As the Secret Service keeps the Grand Ballroom in lockdown, Hillary fans in the Grand Hyatt are milling around the lobby. They have occupied the entire thing -- the downstairs bars, the escalators, the other meeting rooms. At 8 p.m., the room erupts in raucous applause, which echoes through the hotel.
The people on the escalators have startled faces.
"Are they here?"
"What?"
"The president?"
And then, it begins to spread in a whisper, out from the center where the masses are congregated, sipping white wine, watching CNN.
"Florida ... Florida ... Florida, Gore won ..."
"Oh my god!" comes a shriek of a young woman in a Hyatt uniform.
"That's big," she says breathing in deeply through her nose. "That's really big."
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