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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jhild who wrote (73635)	11/14/2000 3:22:35 AM
From: ColtonGang	Respond to of 769667

Gore, Bush Teams Discuss Way to End Stalemate -Paper WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Gore (news - web sites) is considering a proposal to end the stalemate over Florida's vote count that calls for George W. Bush (news - web sites) to agree to a manual recount throughout the state and the Vice President would in turn renounce any further lawsuits, the Los Angeles Times said on Tuesday. Citing Gore campaign aides, the Times said that under the approach being discussed, Gore would not join litigation challenging the ``butterfly ballot'' in Palm Beach County and would support efforts to recount the ballots by hand in all of Florida's 67 counties, rather than just the four Democratic-leaning counties his campaign has selected. In return, Bush's campaign would drop its legal efforts to block the manual recount, the paper said. Gore aides have already sounded out the Republican's team, which is apparently divided over the idea. One Bush aide said some people in the campaign have been discussing such a deal themselves, and that it could be a real option, the Times said. But another aide said the Texan's campaign was unlikely to accept a statewide hand count because it would conflict with Bush's current position that manual counts are unreliable. Still, Bush aides left the door open, presumably in case their attempts to stop the manual recounts should fail. Next Few Days Will Be Key Gore has not yet made such an offer to the Bush campaign, but a Gore adviser said the idea might become attractive to both sides if they reach a legal stalemate in the next few days, according to the Times. Gore aides had no immediate comment early on Tuesday to the Times' report. On Monday, Bush asked a federal judge to block the manual recounts under way in three counties where Democrats believe the Gore vote was undercounted, but the judge refused. Victory nationwide for either Gore or Bush hangs on the disputed Florida ballot, which carries 25 electoral college votes. Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris has set a 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline for county recounts to be completed, a deadline that would be too early for most of the manual recounts to meet. Democrats have sued to prevent her from enforcing that cutoff. If that litigation is successful, both sides might need another alternative to resolve the dispute, the Gore official predicted. ``Assuming that the secretary of state is blocked in court, and assuming the federal injunction sought by Bush continues to be rejected by the courts, I think that is where the Bush people have to go,'' the Gore aide said. It would require a change in position hard for the campaign to swallow, a Bush aide told the Times. ``We can't go to federal court saying this (manual recount) is a flawed system, and then turn around and say it's not so bad after all,'' the aide said. ''We've nailed our flag to the mast.'' According to the paper, a Republican close to the Bush camp said one factor that could attract them to such a deal is fear that the secretary of state's cut-off will be struck down by the Florida State Supreme Court, which is dominated by Democratic appointees. Democrats like the strategy because they are confident that even a statewide manual recount would leapfrog Gore past Bush. ''We won the exit polls and we're ahead in our own polling in Florida, so we're reasonably confident a statewide recount would go our way,'' a lawyer advising the Gore team told the Times.