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By David Von Drehle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 19, 2000; Page A1

For George W. Bush and Al Gore, and for their lawyerly legions, and for the vote-counters with their ambiguous chad–and ultimately for the American people–the election dispute in Florida has been a frantic race to nowhere, full of wrong turns and false hopes and blind alleys.

But just because no one knows exactly where this is going, or how long it will take to get there, it doesn't mean that everything is unfamiliar. Bush and Gore are still themselves.

Neither man has been transformed by the fact that the ballots are cast. The same competitiveness, ambition and intensity that took them to the top of their parties have kept them in bitter combat through this unusual struggle. They're fighting this the way they've fought all their other battles.

Through the 12 endless, inconclusive days since voters went to the polls, Bush has been the distant board chairman of a disciplined corporation. He chose a plan-unyielding opposition to hand recounts-and has instructed his team to follow it relentlessly. He has delegated operations to a trusted staff, led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III. His job has been to project an avuncular confidence.

Gore has been up to his elbows in every detail, the hub of a spinning wheel of e-mails, phone calls and skull sessions. From his dining room table at the Naval Observatory, Gore has run the show. The objective is as simple as Bush's. Find more votes. But Gore's strategy has been new with each morning, each hour, each maneuver by the other side.

The two men, their styles and temperaments, gradually became familiar during their long battle for the White House. But now they are revealing themselves under different pressures-not as presidents, but not as candidates either. They're working on strange ground using the tools they brought with them.

And the difference came into focus Thursday night-the second Thursday of the election that would not end.

It was a day much like all the rest last week-feverishly consumed with the trench warfare over hand-recounting. Katherine Harris, Florida's pro-Bush secretary of state (she has been e-mailing anti-Gore jokes from her office computer), was intent on using her authority over elections to certify a Bush victory come Saturday. In Washington, Gore worked over his staff for options. But he was the one who decided to break into the network newscasts to make a grand offer: If Bush would agree to a statewide hand recount, Gore would promise to honor the result.

It was classic Gore. He sized up a shifting situation. He chose the new approach. And Gore, who lives for a good fight, jabbed straight for the kidneys. The deal required Bush to give up a lot, and Gore to give up very little. But he proposed it in the warm and patriotic tones of a man reciting the Gettysburg Address.

The move caught Bush by surprise at his ranch outside Waco. For a day or two after the election ended in a deadlock, Bush had remained in Austin, where he met with leading figures of his likely administration and in general strove to appear victorious, presidential and unannoyed. But when it became clear that acting like the winner would not make it so, Bush headed up Interstate 35, along the prow of the Hill Country, to play catch with his dog and drive his pickup and generally appear calm and vigorous. Aides said he kept in touch with events by e-mail and fax, and there were two or three conference calls each day. But in general, Bush had chosen his plan and he was content to let Baker execute.

The Gore announcement sent Bush rushing to his motorcade for the two-hour ride back to Austin, where he went before the cameras to say: "The way to conclude the election in a fair and accurate and final way is for the state of Florida to count the remaining overseas ballots, add them to the certified vote, and announce the results, as required by Florida law."

In other words: No change. No hand-counting.

Gore has tackled this unprecedented battle in the way he tackles any new project-with steel and determination and focus. It's not enough for him to have seemingly half the lawyers in America working for him. He has to read the statutes and the case law himself, though he is not a lawyer.

His effort is not particularly collegial. Aides don't drop by; there's no chitchat. In the hierarchy of the Gore army, there is the candidate, wife Tipper (Gore's daughters have dispersed to their homes), brother-in-law Frank Hunger and campaign adviser Carter Eskew.

A bevy of pricey consultants offer advice from the Wisconsin Avenue offices of campaign strategists Bob Shrum and Tad Devine. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the machinery of the Gore recount operation works from crowded tables in the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

It's Gore who keeps his party's congressional leaders up-to-date, briefing House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) and Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.). Gore calls opinion editors and publishers of at least half a dozen major newspapers to explain his team's thinking. And Gore chaired a five-hour marathon meeting with campaign chairman William Daley and recount team leader Warren Christopher to prepare for the second week of the electoral dispute.

Bush's spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, and his chief operating officer, Baker, are the Republican faces most frequently seen on television. But Gore often delivers personally the news of his campaign.

The other man is entirely different.

Bush aide Tucker Eskew was asked yesterday how Bush was holding up. He's "humble, but eager to move on," Eskew answered.

In those six words was distilled the entire Bush plan for dealing with this unprecedented situation. He was stung by complaints immediately after the voting that he was being presumptuous. His tenuous and shrinking hold on a two-vote electoral college advantage was not enough reason, his critics charged, to start naming transition officials and cutting the ribbon on Cabinet speculation.

Since then, Bush has been aw-shucksing his way around his ranch, letting his team do its thing. Every time the nation caught a glimpse of him, he had his dog at his side.

An aside: Someday, when the lingering questions of this period are being sorted out and answered, perhaps we'll learn why Gore chose to have his picture taken after the voting playing touch football with his kids-while complaining of a bad back. Pure John F. Kennedy. And Bush decided to adopt the matching hat and Windbreaker favored by the last political Texan with a famous ranch, Lyndon B. Johnson.

Yesterday, Bush visited his office in the Texas Capitol to attend to state business, and he hit the gym at the nearby University of Texas. He dispatched a friend, Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, to meet with reporters and detail the problems with hand-counting ballots.

Gore's public appearances have been all over the map. He has been unconcerned, taking in a movie one night, dining in Dupont Circle another night. He has been striking dozens of faces in a matter of minutes early last week. On Thursday, when he offered his deal, he looked like a president straight from central casting.

Bush, by contrast, has seemed his unusual plain, calm-if slightly miffed-Fella from the Heartland. For a few days after the voting, he turned up with a big bandage on his face where a boil had erupted. He has been relentlessly on-message, as always, and his message has been simple: Let's wrap this up.

The next phase of this ordeal may be a greater test of Bush than of Gore, because Bush's strategy has not worked out as hoped.

When the news came Friday morning that a judge in Tallahassee had cleared the way for Harris to certify the results as of yesterday, there were cheers and high-fives at Bush headquarters in Austin. Certification was the linchpin of the Baker plan. The Bush team was preparing an appropriate speech, calling for an end to the struggle. It was working on its talking points for the Sunday morning talk shows, in which the drumbeat would commence for Gore to step aside.

The team had the ballroom of the Four Seasons, Austin's swankiest hotel, on reserve for a victory party any night beginning tonight.

Then the Florida Supreme Court stepped in and blocked certification. Tomorrow, the justices will hear oral arguments from the two sides. After that, who knows?

"The American people have spoken," President Clinton said way back on Nov. 8, "but it's going to take a little while to determine exactly what they said."

True enough. But what is changing steadily-among insiders and bystanders-is precisely what "a little while" might mean. In Miami-Dade County, where the manual recount requested more than a week ago finally got underway yesterday, "a little while" may mean "the rest of November," according to official estimates.

A senior Florida GOP lawmaker is talking about having the state Legislature decide the election, in which case "a little while" might last past when the electoral college casts its votes Dec. 18.

It could mean until Jan. 20, the day President Whoever is inaugurated.

Or, if we are entirely honest about it, "a little while" may mean "forever." We may never know exactly what the voters said.

Richard B. Cheney has been living since Nov. 7-the day the nation naively thought of as election day-at the Four Seasons in Austin, but yesterday, he packed up and flew home to McLean.

Staff writers Mike Allen in Austin and Ceci Connolly in Washington contributed to this report.