Rachel Clarke's description for the BBC is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3987237.stm>>Drawing up blueprints for Bush victory
By Rachel Clarke
BBC News, Washington
...Pressure and pranks: By the time election night came around, Mr Rove was in the White House, where, unusually for a political adviser, he has an office. He set up computers in the Old Family Dining Room and started tabulating results. He had set up a massive network of contacts, not just in state capitals, but individual districts and precincts to monitor turnout and support.
Mr Rove may spin the news, but the media still wants to hear him: Early exit polls quoted by media seemed to give Mr Kerry the edge, but colleagues said Mr Rove indicated right away that they did not tally with his information. He used his own data to put Ohio and Florida in the Bush column - bringing cheers from the president and his family when he went into the Roosevelt Room and told them. And when the TV networks gave either Ohio or Nevada to Mr Bush but not both - which would have led him to be declared as the winner - Mr Rove was one of the president's aides who got on the phone to news chiefs to try to pressure them to change their minds...<<
The Sydney Morning Herald's version:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/US-Elections/Bushs-architect-will-be-last-man-out-the-door/2004/11/08/1099781301323.html>>Sydney Morning Herald
8 November 2004
Bush's architect 'will be last man out the door'
...Hours before it was clear that US President George W Bush had won the election, Karl Rove told his boss to rest easy. Working from a bank of computers on the first-floor of the White House, Bush's political guru absorbed the turnout numbers, checked his target projections in swing states and concluded that the bitterly contested race was over.In first few hours of counting, John Kerry still seemed to be in the game and the political world held its breath. But Rove told Bush that the crucial state of Ohio was in the bag and that he would be re-elected. "Karl was calling states long before the networks did," a Bush confidant said. "His grasp of reality was totally uncanny." Bush spoke to Rove by phone every 10 minutes all night long and later showered praise on the political junkie...<<
Note also, from this DU thread from October 30:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x94>>mehlman says that there is incredible discord at the top. cheney is absolutley livid with rove on the overall strategy ("we peaked too soon you bastard") and with karen hughes for not adequately preparing bush for the debates ("he looked like a g** d***** mental patient"). cheney is apparently a "real monster". the rnc doesn't know what to do because they can't get any clear direction from the top.
mehlman says that bush's slide in their polls began about three weeks before the debates when kerry when into attack mode with major foreign policy speeches at nyu and at a national guard convention, the day after bush spoke. the slide accelerated big time after the debates, "everyone was as bad as the first with no let-up in free fall" according to mehlman. cheney freaked during the first debate, convinced that bush "'lost the f****** election in front of 65 million people". Now they simply don't have the numbers to win in Florida, have not got their ducks in a row to "deflect" the massive number of early voters and are having real trouble maintaining the base in Florida and elsewhere ("our people are just turning away"). in ohio they've been simply overwhelmed with the new voter registrations and have been unsuccessful in court challenges. bush's number actually go now when he visits ohio after Treasury Secretary Snow's comments in the state that job losses were a "myth". Additionally many repubs are pissed about the financial proligacy of Bush and Cheney and their incompetence in Iraq, so a lot are simply going to "take a pass", read not vote. bush apparently has been totally "out of it" believing Rove and Hughes that everything was fine and that victory was assured, but is finally and slowing catching on that he might lose this thing. yesterday morning when made aware of the bin laden tape in nh, simply said. "It's over."<<
Now, where the hell did I copy this quote from?
>>I heard Bush was told he would lose early in the evening Nov2
by Karen Hughes.
"Doubtless everyone who knows Rove knew that some kind of shenanigans were going on, but probably no details. I mean, how could they have known whether they were cheating enough to win the election? They couldn't be too obvious, too different from the polls. It was a close race. And even in states where some rigging went on, they may not have won. Take Wisconsin, where Kerry's win was by 15000 votes. It was a heavy turnout in the cities, and the lead for Kerry should have been more. They could only hope they cheated just enough to win and be plausible, and that's exactly what happened."<<