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Saturday Morning News

Smithsonian Curator Discusses Election 2000 Artifacts

Aired November 25, 2000 - 10:51 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to have some fun here. One thing the Florida election has done is make chad a household word. There are the pimpled and dimpled chads, pregnant chads, hanging chads. My next guest wanted to get some chads along with some other pieces from this historic election and for good reason. He is Larry Bird, curator of the presidential collection at the Smithsonian Institute, and he joins us now from Washington.

Good morning.

LARRY BIRD, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE: Good morning, Carol.

LIN: So you've done this now for almost 20 years, you've gone and followed the campaigns, gone to the caucuses and primaries to look for interesting artifacts. Have you ever seen anything like this before in your career?

BIRD: No, not in my experience and I dare say not in anyone's experience here.

LIN: Well, when you look at what's available to you down in Florida in terms of some collectibles or artifacts that might be on display at the Smithsonian, what intrigues you most? What is your top goal down there?

BIRD: Well, my purpose in going to Florida, I was in West Palm for two days earlier this week, Monday and Tuesday. My purpose is two fold, really, to plant the seed in the minds of the officials down there on the Canvassing Board that we would very much like to have for our collection the voting device -- the so-called votomatic apparatus or contraption, as some of the critics would call it, for our collection.

And the second part of that is just to be on the ground and see the kinds of things that people are making, wearing, that they're creating and how it's being played out publicly on the street, as it -- as it were.

LIN: Well, would you be interesting in collecting chads as well? I mean they're really just bits of paper, trash?

BIRD: Well, that's the most often asked question I've had in the last week. Of course I'm interested in collecting chads, but frankly, I'm more interested in collecting what people have collected. For example, in Broward there is -- there was one official who had bagged up some chads and put them in a little plastic baggy and this had been sealed very carefully as evidence. And that's something I'm very interested in having, but of course it's evidence and you can't have it until they're quite finished with it so perhaps next year, two years, however long it takes.

LIN: How do the items that you're looking at down in Florida, how do they fall in line with some of the other items that -- elements that you have collected in political history?

BIRD: Well, it's really interesting. I mean we have a collection of ballot boxes and voting devices, for example, that go back well into the 19th century. In fact, one of my little favorite objects that's in our president's show is a wonderful stoneware crock that's imprinted with 24,000 majority General Jackson. It was used in 1824 to contest a protest, the plurality of votes that Jackson won. So the material that we get from Palm Beach would fit very nicely into this collection and it really relates more even beyond a presidential campaign to show about, for example, American democracy and how we're always striving for perfection. Sometimes we attain it; sometimes we fall a little short.

LIN: And clearly we're demonstrating that in the State of Florida. What is the strangest thing that you've ever collected?

BIRD: Well, I don't think we've really collected anything you could describe as strange. Prefer to collect things that are fun and witty sometimes. For example, a couple of election cycles ago I collected a large write-in Ralph Nader pencil that I saw on the top of a car that was careening around Manchester, New Hampshire. That to me was something that was sort of interesting and witty that somebody had made themselves as opposed to the stuff that you just see that's cranked out all the time could generate this kind of a spontaneous appearance.

LIN: All right, well, thank you very much, Larry Bird. You have a fun job and a great seat ...

BIRD: Thank you.

LIN: ... at the face of history.

BIRD: Thanks.

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