Gore Team Watches, and Waits

Vice President Al Gore ventured beyond the heavy iron gates of his official residence Thursday after spending the morning with his family and running mate watching television coverage of his appeal of election lawsuits to the Florida Supreme Court.

At midday, he, his wife, Tipper, and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah, went to a neighborhood bistro, Cafe Deluxe, for lunch. They sat in a wooden booth at the rear of the restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue, a few minutes’ drive from the vice presidential mansion at the Naval Observatory. At night, they double-dated again, to a small movie theater for a showing of “You Can Count on Me.”

In recent days Gore has kept a low-key schedule--indeed, he has been barely visible to the public--while awaiting final actions by the Florida high court.

But he and his aides are quietly preparing for the possibility that, if the court decides in Gore’s favor, the vice president will have to battle the Florida Legislature, which has vowed to name its own slate of electors--pledged to Gov. George W. Bush--if the courts decide for Gore.

“We feel the Florida Legislature’s attempt to take this away from the judiciary could be susceptible to a very powerful counterattack,” said Mark D. Fabiani, Gore’s deputy campaign manager.

The Gore-Lieberman Recount Committee said Thursday that, as of Nov. 27, it had $3.2 million and that 80% of it came in contributions of $200 or less.

The Gore camp continued to maintain Thursday that the Florida Supreme Court would be its last stop. But it was not saying whether that denouement will come as a result of the challenge Gore’s lawyers have made to the Florida vote count or the lawsuits filed by others on the handling of absentee ballot applications in Seminole and Martin counties.

However, Fabiani said, the Democrats are waiting to hear from Bush or his lawyers whether the Republicans would appeal to the federal level an adverse ruling in the state Supreme Court--or disavow a decision by the Legislature to appoint the electors.

Aides said that Gore is tracking the Florida developments in telephone conversations and meetings at his home with a tight circle of political advisors and lawyers, among them Gore campaign manager Bill Daley, political consultant Carter Eskew and attorneys David Boies and Ron Klain.

Lieberman, too, has remained part of the circle.

The Connecticut senator and his wife were at the vice presidential mansion Thursday morning to watch the Florida courtroom scene with Gore and his wife and one of the Gores’ daughters, Kristin.

As avenues for overturning Florida’s vote certification appear to dwindle, Gore has made no effort to match the increasingly public transition efforts by the Bush camp.

Gore has occasional meetings with advisors who would be plunged into a rush of planning for a new administration should he find himself the president-elect.

Instead, his excursions have taken him barely a mile from his home--occasionally to his White House office, more often to restaurants or movies. And his encounters with the public have been, typically, like that Thursday at a restaurant.

He and Lieberman were dressed for work, in dark business suits; their wives were more informally clad. And his only audible comments were “How are you?” to reporters as he entered and friendly replies to fellow diners and restaurant staff members who called out, “We’re with you” when he left.