Nevada’s delegates await Gore’s televised address

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2000 | 10:58 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- It's gut-check time for Al Gore, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said today as the nation waited to see what the Vice President would say in a televised address tonight.

"Al Gore's legacy and future political endeavors are dependent on how the country views him in the next few days," Berkley said. "Everybody loves a winner, and they admire a gracious loser."

Berkley hinted it was time for Gore to quit persuing the presidency: "It's time the country unite and move forward."

Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., agreed.

"The fat lady has sung," he said. "It is the end, but there will always be a question of doubt as to whether all the votes were accurately counted. That's something for the history books."

Nevada's four members in Congress today were closely tracking the latest developments in the presidential election saga still unfolding in Florida and Washington.

"Certainly this election has gone on exceedingly long in the minds of most people," Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said. "Obviously (Gore's) strategy to win the election has met with finality in the Supreme Court."

Gibbons said Gore "absolutely" has a political future. He predicted Gore will urge the nation and rival Republican and Democratic lawmakers to somehow find an effective method for working together.

Gibbons also said the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling was a purely legal, not a political, analysis.

Although Democrats and Republicans both seemed to agree that Gore's legal efforts were at or near an end, they likely will continue to disagree on whether all the Florida votes were accurately counted.

"There have been counts and recounts," Gibbons said. "The only objective recount is the politically blind machine recount."

Berkley said she was disappointed by the direction, or lack of direction, issued by the Florida Supreme Court in how to count the ballots. But Berkley, a lawyer, said she had a special reverence for the nation's highest court and respects its ruling on the Florida body's actions.

Bryan said it was unfortunate the Supreme Court on Saturday effectively halted recounts, then on Tuesday night in one section of the ruling said there wasn't time for recounts.

"That was probably the cruelest blow to Al Gore," Bryan said. "The Court itself had created that situation."

Both parties seemed to agree the nation needs a more efficient, uniform ballot counting system. Bryan said the current system that invites scrutiny of swinging, hanging and dimpled chads was a "national embarrassment" for a sophisticated country.

Gibbons said it may be time to "moderize the electoral college," but not get rid of it.

"If you abolish the electoral college, you abolish the presidential election in every small state," Gibbons said.

The electoral college system encourages candidates in close races to campaign in states with small populations as they scrap for electoral votes. Both Bush and Gore and their running mates visited Nevada this year.

This year, Nevada's four electoral votes could have won the election for Gore, Bryan noted.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a close ally of Gore who said this week that the Supreme Court's ruling should decide the election, today will "reserve comment until he knows more about what Gore is going to do," Reid spokesman David Cherry said.