Customer Reviews

Oh, Waiter! One Order of Crow: Inside the Strangest Presidential Election Finish in American History

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Jeff Greenfield is widely recognized as one of the premier political analysts in America. And, with the publication of "Oh Waiter" he proves that he's a terrific writer as well. Greenfield graduated from Harvard Law and went straight to work for Senator Robert Kennedy. After Kennedy's death in 1968 he worked as an aide for several other major politicians before tackling a new career as a political commentator for ABC News. His witty yet shrewd analyses of leading politicians quickly made him into a star. By the 1990's Greenfield was working for CNN. As the book reveals, Greenfield longs for the days before exit polling and other modern techniques allowed the political "experts" to know who was going to win the election hours before the polls even closed. On election night 2000 Greenfield (and many other political junkies) got their wish - a VERY close election - but as Greenfield dryly notes, this election was proof positive that you need to be careful what you wish for. As befits Greenfield's on-air style, "Oh Waiter" educates as well as it entertains. He offers a perceptive insight (and a highly amusing one) into the personalities and weaknesses of Al Gore and George W. Bush, as well as why neither candidate could ever pull away to a comfortable lead (they were mirror images of each other). He describes why John McCain, for all the excitement he generated in the Republican primaries, never really had a chance against Bush and the conservative GOP establishment. The best part of the book, in my opinion, were the two chapters which covered CNN's election night coverage. Again, Greenfield offers both amusing commentary and shrewd insight in equal measure. He is also fair (or at least equally harsh) to both sides, and he isn't afraid to skewer his own profession - the media - for their mistakes either. He vividly explains why the sophisticated election-predicting system all the TV networks used was a disaster waiting to happen, and why it finally DID happen in 2000. And, last but not least, Greenfield explains why it was virtually impossible for Gore to have won the presidency, even if all the "what-if" scenarios had gone his way (basically, the Republicans simply wanted it more, to get even with the Clintons). If you enjoy reading a book that in the span of a few pages will have you laughing out loud and then will offer some real insight into the workings of the modern American political system (and vice versa), then you'll find "Oh, Waiter" impossible to resist. I know I did - I intended to simply skim through it in my local bookstore and 2 hours later wound up buying it because I simply had to finish it. Like Teddy White's famed classic "The Making of the President 1960", this book in another 20 or 30 years may itself be seen as a classic look at one of the closest, most exciting - and strangest - presidential elections in American history.

Jeff Greenfield is one of the premier political analysts in America, and as this book proves, he's also a terrific writer. I originally was going to "skim" this book in a local bookstore and wound up spending two hours in the store reading it before I decided that I simply had to buy it and finish it. There are already several books out in print about last year's marathon, history-making presidential race, but this one is by far the best. Greenfield manages to combine both a serious analysis of the election - why Bush and Gore were so perfectly matched as opponents (they mirrored each other's strengths and weaknesses), why the South voted Republican while the North went Democratic, why Bush won (and Gore lost), the "what-if" scenarios (and why he believes that Bush would have won the election even if all the "what-ifs" had broken Gore's way), and even why John McCain couldn't defeat Bush despite his huge wins in the New Hampshire and Michigan primaries - with a delightful, biting sense of humor that shines through on every page. Greenfield's analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of Bush and Gore's personalities is both hilarious and on-target, as are his comments on the supporting players from Bill Clinton to Katherine Harris. And, as the title suggests, Greenfield doesn't spare his own profession - the media - from his barbs. His two chapters on covering the election night for CNN are by themselves worth the price of the book. If you're looking to buy just one book about one of the closest (and strangest) presidential elections in history, then "Oh, Waiter" is by far the best choice. Not only will you learn a great deal about the 2000 campaign and the "behind-the-scenes" battles that you didn't know about before, but you'll also find yourself laughing out loud at many of Greenfield's comments. A great book!

I highly recommend "Waiter, One Order of Crow" for general readers who value candor about the process of American presidential campaigns and elections. Greenfield, CNN's senior political analyst, displays it in his review of the 2000 presidential campaign and election. He is candid about the chaos of election night, for which, accidentally, media pundits were admittedly partly responsible. He pokes fun at the media's excitement over this unusual election, "too-close-to-call" even in early polling data, and at himself. He goes the extra miles to try to explain the causes for the chaos. I believe some of his explanations depend on some subtleties and technicalities in political science. I suspect that mistrust of CNN in this case is truly misplaced. There are inevitable unpredictable events and errors of strategies in campaigns. Political scientists still have an interest to have models to forecast presidential election results. Political news, and Greenfield's book, are built out of those realities.

Unfortunately, many reviewers' of this book have misrepresented what is written at various points. Some points are easier to correct than others, but in what follows I try to correct all those I saw:

* First, Greenfield's law school education is from Yale, not Harvard;

* Like many media folks, if not most, Greenfield is on the liberal end of the ideological spectrum (after all, it is liberalism that most supports a free press and opposes censorship of political news) but, it is to his credit that he reveals his bias without being blind to the successes of Bush and the failings of Gore;

* About Senator Bradley and the role of ideology in the Democratic campaign--Greenfield said Bradley lacked a fighting spirit, not that he was too liberal, and Greenfield's larger point is that all candidates in the primary elections have to first win an ideological base of supporters, and in the general election they have to win the undecided independents without losing their ideological base;

* Greenfield did not blame Clinton for Gore's loss, but he points out that Gore's campaign strategy did not use Clinton when and where it might have helped in the popular vote;

* According to Greenfield, CNN did not call the election one-hour before the Florida panhandle's polls closed, but 15 minutes before closing (still too soon, given the closeness of the race, so it could not have cost Bush 15,000 votes as the Bush campaign folks alleged; and further west, the loss of votes if there were some would, statistically, be on both sides.

* Greenfield's more subtle or technical "political science" points dealt with the accuracy of exit polls, the uses of sample precincts and key precincts, how raw totals from AP should have enabled cross-checking against mistakes in sample data, the mistaken data from one of Florida's sample precinct's numbers on election night being caused by a computer glitch (discovered by an astute AP reporter, then corrected), and how Bush would have won no matter what (once the contested election was under way) because all the institutions that could have decided the outcome were in Republican hands, except the Florida Supreme Court. The upshot is that there was no media conspiracy to steal the election from Bush for Gore. I have no reason to disbelieve Greenfield's take on these events.

In conclusion, Greenfield's candid reader will learn that for the 2000 presidential race there was a 50-50 division in the country, the forecasting models did not pick up on the two major parties' candidates' share of the popular vote being that close, thus the media replicated those errors. For any presidential race hindsight is always 20/20 relative to forecasting. I hope my review encourages the good-humored citizen still caring about American democracy to give Greenfield's book on the presidential election of 2000 a candid read.

Jeff Greenfield is one of the few television talking heads worth watching, and he's proven why in this witty and astute political analysis of last year's presdential election. He ripped through the arguments on both sides, particularly the sham that went on in Florida from both camps.

However, my only criticism of the book is Greenfield's refusal to judge too harshly the media's role in the debacle on Election Night. As a journalist myself, and a sportswriter to boot, I'm used to hearing a voice come over the loud speaker telling me at a football game that rooting from the press box is strictly prohibited. After all, it is supposed to be a working media environment. Greenfield doesn't dispute that he and his colleagues were cheering the closeness of this race, which I believe influenced the networks lag time in calling Bush states. When it comes to calling back Florida, Greenfield doesn't criticize the media. Greenfield asking for crow comes off as if he said, "Oops, our bad."

Greenfield's analysis clearly shows that the frenzy surrounding this election was media driven. Only 2 percent more of the public voted in the 2000 race than it did in the 1996 election, and that can probably be attributed to the Democrats get-out-the-vote effort. The irony of it all is that the networks still cut corners and were ultimately exposed in the VNS debacle.

Greenfield pulls no punches throughout book when the topics are politics. I wish he had delivered a more critical rebuke of his industry.

If you're a news or politics junkie and weren't totally exhausted by the news coverage of America's 2000 presidential election, you'll love Jeff Greenfield's "Oh Waiter! One Order of Crow!" Greenfield's affable personality comes through in this quick, enjoyable account of last November's craziness. At times it's "laugh-out-loud" funny, and at other times you'll just shake your head as you recall the events from not that long ago. The most interesting part of the book is the

author's description of the election night coverage: who knew what when, what they were thinking when things went wrong, and how they felt about it afterwards. He also does a great job bashing the partisans on both sides who so blatantly and obviously stuck to their absurd talking points during the Florida court fights.

Greenfield's enthusiasm for the whole affair is evident throughout (it's a political analyst's dream situation, his laundry emergencies due to long hours

notwithstanding). The book's key points, aside from the fascinating explanation of what caused the network glitches, are: (1) The primary reason Gore lost the election was Bill Clinton; (2) After the votes were cast on Nov 7, there was *no way* the machinery in place was going to allow Gore to become president; and (3) the Republicans "wanted it" a whole lot more than the Democrats, who didn't have the same energy invested in the outcome.

Greenfield, as usual, is both objective and witty in his writing. He is able to share thoughts he couldn't say on TV (though he never gets particularly shocking or controversial). At just over 300 pages (with very clever "butterfly ballot" page numbers), "Oh Waiter! One Order of Crow!" is a very quick, enjoyable read for anyone who won't get too riled up by an objective and nonpartisan review of last year's election.

I read and enjoyed every word of this book. I found Jeff Greenfield's report of events following election 2000 clearly written and with great good humor. Not only was it informative, but along with his excellent writing, he seemed have a wonderful, sympathy for the poor reader who was trying to make sense of it all. In fact, there seemed to be such warmth in his report of these complex happenings, that when I finished the book I felt a bit sorry to do so. I felt as if I were terminating a very enjoyable, friendly conversation.

At the very end of the book when expressing thanks to everyone who helped get it into print, he tells of his initial reaction which was one of stark terror at being asked to write 'a memoir-on-the-run' about the 2000 election. His first thought was 'I can't do this'! However, I'm sure I am not the only one who thinks that not only did he DO it, but did it exceptionally well, which is really not all that unusual for him.

If you were overwhelmed by the media circus around the Bush-Gore election season, Jeff Greenfield wraps it all up in a tidy package. A seasoned political observer, Greenfield is as obsessed w/ politics as many football fans are with sport. A long career on both sides of the fence gives him the experience & perspective to see the big picture, and his innate sense of humour keeps it lively and not too ponderous. He takes the issues seriously, but not the egos.

One of the best features of the book is that it sketches out the run-up to the election, setting things into a framework. I learned quite a bit about the implosion of Bill Bradley's campaign, for example, and the role that the fall out from that played in the Democratic campaign. Also, the book is quite even-handed: he points out strengths & weaknesses on both sides, from candidate to party. If you take his precept- that the election was close because people really were divided- most readers will see another aspect to both the side they voted for & the side they voted against. Of course, if you are so partisan that you can't read anything less than perfect about your candidate or party- or anything good about the other side- w/out howling for blood, you'd probably best not torment yourself by reading Oh Waiter!

The book is a quick, fun read with plenty of humour as it pulls together a good portrait of the election & it's afternmath. One reviewer felt that Greenfield should have been more critical of the role of the media, but I think that he was actually pretty even handed about that, as well.

I found Jeff Greenfield's book to be an interesting and fast paced analysis of the 2000 election. It does project the feel of a guy who is used to speaking in 20-second sound bites but I'm glad he chose to produce the book now rather than create a more polished version next year. He captures the feel and effect of events as they unfolded with a minimal use of 20/20 hindsight. His warts-and-all view of how a modern election night is covered by a major TV network is worth the price of the book.

The best sections of the book are those dealing with the campaign and the election night fiasco of calls, recalls, and re-recalls. Even though Greenfield has solid liberal credentials (he served on Sen. Robert Kennedy's staff), he pulls no punches in dissecting the missteps of the Gore campaign that turned what should have been a slam-dunk victory against a lightweight opponent into the wildest Presidential election in a century.

The worst section of the book is the coverage/analysis of the 'Overtime' efforts to finalize the Florida vote. As a couple of reviewers pointed out, this comes about 200 pages into the 300-page book and really does run out of gas towards the end. This happens in part because Greenfield seems to be more a spectator rather than an active participant in the Florida coverage and, to be fair to him, the wide ranging battles that were occurring in the courts, canvassing boards, legislature, and media outlets almost defy organization. The eventual end of his story is marked more by an anticlimactic weariness with the whole process rather than a triumph of truth and justice.

This is also the section that is most affected by Greenfield's liberal/Democrat tilt. He takes a brief step into truly neutral territory in an imaginary Dennis Miller-style rant directed at the Republican and Democrat positions on the Palm Beach County butterfly ballot. Though the Republican position was extremely unsympathetic to voters who felt cheated out of casting a vote for the candidate they favored, Greenfield correctly points out that there was no legal means for the Gore campaign to change the outcome once the votes had been cast. Greenfield hints around this position for most of the rest of the book but never really wants to admit that it is a metaphor for the rest of the activities in Florida. Following that brief moment of clarity, Greenfield retreats into the standard 'Bush won because the Republicans wanted the Presidency more' line of reasoning. To Greenfield's credit, he points out the hypocrisy of the Democrat battles against absentee ballots when contrasted to the cry of 'count every (possible Gore) vote' in the Democrat controlled counties of Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade. To his discredit, he never seriously engages the Democrat contention that somehow votes were being tallied without really being counted. That sounds a little like having sex that isn't really sex or debating the meaning of `is'.

Greenfield also repeats the liberal line that Gore would have been denied victory by the Republican machine if he had pulled off the miracle of actually having more votes at some point in the recount process. He damms Katherine Harris with faint praise in overstating her ability to derail the certification of a Gore victory. He spends a lot of time conjecturing about how the Republican controlled Florida legislature would have appointed and how the U. S. Congress would have reacted to dueling slates of Florida electors. As Greenfield points out, Gore was between a rock and hard place. In order to have a chance at victory he had to come out ahead in the vote count. If and when he did the Republican big guns in the Florida legislature and U.S. House would probably have come in to play. But this means that the real action was taking place in the county canvassing boards that Greenfield all but ignores with the exception of a sympathetic portrait of the head of the Palm Beach county canvassing board, Dan Burton. Florida Republican state officials had to sit on the sidelines unless Gore pulled ahead. Though the Republicans would have had the law on their side in that situation, I disagree strongly with Greenfield that this would have produced the Bush victory he sees as inevitable. A major factor holding the Republicans together was Bush's lead in the vote count. If he started to run second, then the same scramble for political cover that made some Democrats urge Gore to 'be a statesman' would have occurred among Republicans. I agree that the Florida legislature would have promoted a rival Bush slate of electors but I doubt that you can simply count up the number of Republicans in the U. S. Congress on 6 January 2001 and say that Bush slate would have prevailed there.

My other disagreement with Greenfield is his contention that the delay in the certification of the election was a neutral to slightly positive event for the Gore campaign. He seems to base this solely on opinion polls that showed an increase in the number of people who believed that Gore should concede following the certification. I think he is comparing apples to oranges. The delayed certification occurred after almost three weeks of partisan wrangling and maneuvering in the courts and news media. At that point the public was definitely in the mood to say 'Enough already. We didn't really want either of these guys but somebody, anybody, declare one of the two the winner so we can get our Christmas shopping done.'. If the certification occurred as scheduled, it could have easily been spun as a purely perfunctory act and the election could still have been seen as in doubt, which is what I feel actually happened even on 26 November. Greenfield doesn't address some issues that flow out of this alternate track. Imagine the deadline to count votes in early in December at least two weeks after the artificial 26 November deadline. He seems to take the position that the amount of time didn't matter and I suppose it doesn't if you assume that Gore never had a chance. I'm a legal layman but I also believe that not extending the initial recount would have weakened the contention in the first Bush case at the U.S. Supreme Court that the Florida Supreme Court was making new election law. Greenfield also seems to miss that this action was not promoted by the Gore campaign. The Florida Supreme Court issued the ruling on it's own authority. Either the Court jumped the gun and messed up Gore's strategy good, or the Gore camp knew it would have a public relations nightmare on its hands if it actively sought to interfere with Katherine Harris's duties and preferred an `immaculate conception' of the order to stop the certification. Neither is an indication that the folks in charge believed it was a good idea.

My 'Gore victory 2000' scenario goes something like this. At 4pm ET 18 November 2000, Katherine Harris certifies George W. Bush as the winner of Florida's twenty-five electoral votes. Republicans greet the announcement as the final vindication of their claim to the Presidency while Democrats flatly state 'It's not over til it's over' and continue to emphasize that Mr. Gore has won the overall popular vote. Manual recounts begun prior to the certification continue in Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Volusia counties. Gary Boies and his legal team rush to the Florida courts to begin the contest process while the Bush team presents 'Equal Protection' arguments to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court. After about a week of legal wrangling before Judge Sanders Sauls and the Florida Supreme Court, the Bush certification is ordered set aside pending a full statewide hand recount. The statewide recount and challenges to absentee ballots continue after the U.S. Circuit Court refuses to hear the Bush case. On 23 November, the U.S. Supreme Court begins to hear a Bush appeal of the contest based on 'Equal Protection' arguments regarding the differing standards used in the hand recounts and rules 6-3 (Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas dissenting against even allowing the hand recount) on 30 November that the Florida Supreme Court must set uniform standards for the vote count but that the count can continue. These standards are set by 3 December, ordering dimpled and partially punched ballots to be counted but undervotes with no easily discernable marks to be discarded. On 12 December, the Florida Legislature concludes a special session that results in the appointment of a slate of electors pledged to George W. Bush. The manual recount ends on 15 December with Gore ahead by a 143-vote margin. The Florida Supreme Court orders Harris to amend the certification of Gore with the winner. The Bush team begins another round of appeals based on Article II of the U.S. Constitution and Title III of the U.S. Code but the U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear the case by a 5-4 vote on 17 December. Pressure that had been building on Bush to concede now becomes a tidal wave as moderate Republicans from 'Blue' states (those carried by Gore) begin to defect and public opinion begins to agree that Gore won based on his popular vote victory combined with the now apparent Elector

I could go on and on about:

1) some questionable inferences in the book;
2) additional documentation and follow-up because some questions just aren't answered;
3) the personal quips that are cute but aren't really necessary.

However, I read the book in one sitting; missed a Saints game and a NASCAR race, and didn't mind one little bit -- Greenfield has done a great job with light, enjoyable writing. Buy it -- you'll enjoy it!!!!

Jeff Greenfield has written a sobering, reflective, and politically neutral account of the recent Presidential election. Starting with the political campaigns, the general election, and the virtual dead heat in Florida, Jeff offers an in-depth review of the strategies and counter-strategies employed by the candidates and their party committees. What worked, what didn't, from the stump to the dabates, including the chaos that followed in the vote count. The author also gives us an inside look at the networks' failed machinery and chaos which added to the confusion and flip flop of who won Florida. This is a must read for those who follow politics and the media (who in turn follow the candidates). Jeff holds nothing back in the critical assessment of his network, the voting process in Florida, and the choosing and marketing of the candidates themselves. I read this book in two sittings and was fascinated by our political process. You will be too.