From the Dallas Morning News today.
'Unpleasant' wait continues
Bush camp seeks concession; Gore team says count not over
11/11/2000
By Pete Slover and Wayne Slater / The Dallas Morning News
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – As the week closed without a president-elect, George W. Bush's allies pressed for Al Gore to give up in the battle for Florida's make-or-break electoral votes and clear the way as the Texas governor began work assembling a Cabinet and White House staff.
"I understand there are still votes to be counted," Mr. Bush said Friday. "But I'm in the process of planning in a responsible way a potential administration.
"Should the verdict that has been announced so far be confirmed, we'll be ready."
Mr. Gore stayed out of the fray, but aides accused the Bush camp of rushing the vote count and, despite softening support among some Democrats for a protracted legal fight, reserved the right to pursue litigation.
"Waiting is unpleasant for all of us, but suggesting that the outcome of a vote is known before all the ballots are properly counted is inappropriate," said Gore campaign chairman William Daley.
An unofficial county-by-county survey of Florida election totals by The Associated Press showed Mr. Bush with a 327-vote lead statewide after the recount. Official results from the state might not be available until Tuesday, and an unknown number of overseas absentee mail ballots are not expected to be counted until Friday.
Florida officials said their recount showed Mr. Bush leading by 960 votes with 66 of 67 counties reporting. Complete state results – not including overseas votes – are not expected until at least Tuesday, because a state judge in Palm Beach County has issued an injunction preventing local officials there from certifying the election.
A hearing is set for Tuesday in that case, a lawsuit by voters over what they say is a confusing ballot design that led them to cast incorrect or invalid ballots.
But Bush aides pointed out that the ballot was produced by a local Democratic official and said that nobody protested its design before the vote, as allowed by statute. Florida's top election official on Friday said the Palm Beach ballot met the requirements of state law.
The incomplete national popular vote totals had Mr. Gore leading Mr. Bush by about 200,000 votes out of nearly 100 million cast nationwide.
Mr. Gore on Friday picked up seven more electoral votes when he was declared the winner in Oregon, though the margin is so close – 5,973 votes with about 28,500 ballots outstanding – that a recount may be necessary. With 262 electoral votes, Mr. Gore still needs Florida, which has 25 electoral votes, to claim the presidency.
"I don't think anyone thinks that a lengthy and protracted ... [battle] would be healthy for the country," said Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes.
Former Secretary of State James Baker, who is monitoring the recount for Mr. Bush, called on the Gore camp to stop contesting the vote. He recalled the historical examples of Republicans Richard Nixon in 1960 and Gerald Ford in 1976, who cited the national good in opting not to contest squeaker elections.
"It appears that the Gore campaign is attempting to unduly prolong the country's national presidential election through endless challenges to the results of the vote here in Florida," he said at a news conference.
Mr. Baker warned that unless Mr. Gore abided by Mr. Bush's expected popular vote victory in Florida and dropped threatened legal action, Republicans may challenge Mr. Gore's narrow leads in Iowa, Wisconsin and New Mexico.
The vice president's margin narrowed in New Mexico to 164 votes, prompting CNN late Friday to revise its election night projection of a Gore victory to designate the state and its five electoral votes as "too close to call."
"There is no reasonable end to this process if it slips away," Mr. Baker said. "We will therefore vigorously oppose the Gore campaign's efforts to keep recounting until it likes the result."
Gore advisers requested manual recounts of ballots in four Florida counties and have won approval to do so in three. Mr. Bush, however, has given Mr. Baker authority to request a court order barring those recounts, The Associated Press reported. GOP officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said it was likely that Mr. Baker would seek such an injunction, according to the report.
The Gore team focused on about 19,000 Palm Beach County voters whose ballots were tossed out for "double punching" and held out hope that next week's count of ballots from Americans overseas would improve the vice president's position.
"I hope that our friends in the Bush campaign will join us in our efforts to get the fairest and most accurate vote count here in Florida," Mr. Daley said.
Bush advisers said overseas ballots have traditionally included a substantial number of Republican-leaning military personnel that would only improve the governor's position. But the Gore team said that wasn't a safe assumption, especially given a population of Florida-registered voters living in Israel.
Mr. Bush refrained from saying Mr. Gore should abandon his calls for recounts or other challenges to the Florida vote.
"Each candidate and each team is going to have to do what they think is best and in the best interest of the country," he said.
In the meantime, the governor made it clear he was preparing for the presidency.
Mr. Bush is considering resigning as governor once the vote count is completed and he is established the winner, expediting the transition of Lt. Gov. Rick Perry to the governor's office, according to those familiar with the discussions.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Perry met Thursday at the Governor's Mansion and discussed the transition. Those familiar with the talks said Mr. Bush's resignation could come within two weeks.
Mr. Bush met the media Friday wearing a bandage to cover an infection above his right cheek. Aides said a boil or an inflamed ingrown hair was to blame and that a doctor had prescribed heat compresses and antibiotics.
For the first time since the electoral uncertainty began, both sides focused on the potential for the lasting damage that a full-fledged political slugfest could inflict on the nation.
Newspaper editorial boards and leaders in both parties cautioned against protracted win-at-all-costs warfare, suggesting history would treat a good loser well – perhaps as a hero.
"I want Al Gore to win this election but, more than that, I want somebody to win this election," said Sen. Robert Torricelli of New Jersey, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "I would urge both Al Gore and George Bush to think of the country – the continuity of government, its stability – and avoid any collateral attacks on the process."
During a meeting Thursday, Mr. Baker and Warren Christopher, the former Clinton secretary of state who is heading the Democrats' monitoring of the recount, agreed to tone down the caustic rhetoric that has marked the recount fight, Mr. Christopher said. He described that parley as a cordial and professional meeting between old friends with "quite different interests in this situation."
Mr. Gore was at the vice presidential residence in Washington on Friday, where he played touch football with his wife and other family members.
After meetings at the Governor's Mansion, Mr. Bush attended a reception for the Texas Book Festival, an annual event chaired by his wife, Laura, and then went to the family's Crawford ranch near Waco.
Meanwhile Friday, the county at the epicenter of the Florida vote debate, Palm Beach, was much quieter because county offices and courts were closed in observance of the Veterans Day holiday.
But that didn't stop a few dozen demonstrators from gathering outside the county headquarters to see the media throng, which has already taken over an entire parking lot.
Staff writer Charles Ornstein in West Palm Beach, Fla., contributed to this report.
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