Gore called Bush to concede. Bush was ready to give a victory speech, but nearly an hour later, Bush's 30,000 lead in Florida dwindled to a couple thousand. Gore called Bush to recant his concession. Now, nearly two days after the final poll closed, the President-elect has yet to be officially identified. After a legally required recount in Florida, allegations of vote fraud and calls for a re-vote begin to swirl.
Republicans are nail-biting.
Such a story extremely damaged the Reform Party's credibility so that most conservatives would reject Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan. Republicans welcomed the media bias. The media made it seem that all in attendance were Reformers. The rump conventioneers nominated John Hagelin, thereby making it appear that two Reform nominees emerged from Long Beach. The anti-Buchanan Hagelinites forced Buchanan to spend hundreds of of thousands of dollars, perhaps a million, simply to go into each state to fight for his name on those ballots.