Cheney Urges Al Gore To Concede

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) â€” Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney said Sunday that ``it's time'' for Al Gore to concede the White House to George W. Bush, while lawyers for the

Sunday, December 3rd 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) â€” Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney said Sunday that ``it's time'' for Al Gore to concede the White House to George W. Bush, while lawyers for the rival tickets argued in a Florida courtroom over Democratic demands for a recount of disputed ballots.

While the legal side of the case was disputed in the Tallahassee trial, the political side was argued on the Sunday televison talk shows.

``I hope it can be resolved in the next few days ...'' Cheney said on NBC. ``I think we're rapidly approaching the stage where there will be damage to the nation,'' Cheney said.

The second day of a trial that may determine the nation's 43rd president got off to a contentious start, with Democratic lawyers urging the judge to limit Republican Bush's arguments and conclude the proceedings as soon as possible.

But the testimony dragged through two hours of statistical testimony on the first of the Republican witnesses, a statistician who waded through a professorial account of his judgments on the ballot dispute.

Bush lawyer Phil Beck accused Gore's attorney of ``grandstanding'' when David Boies cross-examined the expert witness retained by the GOP. Boies tried to ask him about expert testimony in a lead-based paint case; Beck said it was an attempt to score political points by identifying the statistician with an unpopular cause.

``Your honor, I am not grandstanding,'' Boies said. But Beck's objection was upheld and he had to drop the question.

Republican attorneys said they had seven potential witnesses, and would decide over lunch how many to call.

``Discuss it over lunch? We want to try to complete your case this morning if we can,'' said Leon County Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls.

But that wasn't happening.

As for the candidates, Bush stayed on his Texas ranch, while Gore attended church in Washington, attending a sermon appropriately titled, ``A Time of Waiting.''

Cheney, asked if Gore was a poor loser, said he sympathized with Gore's position, but urged him to bow out. ``I do think that it's time for him to concede,'' Cheney said on NBC's ``Meet the Press.'' ``So far he's chosen not to do that, to pursue other avenues, and clearly that's his prerogative. But clearly, long-term, history would regard him in a better light if he were to bring this to a close in the near future.''

Democrats, however, rallied behind their vice president.

Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, appearing on ``Fox News Sunday'' said, ``Gore is getting stronger every day'' and his lead in the national popular vote keeps expanding. ``Our country is built on the principle that the ultimate authority is the court,'' he said.

Appearing on NBC, Florida House Speaker Tom Feeney said the state Legislature was prepared to intervene in the contested election by calling a special session to appoint its own slate of 25 electors â€” though Senate leaders have said no decision has been made.

``State legislatures must be prepared to be involved,'' said Feeney, a Republican Bush ally. A special session could come as soon as this week.

Cheney said the GOP campaign does not control the Florida Legislature, but added: ``They do have constitutional obligations and responsibilities that I think speaker Feeney articulated very clearly.''

In court, statistician Laurentius Marais of Novato, Ca., taking he stand for Bush, called a ``false premise'' the Gore sides' claim that they could project from 20 percent of Miami-Dade County's precincts that the vice president would gain 600 votes among 9,000 ballots that weren't counted by hand. Marais said the theory isn't valid because the recounted sample precincts were heavily Democratic, not typical of the rest.

Even as the Florida hearing continued, both candidates awaited a U.S. Supreme Court decision that could determine the fate of earlier recounts that narrowed Bush's lead to 537 votes. All nine Supreme Court justices were at work Saturday, a day after hearing arguments in the case.

Amid the legal wrangling, Bush met at his Texas ranch Saturday with House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott to discuss priorities for the new Congress.

Bush's meeting with Hastert and Lott appeared intended to project an aura of inevitability of a Bush presidency, court cases notwithstanding.

Sitting before the fireplace at his ranch house, Bush unabashedly declared, ``I'm soon to be the insider. I'm soon to be the president.'' He promised to reach out to Democratic leaders, saying he already had talked with Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana.

Breaux is among a number of Democrats that Bush advisers have suggested for a Bush administration slot. But Bush said he recognized that ``it might put him in an awkward position'' to be directly discussing a role for Breaux.

As he spoke, the hearing before Sauls in Tallahassee dragged on.

Lawyers on both sides seemed to make significant points with each other's witnesses Saturday.

The Republicans elicited an admission from the Democrats' first witness, Kimball Brace of the consulting company Election Data Services, that dimples on ballots sometimes could result when they are handled.

``If I were to rub my finger across it, that could create an indentation and that obviously should not be counted as intention to vote,'' Brace said.

Brace used pieces of a voting booth to demonstrate from the witness stand how people trying to vote might encounter chads that will become distorted without breaking loose as they vote.

Later, Democrats seemed to benefit as Bush lawyers questioned a member of the Palm Beach County elections board as they tried to show that many of the disputed ballots may simply involve Floridians who chose not to cast a vote for president.

Judge Charles Burton, involved in the county's lengthy recount, said it became clear to everyone that certain votes had been cast for a candidate even though the computer had not picked them up.

Meanwhile Saturday, Bush's legal team made a new demand that any recount ordered by Sauls be expanded to include all votes cast in two counties where the vice president benefitted from recounts performed in the days shortly after the election.

The complaint alleged that political bias had infected hand recounts in Volusia and Broward counties. Gore, who requested the recounts, gained more than 600 votes in Broward's recount, and 98 votes in Volusia.

The new GOP filing also effectively sought to bypass a lawsuit challenging the certified vote in Republican-leaning Seminole County by asking Sauls to certify totals reported there as ``legal and proper.''