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Politics : Why is Gore Trying to Steal the Presidency? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carolyn who wrote (1662)	11/20/2000 10:17:50 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3887

Gore is already looking like the loser, say backers By David Usborne in New York 21 November 2000 Anxiety is growing among senior Democrats that Al Gore may soon go past the point when he can realistically take Florida, and the White House, and that he risks making himself appear a loser. Mr Gore will face intense pressure from within his own party to concede the presidential race if hand recounts now under way in three Florida counties are either declared void by the courts or if they fail to produce enough fresh votes to push him into the lead in the state. Aides to the Vice-President continue to say he is ready to pursue further legal avenues in the event that the hand counts do not favour him. Action may include appealing to the US Supreme Court. But if he did, he would be abandoned evenby some of his most staunch supporters. The Gore ranks are still far from broken, in part because opinion polls suggest a still tolerant American public. Some loyalists apparently believe the game is already lost. "It's over, finished," said Willie Brown, the Democratic Mayor of San Francisco. "That wasn't the case four days ago. Back then he was winning the public relations battle, but no more." The blunt-speaking Mr Brown was giving voice to a concern now rippling through the party. Is it possible that after all the legal energy that has been put into making the manual recounts stand, they may not generate the extra votes Mr Gore needs? "He should wait out the count and then concede." Not only elected Democrats are beginning to stir. Even some of the Vice-President's most generous donors are showing signs of turning sour, criticising him for bungling the election in the first place and then failing to play the statesman in the ensuing Florida mess. No one has been more cutting than Peter Buttenwieser, the heir to a New York financial fortune, whose $1.3m in donations made him the number one donor to the Democrat campaign. "My own feeling is that Gore had a really terrific chance to win, and I think he squandered that chance," he told the Los Angeles Times. "We ran a bad campaign at virtually every level." Another backer, Marvin Lender, a retired bagel magnate, also sent word that he did not want Mr Gore to fight for the last vote or the last judge. "I am supportive of what's happened so far in the process," said Mr Lender, who started filling Democrat coffers after Joseph Lieberman was called upon as running mate. "But I think at some point it has to come to an end, and it needs to be relatively soon." The same message is coming from Democrat members of Congress, many of whom are beginning to see more fruit in four years of bashing Mr Bush as President than trying to support an enfeebled President Gore. Even Charles Rangel of New York, who is on the liberal wing of the party, urged the campaign to draw some line where the legal combat would end. "I think Gore got pretty lucky picking the districts where he did pretty well for the recounts," Mr Rangel said. "I think he ought to take that and accept whatever comes out of it." There is no telling whether Mr Gore or Mr Lieberman is yet prepared to retreat. The campaign manager, Bill Daley, and Warren Christopher, a former secretary of state,reportedly told Democrat leaders in Congress late last week that they would fold their tent if they lost the manual count battle. But they added that "the principals aren't there yet", meaning Messrs Gore and Lieberman. Repeated assertions that the American public is despairing of the process and of both the main protagonists have yet to be borne out. Offering encouragement to Mr Gore, a CNN-USA Today poll released yesterday showed 60 per cent of voters believed the results of the manual recounts should be included in the final tally for Florida. As to whether the time has come for Mr Gore to bow out gracefully, the American citizenry is split evenly, 46 per cent to 46 per cent, according to the same poll. But that was how the voters went into the election two weeks ago – divided down the middle almost exactly.