The First Draft of History

By Walter Isaacson, Managing Editor

When I got home last Wednesday evening, my 10-year-old daughter asked me to explain what was happening. As we looked at the papers and TV, I told her she should soak it all in because she was witnessing a moment that would someday be part of her own children's history texts. At first she seemed worried by all the turmoil. I found myself saying that the surprising thing was that there was really no reason to worry. What was most amazing about that day, after people awoke to discover that our election had not produced a result, was that there were no tanks in the street, the dollar didn't collapse, mobs were not storming barricades, and people went off to work or to school a bit dazed and bemused, but not in fear.

We discussed why the Electoral College made sense back in 1787 and whether it still makes sense today. I tried to convince her that if her schoolmates were setting up a system to elect a student president, they might give each class one vote so that the candidates would spend time appealing to all grade levels rather than just trying to rack up votes among friends their age. That didn't convince her, but she did agree that if those were the rules, then you should abide by them once the results were in.

We also discussed how every vote really and truly can count. People care about politics because a lot can be at stake. But in the end, all of the contentious partisan issues are minor compared to our shared belief that we should abide by the final tallies. The Constitution may seem old and rickety, but it's actually wondrously tensile, as is our people's shared faith in it.

In short, for all of the angst, it was a good week for a national civics lesson. Much better than Monica ever was.

It was also a great week to be here at TIME. We had stayed up through election night with plans to close this special issue on Wednesday afternoon. But when we saw how others were rushing to judgment with appalling projections and incorrect headlines, we decided to revert to our weekend schedule (with help from some smart planning and scrambling by our unflappable operations director Nancy Mynio) so we could report this historic moment thoroughly and credibly.

Tim Padgett, Timothy Roche and Cathy Booth Thomas led our team in Florida, supplemented by a colorful analysis from the great novelist Carl Hiaasen. Our political correspondents and our photographers Brooks Kraft and Diana Walker documented what was happening behind the scenes with their candidates. Steve Lopez went on the road with Ralph Nader, while contributor Barbara Ehrenreich explained why she felt no guilt in voting for him.

Also in this issue, Eric Pooley and our Washington bureau report on how the next President will try to govern, and Richard Lacayo looks at the legal intricacies in Florida. Eminent historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. compares this election to weird ones in the past, and Jeff Greenfield and Kevin Phillips analyze the logic of the Electoral College better than I did with my daughter. Our veteran Hugh Sidey, who helped organize the gathering of former Presidents last week at the bicentennial of the White House, writes about that historic mansion and interviews President Bush about his son. Among the other things in our package: a photo album of private scenes from this campaign, a reconstruction of its key moments, a forum of fascinating folks (ranging from Jesse Ventura to Doris Kearns Goodwin to Garry Trudeau) assessing what we'll someday make of President Clinton, plus analysis from Margaret Carlson, Lance Morrow, Roger Rosenblatt and Charles Krauthammer, and some humor from Christopher Buckley and Joel Stein. Pulling it all together were our national-affairs team led by Steve Koepp, Priscilla Painton, Michael Duffy, Nancy Gibbs and Ratu Kamlani.

After a week in which folks were buffeted by inaccurate bulletins and torrents of shouted opinions, we worked hard to fulfill what we see as our role here at TIME: getting behind the scenes to tell the real story, capturing the human emotions and historic resonances, turning random facts into reliable narratives, and putting even the wildest of weeks into smart perspective.

Close to a hundred people--reporters, researchers, photographers, writers, production staffers, copy editors, designers, editors, artists, essayists, photo editors and imaging specialists--worked to fulfill this mission and make this a keepsake issue. I am deeply grateful for their professionalism and cheer through a week of long nights, and I hope that you find yourself as pleased by their efforts as I am.

Walter Isaacson, Managing Editor