Chuck Todd special podcast explores the 2000 election and its relevance in a cataclysmic 2020

In the long, confusing hours after Election Day 2000, NBC political analyst Tim Russert held up his omnipresent whiteboard and opined that the presidential race would hinge on one factor: “Florida Florida Florida.”

Today, “Meet the Press” and host Chuck Todd are debuting the first episode of a five-part podcast about Florida’s historic role in the election Russert presciently predicted — although the 36-day imbroglio that followed would have stumped even the most saavy soothsayer.

Will the past be prelude 20 years later? With election security, voting irregularities, and mail-in voting all at issue this election season, “The Chuck ToddCast” series explores the lessons learned from Bush v. Gore and the Florida recount and its political relevance today. Over the course of the series, “Florida Florida Florida” explores 10 enduring political lessons from the 2000 recount that will play a role in the 2020 election, from the birth of conservative acts of civil disobedience, to the fight for the Supreme Court. 

“Twenty years ago, the presidential election ended in an unprecedented legal, political and public relations fight centered on the state of Florida. … It wasn’t exactly a moment of high confidence in the electoral process,” Todd says at the top of the first episode. “I’m going to take you back to the 2000 presidential recount because it was probably, hopefully, the wildest election we’ll ever witness.”

In addition to NBC News archival footage, the podcast includes more than two dozen voices — including several Floridians — who were key players in the recount and election coverage.

 “You think counting votes is so simple and it’s simply not,” said Lucy Morgan, Tallahassee bureau chief of the St. Petersburg Times in 2000. “None of us realized how screwed up it could get, I think, until we watched it happen in front of us.”

Much of the first episode covers events leading up to the recount, including a segment focused on the impact of Secretary of State Katherine Harris‘s election two years earlier, when she defeated incumbent Sandra Mortham.

“It was a pretty ugly campaign and, frankly, it was sort of the beginning of when primaries got really negative,” Mortham said on the broadcast. “You see it all the time now, but it was different than anything I had seen previously.”

Attorney and Republican strategist Mac Stipanovich was called into action to assist Harris on the Q.T. in the early days of the recount. He outlined the Republican approach to the fight before them: “First and foremost … George Bush got the most legally cast votes in Florida that day. So, he won because he won.”

Other Floridians contributing to the series include journalist Steve Bousquet; Florida Republican Party Chairman in 2000 Al Cardenas; retired circuit court Judge Terry Lewis, who oversaw the Florida recount; retired Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court Charles Wells; and former Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

The first episode is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other major podcast platforms. The four subsequent episodes will be released this week daily.