The Associated Press

Two former secretaries of state who once negotiated peace treaties find themselves embroiled in raucous news conferences and negotiating with state politicians in the presidential election’s second campaign.

Tuesday, November 14, 2000

Two former secretaries of state who once negotiated peace treaties find themselves embroiled in raucous news conferences and negotiating with state politicians in the presidential election’s second campaign.

The campaigns of Al Gore and George W. Bush have evolved into "recount committees" as the entire election has been boiled down to a few frantic days and a vote recount in the knotted state of Florida.

The furious battle over public opinion has moved into sudden-death overtime.

Try as they might, staffers for these two candidates haven’t been able to scale back the campaigning – though it’s mutating into different forms.

They’re raising money to fund the recount battle, still promoting their candidates by fax, e-mail and rounds of phone calls, holding dueling news conferences and responding tit-for-tat on most every development.

"I still think there’s an awful lot of politics in this," said Charles Whitehead, a former state Democratic Party Chairman. "A big part of this campaign is still going on."

Both candidates, through their "recount committees," are trying to raise $3 million to pay legal bills and overhead for the recount campaign which has sent almost a hundred former campaign staffers from each side spreading across the state to monitor the recounts in Florida’s 67 counties. The Gore campaign had up to 200 people working in Palm Beach County and approximately 75 in Broward County, mostly monitoring the hand counts and helping collect affidavits from unhappy voters. Supporters linger around recount headquarters and the state capitol, waving tattered campaign signs.

Former secretaries of state James A. Baker III representing Bush and Warren Christopher representing Gore fly in and out of Tallahassee to attempt to lend much-needed dignity to the sometimes bitter proceedings.

Baker explains how Bush has already won the recount, conveniently disregarding overseas absentee ballots yet to be counted. Christopher reminds that Gore has the lead in the popular and electoral votes.

"There’s no question that this has as much or more of a political overtone as a legal overtone," said Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. "From Wednesday morning until now, each side has been struggling to gain the high ground in terms of public opinion."

At times they have stumbled.

Gore aides said the voting problems in south Florida could well lead to lawsuits, combative talk that frightened many. The Bush campaign started talking about transition as if he had won and then took the first step into the courts.

"Both sides understand there will be significant doubts about whoever wins," said political analyst Stuart Rothenberg.

Right now, the public opinion war is as much a stalemate as the election – with people about evenly split on whether each candidate is handling the post-election chaos well. And they are about evenly split on which candidate should be president. By a 2-1 margin, the public disapproved of the Bush campaign’s decision to go to court.

Both campaigns are monitoring internal party polling to watch for fallout over the standoff.

Public opinion is an important component of the second campaign because it can influence how public officials react to them on key election questions. It also can affect whether the winner will be effective as president and whether the eventual loser is still a viable politician.

"You don’t want to be a judge that makes a decision that alters the course of history where people believe you acted rashly or unwisely," Ornstein said.

Both the Gore and Bush camps say they are not campaigning, simply trying to wrap up the election. And both point out how the other candidate can’t give up the campaign.

"They’ve certainly continued to bombard the press with e-mail to put their spin on things," said Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway. "We’ve simply released statements."

The Bush campaign views the Democrats as more partisan in this process and claims it is taking the high road by seeking a quick end to the recount. "It’s very important for Americans to have confidence in the electoral system," said Mindy Tucker, a Bush spokeswoman.

The seemingly endless partisan bickering is starting to wear on Whitehead, who blended civility into party politics during his years as a party chairman.

"We really need to come together as Americans," he said. "We need to quiet it down – whatever the outcome."