[Frank Sesno, Cnn Anchor:] "Time" correspondent Viveca Novak joins us now from our sister news organization. The magazine has not yet hit the newsstands, Viveca. Today with all this late-breaking news, events to squeeze in, you can see things on the Internet.
[Viveca Novak, "time" Magazine Correspondent:] Right.
[Sesno:] OK.
[Novak:] Go to Time.com.
[Sesno:] But here's my definition of fun. I work for a weekly publication and this story changes by the minute.
[Novak:] It has been a challenge, to say the least. We usually close the magazine on Saturday night, which means everything is basically written on Friday. This week, because things were unfolding, we knew there would be some sort of certification Sunday night, we held the magazine open. We closed it last night. Things were still being written, you know, up until the certification and at the time of the certification. But it means less, of course, than we thought it would mean when we originally planned that with the Supreme Court case pending.
[Sesno:] Well, on the cover, 537 votes.
[Novak:] Right.
[Sesno:] That's the certified difference between the two...
[Novak:] That's right.
[Sesno:] ... the two candidates when this thing hits the newsstands. One of the things you looked at, and we've been talking a fair bit about it, is the interesting political dynamic that hit this city. Because last week, we were hearing what we might call some "squishy" Democrats. And the squishy Democrats, at least for the moment, have firmed up.
[Novak:] That's right. And I think there was good evidence of that in the Sunday shows yesterday. And what really galvanized them was not so much Al Gore, because there's still a lot of mixed feelings about Al Gore on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. But it was, as one Democratic strategist said to me, "we are blessed in our enemies." When you have Tom DeLay and Dick Armey and the head the Republican head of the Florida legislature coming out there saying that they might want to get involved in this, when you have a near riot in Miami-Dade County that may or may not have had something to do with stopping the vote count there, when you have a very extreme reaction on the military ballots that in some cases led to Republicans saying things that actually weren't true about the Democratic strategy, all just...
[Sesno:] Such as...
[Novak:] That there was a concerted strategy on the part of the Democrats. They cited a memo that was really nothing more than a statement of Florida law as something that was conspiratorial, and it wasn't. But all of these things served to galvanize the Democrats and to say, wait a minutes, you know, and to sort of buy in more to the, "this election isn't over until the votes are counted" strategy.
[Sesno:] But, Viveca, haven't the Democrats been doing every bit as much as the Republicans to kind of roil the waters, keep this going? They're both playing spin games, they're both playing to their publics, they're both playing to the street in some fashion.
[Novak:] Yes, I think they are, but I think they've been a little bit more measured in their responses. And in part because the Democrats weren't as unified, you didn't hear them out there quite as strongly. You didn't have Democrats of stature out there.
[Sesno:] How long do the Democrats hold?
[Novak:] Well, at least through the week. And beyond the week I think it depends on what the Supreme Court does, it depends on what Gore gets in his contest challenges, and it depends very much on public opinion.
[Sesno:] Viveca Novak, thanks, as always.
[Novak:] Good to be with you.
[Sesno:] Look for the magazine.