Election 2000 captivated the public. Its plot twists were unpredictable and non-stop. And at its core was a fight over the biggest political prize: the White House.
The only thing this would-be blockbuster lacked was an ending. Until now, that is. Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, the full story now can be told.
And it will be, repeatedly.
Over the last five weeks, publishers have been racing to close deals for quickie campaign books that they hope to have on bookstore shelves while George W. Bush still is serving his first 100 days.
Before the election, only two books were in the works, after what had been a close-yet-dull race for the presidency. But, since the chaos of election night, the number of book deals has tripled. At least six books are being pounded out.
“In New York, they were not concerned about this campaign,” said Roger Simon, a former Tribune reporter now with U.S. News & World Report and one of two writers whose book contract was signed before Election Day. “They knew an election was going on only because they heard jokes about it on Letterman and Leno.”
Jake Tapper, a reporter for the on-line magazine Salon.com, was among those who had no success pitching a book before the election but sealed a deal in the 48 hours after the polls closed.
Tapper was in Tallahassee, Fla., waiting for the legal melee to begin on Nov. 9, when he received an e-mail from his agent in New York at 11:06 a.m. asking casually if he had given any thought to turning out a book just about election night. At 3:42 p.m., a second e-mail arrived from his agent: “Call ASAP.”
A publishing house, Little Brown, was willing to put money on the table.
“There wasn’t all that much interest before,” Tapper said. “Political books don’t sell well.”
True. Traditional campaign books, the ones that take readers behind the scenes, typically have narrow appeal. But the current batch of books promises to be anything but typical.
When Theodore H. White launched the genre with “The Making of the President,” a backstage look at the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon race, he didn’t have the U.S. Supreme Court, Miami mobs and hanging chads to spice things up. That’s not the case this year.
“There’s enough dishonesty and hypocrisy on both sides to cover several election cycles,” Tapper said. “Florida [was] like a carnival freak-show mirror on America.”
In addition to those by Simon and Tapper, books in the works include “Smashmouth: Two Years in the Gutter with Al Gore and George W. Bush” by Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank, and “Oh, Waiter! One Order of Crow! Inside the Strangest Presidential Election Finish in American History” by CNN analyst Jeff Greenfield.
Milbank’s book, arranged before Election Day, is due out soon after the Jan. 20 inauguration.
Greenfield’s is expected in the spring. Simon’s is due in April. Tapper’s publisher once promised his would be ready in time for the inauguration, but he now says it will be “the early part of 2001.”
For another author, Bill Minutaglio, the deadline already has passed.
Minutaglio, who wrote the first biography of Bush, “First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty” in 1999, updated the book for a re-release early next year. But his deadline was early December–far too soon, it turned out, to know how the story ends.
“I took it as far forward as I could go,” Minutaglio said. “I had to finish it up without that final cherry on top.”
