Warren Christopher, the congenitally cautious former secretary of state, was in charge of the search process; he thought Edwards was untested, unprepared, a reckless gamble. Edwards himself had first broached the long-shot possibility of being Gore's running mate with me early in 1999...

Gore was troubled by the report - ironically compiled by someone who had worked for Edwards but was now our campaign's research director - that as a lawyer, Edwards had taken the legal but potentially controversial step of incorporating himself to avoid paying Medicare taxes. It had come up in the 1998 Senate race, and we'd beaten it back; but it now gave Warren Christopher an opening to renew the case against Edwards as too callow, too uncertain, too far out of the box. He pressed Gore. How could he risk his reputation by making such a choice?

John Kerry unexpectedly materialized, virtually the only outsider that night to make it past the check points and the Secret Service... Like everybody else, Kerry had heard about the exit surveys - which were withheld from the public until the polls closed, but were the common currency of political insider trading all through Election Day. When Kerry arrived, Gore came out to greet him and promptly got an earful, as Kerry expounded on why Gore was losing in New Hampshire. The stump speech didn't work; he didn't have a clear focused message - the critique went on and on. Tipper took me aside and told me to somehow get Kerry out of here... Tipper didn't forget that night and that moment - and when the time came, she was distinctly unenthusiastic about picking Kerry for vice president.