After the Rollercoaster Ride.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth

The mood at Republican headquarters was somber at 9:00 on election night. "I thought by 8:30 it would be a big sweep: It's morning in America and all that," one man in a pinstriped suit told a group of anxious staffers. "We're actually worried about the Senate now!" a colleague muttered. Over at the Democratic National Committee party at the Mayflower Hotel, there was jubilation. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton of Washington, D.C., was dancing behind the podium, jumping up and down and raising her glass, as giant TV screens announced that Gore had won the trifecta--Florida, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. In that jubilant moment--before the whole election was turned upside down, with Florida bouncing in and out of the undecided column--the Democrats sounded almost conciliatory toward Ralph Nader.

"Ralph Nader is a hero to the social justice movement," said Joel Segal, legislative assistant to Representative John Conyers, Democrat of Michigan, who campaigned strenuously against the Nader vote. "But what he did was very dangerous. He was right on the issues, but wrong on the politics." Martin Luther King never ran for President, Segal pointed out. "He worked with LBJ." Nader ought to have worked with the Democratic Party instead of running against it, he said.

Delegate Norton called the Nader phenomenon "a natural reaction after eight years of centrist Democrats." But now it's time for the Greens to "grow up." And "the first thing Al Gore should do is reach out to the Nader folks--not to the Republicans, who we've got to beat, but to the Nader folks," she said.

Norton had been doing some reaching out herself, talking to Nader voters all night at D.C. polling places. "They're almost all young, white kids, and I got together with my black constituents, and we pounded `em hard," she said, smiling. "I say to the Nader folks, we feel betrayed, but we'll forgive you, as long as you don't give the election to Bush."

Moments later, the news changed. Florida was no longer officially in the Gore column, and the party at the Mayflower died.

Only two blocks away, at the Capitol Hilton, meanwhile, the Republican party was beginning to swing. Under crystal chandeliers, with a more lavish spread than the Democrats and a live band blasting "Sweet Home Alabama," the Republicans were cheering wildly as Florida was declared for Bush on the big screens. "These guys are flipping out! They hate the Republicans--just look at [CNN anchor] Judy Woodruff!" yelled a blond...