Eat your oranges and shut up already: Florida holds America hostage -- counts, recounts

7:00p 11.9

If you take a quick look on any of the news sites, you can get the county-by-county of the Sunshine State, and scroll down the aisles – if you keep your eye on Buchanan, not one – save Pinellas County of St Petersburg fame and Palm Beach County of Willie Smith fame counted over 1000 votes for the Oscar the Right Wing Grouch.

Palm Beach a few more than 3000, Pinellas in next at a mere 1000 (next to 10,000 votes for Nader!).

Less than 50 percent of either county voted (according to the latest in what may be a series of tabulations) for president, period.

3000 votes in that liberal, schmiberal beachy sort of place?

It’s not unlikely, but based on the fact that people are complaining – in the coffee shop on downtown, a kid is telling his co-worker that his grandma, who lives in Palm Beach, called to tell him she thinks she made the mistake, as did a co-worker, who’s friend called to tell her that he thinks he made the mistake too.

Maybe it was all the people in Lake Okeechobee towns sick of the beach-side liberals and dark-skinned riffraff in Broward and Miami-Dade. Who knows what that swamp gas does to your brain.

Perhaps it’s not so ludicrous an idea after all – if Gore is truly only down by 342 votes (as was reported on networks not long ago, and rebuffed by the Fla. Secretary of State) it might not hurt to start from scratch.

He’s already ahead in the popular vote – if Florida is so close, they should go back to the polls, get this thing over with and let us move on.

As for me, I’m fleeing the country – work related, actually – and I won’t be back until the 22nd, and I’m sure – dear God, let it be so – that this mess will have resolved itself, and we’ll have a new, inadequate president that gets to do four years battle with what looks to be a 50-50 split Senate.

The fun’s begun, speaking of the senate -- Trent Lott is already hurling death wishes at Hillary – apparently, no blow is too low these days. But our Hillary, (yes, she is ours), she of the poise and grace, looks ready to take any sticks, stones and names that the Geezer Guard can throw at her.

Careful, Trent Lott – get too over excited, and you might give yourself a stroke, God forbid.

Hey, don’t look at me – he started it. Struck by lightning. That’s a nice way to talk to the lady, fuckhead.

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not so very much vaya con dios, albert

9:30pm 11.8.00
Nader the spoiler, Nader this, Nader that. What's so frustrating about this most exciting of election years is that neither of the candidates is worth fighting for -- I know, I know, we've said this before in Clinton-Bush and Clinton-Dole times, but this year, yes this year, a new, new low. It's the eve of the day after Election and we still don't know nothing. Florida has us by the short hairs, and there's nothing we can do about it.

Sure, it'll eventually figure itself out and I've got a copy of the Bush Wins! cover that The Post put out last night (and then retracted, but not in the outer boroughs) and it'll be one of those covers for the ages like Dewey defeats Truman! except that Bush WILL probably win, and it's just prolonging the agony of the Dems who found new hope for Al in the final moments last night.

Isn't it funny -- to think, Florida was one of the first big states called last night. Here's mud in your eye, networks -- someone's going to be on your ass next election, guaranteed.

But it was a beautiful day, wasn't it? I thought so -- 60's, sunny, Brooklyn fall colors looking good. Things have changed, but it's still a gorgeous autumn in the US of A. Small mercies.

For now.

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vaya con dios, albert

2:40am 11.8.00
So Tom Brokaw is flailing and wailing, wringing hands over the "first republican president, house and senate since Eisenhower", and is "interested in seeing how Hollywood reacts" to a Bush win. Bring it on -- it'll surely be interesting, if a little scary. Tom is offering ideas for the Bore's short-term employment opportunities. A tuneless hag is singing all beautiful for spacious skies in rainy Austin, George is ready to speak and in Nashville its raining too, and they're playing do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight.

Yeah -- let's all go have sex. Beats politics.

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mañana celebramos la victoria

1:30am 11.8.00
When they said, hours ago, on all three networks (my arm hurts from flipping the manual dial) that it was all about South Florida, you knew you just had to laugh.

Washington may have showed Dade County who was boss with the Elian mishegoss, (do we even remember back that far?) but bless their hearts, those South Floridians showed Washington that they had the power to decide who became the next president.

Did I just hear a very loud “What goes around, comes around” shouted from high atop a palm tree? Not that it really means anything, but hell, it makes a good story.

Land of cuban sandwiches and gay dance clubs, sandy beaches and flash-cash living, retirement communities and red convertibles. Don’t let anyone say that puny Miami (pop. not so many) doesn’t matter. It did.

But, don’t blame me, I voted for Nader.

As the day progressed, I got happier and happier that I had, because after I cast my vote at the Sarah J. Hale Middle School, now the Brooklyn High School for the Performing Arts (who knew, we had one) I actually went into the books and began to read. More and more I read, and more and more I knew – who died and made these two The Shit?

So unpresidential – he the bore, he the brat, where’s my John F. Kennedy? Born into Carter, grew up in unhappy Reagan, when Upstate New York literally choked on the smell of death, Bush the Daddy when it practically gave up the ghost, and eight long Clintons with a lot of change and a lot of ridiculous media pandering to non-scandal, where, in my opinion, a young person can do pretty well for themselves in a wide open job market.

And here we are, 1:30 in the AM, and I’m clicking randomly on foreign papers, while Dan Rather drones on in the background, repeating himself over, over, and over again. Katie Couric needs another double “expresso” – God, who says “expresso” these days? So 1991.

The Sydney Morning Herald is on and on anon about how Gore is important for the future, it reminds me of a conversation with an Australian, who just so happened to mention that he was “terrified of Bush.” Can’t blame him.

The South African papers rambled endlessly about the importance of Gore vs. Bush for future trade, highlighting an important but largely ignored example of Bush’s cluelessness on foreign matters – the man managed to completely avoid any discussion of the great continent Afrika in a discussion of all the different continents, later to backpedal and say how “much needs to be done (over there) to advance democracy and trade.”

But the good South Africans aren’t buying it, and some are quaking in their boots. They probably should, but it has nothing to do with the United States.

London’s coverage was certainly comprehensive, loved the distorted map of the United States that made Texas tiny and Florida big, and California a big box. In true Brit style, they managed pages and pages of coverage with little or no color or grab, how very New York Times.

I can read some German, but the Frankfurter Allgemeine doesn’t seem to care – they’re too busy talking about a statewide manhunt for a child rapist. Which is the kind of thing we’d be trumpeting on front pages, were there no election.

Hard to say what’s going to happen – it gets closer, closer, closer and closer. Dan Rather wryly mentions that tonight is Florida’s night to “bask in the attention.”

Damn right – they’ll show us who’s boss. Granny blue hair, the Pensacola Pentecostal, Cuban mamas, SoBe queens, the Orthodox Jews and Dave Barry, yet.

Viva Dade. Viva Broward. Viva Hillsborough. Shine on, your crazy diamonds, you sunburnt peoples, our future lies in your hands.

Email: davidr@lifeingotham.com