Election 2000: Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore Thinks Gore Should Concede
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, now, let's hear from the Republicans. For that, we go to Richmond, Virginia, to talk with Governor Jim Gilmore. Governor, thank you for being with us.</s>GOV. JIM GILMORE (R), VIRGINIA: Thank you. Thanks for the chance to talk to your viewers.</s>ALLEN: Sure. Why aren't you in Tallahassee, everybody else is?</s>GILMORE: Well, I was down there last week in Palm Beach watching that, but I never got to Tallahassee. But I don't need to carry Governor Bush's water, I think that he's won the election. He is going to be the president-elect, and time has come for Vice President Bush to concede this election -- Vice President Gore to concede this election and for us to move on and begin to govern the country.</s>ALLEN: Gore said just today he still thinks he has a 50/50 chance.</s>GILMORE: Well, I think that this is a little bit of the vice president desperately wanting to win for himself as opposed to fully considering the impact that this is having on the people of the United States and on our republic. Time has come to recognize that the votes have been certified in Florida. It's been perfectly and responsibly and legally handled. The Gore message -- my friend Paul Patton, I like him very much, but he's carrying the Gore message today, and of course, we heard the message the votes haven't been counted, but it's misleading: The votes were counted, they were recounted, the machines saw them all. They understood that these were votes that, for some reason, were not able to be counted. They were looked at again in the recount. And what's really going on here is that Al Gore wants these to be sort of specially handled in order to try to give him an advantage. There's no reason why these districts should be handled differently from any other county in the United States of America.</s>ALLEN: This has been such an argument between both sides on these undercounted votes in Miami-Dade. Any reason not to count these 10,000 ballots that, apparently, haven't been hand counted? That's what Governor Patton just said, the intent of the voter should be determined by a hand count?</s>GILMORE: Because this is changing the law, because this is circumventing the law, because it's giving a special handling in a particular place in order to try to advantage one candidate, who is Al Gore. These votes have been counted the same way they were counted in every state in America, all across the United States. Votes are kicked out, because, for some reason, perhaps, a voter decided not to vote for president or perhaps they did something that was wrong with their ballot. Happens all the time. And I want to make it very clear to the listeners that the percentage of vote in this particular county that we're talking about, these 9,000 votes, are only 1.6 percent of all the votes that were cast in Miami-Dade. That's very typical of what we see across the entire United States. There's nothing unique about this. But to go in now and try to treat this super-special in some way, and to try to project what the intention of the voter was, is wrong. It's wrong, and it undermines our democratic process.</s>ALLEN: And you would feel that way if the tables were turned, and it was George W. Bush who came up short by just a few hundred votes?</s>GILMORE: You know what, I'd rather look at it this way: I'd like to ask the vice president if this vote turned on California, and the difference were 200 or 300 votes, and the Republicans were counting all the votes in Orange county, how would he feel? And I'll bet you that he would not want a recount done in those kinds of circumstances.</s>ALLEN: Finally, I'm going to steal a question that Lou just asked of the Kentucky governor, because I liked it. What do you think the effect will be on whoever the next president is, as far as the fact that the country was split right down the middle in who is supported for president and how they govern?</s>GILMORE: You know, it has been a close election, but this American republic is able to handle a close election, or should be able to handle a close election. I think that efforts that the vice president has made have very much undermined this whole process, but nonetheless, we're coming through on this. And I believe, at the end of the day, that the Democrats in Congress have an obligation to work with the president-elect who has fairly and legally and honestly won this election. And it's going to be a responsibility of both parties to come together. On the other hand, Governor Bush, in Texas, has had a long history of working across party lines very, very successfully. That's why he's the right man for this job at this time.</s>ALLEN: Governor Jim Gilmore, of Virginia, thank you for talking with us.</s>GILMORE: Thank you. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com