricks appear, and it's really cool.

28+11

Girl 2: We especially liked that it was our group leader that they took hostage. We liked it, it was great, super.

Kids at summer camp

FX: Gunshots

Makler: The tax police admit they're doing this partly to attract young recruits, though Vladislav Vingoradov says he won't be disappointed if they choose other careers.

28+34

Vingoradov: We want the children to have a more joyful future, so that they don't have to deal daily with the dark side of our society.

28+48

Vingoradov

To a certain extent it's the underbelly of our economy, which doesn't smell very pleasant, but if they do decide to come they will have a good idea about the service.

Boys at summer camp

Makler: And would you like to do this job?

29+07

Young man: No, it's too dangerous.

Makler: Would you like to be a militzia?

Young man 2: No, no, I want to be an advocate – a lawyer.

Makler: Even if the kids don't join up, the inspectors hope they’re winning over these taxpayers of the future.

Credits:

Reporter: Irris Makler

Camera: David Martin

Sound: Slava Zelenin

Editor: Garth Thomas

Producer: Slava Zelenin