Gore Silent as Lawyers Grasp for Way to Keep Recount Quest Alive

Some of his own advisors began to lose heart. Some of his Democratic allies began to fall away. But Al Gore, as stoic as ever, retreated to his residence and his close-knit family Tuesday night for one more round of discussions before deciding whether his campaign for the presidency is over.

Only a week ago, Vice President Gore was omnipresent, talking with reporters or appearing on television almost every day to press his claim for recounts of Florida’s election returns. But on Tuesday night, Gore was invisible. Instead, his campaign chairman, Bill Daley, issued four Delphic sentences via e-mail:

“Al Gore and Joe Lieberman are now reviewing the 5-4 decision issued tonight by the United States Supreme Court.

“The decision is both complex and lengthy. It will take time to completely analyze this opinion.

“We will address the court’s decision in full detail at a time to be determined [today].”

At Democratic Party headquarters on Capitol Hill, a few blocks from the Supreme Court, lawyers pored over the court’s opinion, searching desperately for an opening to keep Gore’s 35-day crusade for a recount alive.

But several Democrats close to Gore privately echoed the verdict of the party’s general chairman, Ed Rendell: “He should act now and concede.”

Rendell, assailed by Gore aides for speaking prematurely, later tried to soften his statement. “If there is an available legal remedy . . , I think it should be pursued,” he said.

But others saw little chance of one.

“They’ve remanded it, but there’s not enough time to do anything,” said a dispirited Frank Hunger, Gore’s brother-in-law and closest advisor. “That’s about it.”

Hunger said he had not read the full Supreme Court opinion and added that he was describing his impression of the situation, not giving the vice president legal or political advice.

But other Gore aides were similarly fighting off despair. Said one aide bitterly: “It is the same justices who stopped the vote counting before. They jammed it in before midnight to make sure it wouldn’t happen.”

At the Gore campaign’s war room in Tallahassee, Fla., the mood was grim.

“Subdued,” said one aide. “Waiting, again, all day. . . . Then we get this ruling and it’s so hard to understand.”

The campaign’s official spokesmen sought to remain upbeat.

“The vice president continues to be an inspiration for everyone on his team,” said Chris Lehane in Washington. “He’s been rock solid tonight, as he has been for four and a half weeks.”

“We are analyzing this opinion,” said Gore aide Doug Hattaway in Tallahassee. “That’s essentially where we are at right now. . . . The attorneys are still going through this and talking about it. And I won’t know until the morning what we’ll have to say about it.”

One top official in the Gore camp in Florida said that at least some of the campaign’s lawyers saw a possible opening in the court’s opinion.

“There is definitely a group of lawyers in Tallahassee who see an opportunity and want to proceed,” he said.

Gore could ask the Florida Supreme Court to clarify its earlier rulings to meet the U.S. Supreme Court’s concerns, he argued.

If the state Supreme Court redefines the deadline for counting, in effect, from Dec. 12 to Dec. 18, and then “orders these canvassing boards to begin at 1 p.m today . . , there is no physical reason this can’t be done by the 18th,” he said.

But another senior Gore advisor said that, even if the Florida Supreme Court made such a ruling--and conceivably authorized a recount under new standards--the implication of Tuesday’s ruling was that the five-member conservative bloc on the U.S. Supreme Court would simply strike it down.

“You have to question whether, no matter what the Florida Supreme Court does, whether these five justices will ever do anything to prevent George Bush from taking office,” said the advisor. “And you have to evaluate that.”

“You have five justices who seem to be bound and determined, not only to prevent the counting of votes, but to keep the Florida Supreme Court from doing anything within a reasonable time period. There is no guidance in this decision for the Florida Supreme Court if they want to do something else. They have to come up with a whole scheme to do something else, which may or may not pass muster. I think history will look at this as these five justices basically stopping a count and stopping the clock.”

Most leading Democrats followed Gore’s lead on Tuesday night and withheld comment on the complex opinion.

But Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.), who was one of the first Democrats to suggest that Gore consider conceding the race, said: “This is a very difficult evening for him. It has gotten to the end.”

Gore spent much of the evening on the telephone with his lawyers and aides, most of whom were at the party headquarters, not at the vice president’s 19th century mansion on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory on Massachusetts Avenue. Associated Press reported that Gore’s wife, Tipper, tried to calm her husband’s despairing aides, paging one with the message: “Hang tight with me. We’re trying to figure it out.”

Outside the mansion, at an intersection where pro-Gore and pro-Bush demonstrators have gathered on opposite corners for weeks, the Republicans whooped and cheered.

“Get out of Cheney’s house!” they chanted, referring to Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney, who will move into the residence if the GOP candidate, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, is declared the winner.

Gore spent most of the day Tuesday anxiously waiting for word from the Supreme Court.

He stayed in the residence most of the day, but drove to the White House late in the afternoon.

He spent 95 minutes in his office, just a few dozen paces from the president’s Oval Office, empty because President Clinton is in Ireland.

Gore went through a cluttered in box piled high with mail and memos, wrote thank-you notes to some of his supporters and spoke with others on the telephone, a spokesman said.

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Times staff writers Ronald Brownstein and Richard A. Serrano, both in Tallahassee, contributed to this story.