Bush Maps Out His Future; What Will Florida Legislature Do?
JOIE CHEN, CNN ANCHOR: The view from the experts on the fine points of casting a ballot. But will their opinions bring an end to Florida's election controversy? A weekend at the ranch and Governor Bush's latest efforts to map out his future. And why lawmakers at Florida's statehouse may be critical players in ending the electoral impasse. From CNN Center in Atlanta, this is a special report on the Florida vote. Hello, I'm Joie Chen. Thanks for being with us. We begin this hour with the latest developments in another day of legal wrangling in this heated political battle. This time, it's all playing out in a Leon County, Florida courtroom. The judge in the case heard familiar arguments from attorneys from both sides -- the Gore camp yet again pushing for yet another recount, and the Bush camp pushing against it. But this time, they called witnesses to back up their cases. Testimony is to resume Sunday morning at 9:00 Eastern. And there is late word from Tallahassee that plans for a special legislative session to discuss picking Florida's 25 electors may be on hold. The president of Florida's Senate -- state Senate -- says that he has no plans to sign a proclamation on Monday, which he would have to do for the session to take place. George W. Bush, meantime, met today with his running mate, Dick Cheney, and two Republican congressional leaders. They discussed the details of his transition to the presidency. And we are still awaiting word from the U.S. Supreme Court on whether the justices will intervene in the Florida recount. The ruling could come at any time. The judge in the Leon County case we just mentioned faces a crucial question: to count -- to recount or not to recount. Today, witnesses for the Gore and Bush campaigns gave a tutorial of sorts on the voting process itself. CNN national correspondent Gary Tuchman has more on their testimony tonight -- Gary.</s>GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Joie, in a hot crowded courtroom in Florida's state capital, a judge is poised to make a decision that could affect the whole world. The Al Gore legal contest is under way.</s>TUCHMAN (voice-over): This noted four-letter word uttered in court was not Gore and was not Bush.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When he punches out that hole there, that is called the chad.</s>TUCHMAN: The chad, the definition of which was unknown to most before Election Day, was front and center in testimony in the first day of Al Gore's challenge of the presidential election results.</s>DAVID BOIES, GORE CAMPAIGN ATTORNEY: The certified results reject a number of legal votes and include a number of illegal votes.</s>TUCHMAN: Roughly 1.1 million votes trucked in from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties are now in vaults in this very same courthouse. The Democrats want the judge to decide to start counting some of the ballots. With that end in mind, they called a voting equipment consultant to the stand, who said many voters were thwarted from voting for president because of faulty equipment.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If in fact the machines are not cleaned out on a regular basis, and there's chad buildup, and therefore, the voter may not be able to push down as firmly.</s>TUCHMAN: Chad buildup is something Governor Bush's lawyers believe is overstated, and they also doubted a claim made by the consultant, who brought his own voting machine to court, that the rubber under the punch holes get hard over time.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you ever changed the rubber strips in your machine?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I haven't.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you now vote for president, please, without trying to make a dimple?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did it work?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, vote for number five.</s>JUDGE N. SANDERS SAULS, LEON COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT: You don't have to say who you voted for.</s>TUCHMAN: There were occasional laughs during the nine-hour hearing, but also anger and frustration. Mr. Bush's attorneys said they doubted so much chad would be piled up to affect the vote, so one of Mr. Gore's attorneys did a rather theatrical demonstration.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You ever seen somebody after they get through voting go ahead and shake it up a bit, so that they get all the chads moved around? Have you ever seen anybody do that?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I have not.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Plaintiffs call Professor Nicholas Hengartner.</s>TUCHMAN: The Democrats also called a statistician to the stand, who testified he felt a much higher percentage of punch-card ballots were without presidential votes than other ballots. And then it was the Republican team's turn to call witnesses. Judge Charles Burton is the head of the Palm Beach County Canvassing Board. Democrats wanted his board to count dimples or indented chads as votes for president. He testified that was not their sole criteria.</s>JUDGE CHARLES BURTON, PALM BEACH COUNTY CANVASSING BOARD: My rationale, quite honestly, was we saw so many cards with multiple impressions in the first row that, by virtue of seeing one impression, we felt -- or at least I know I felt -- that this voter obviously had no problem punching out their votes, and by virtue of just having one in the first column, that did not show a clear indication of an intent to vote.</s>TUCHMAN: Judge N. Sanders Sauls will reconvene his Tallahassee courtroom Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time.</s>TUCHMAN: In the often leisurely world of jurisprudence, this was a rather intense day -- nine hours in court. There was a short half- an-hour lunch break, two other short breaks -- but it was hot, it was crowded, and this situation was certainly intense. People realize the magnitude of what's going on inside. Now the judge planned an going even later tonight, but he then said that a couple of his aides did not have a chance to have lunch, so he called it a night. He gave them some mercy. But the judge has said, "This trial will last no longer than 12 hours." So if he's right, it will all come to an end tomorrow. And if it ends tomorrow, we could find out tomorrow if yes or no -- if he will count. Joie, back to you.</s>CHEN: Yes, hot and tired -- it was a Saturday and a holiday season after all, Gary. How did the two sides feel that they did after all was said and done today?</s>TUCHMAN: Joie, it was almost like one of the debates. After the debates, all the spinners come out and try to spin you. And as soon as this came to an end today, the Republican spinners, the Democratic spinners came out, and they all said they thought their side did very well. But of course, it will be up to one man -- not a jury, but one man, the judge here in the circuit court in Tallahassee -- to make that final decision.</s>CHEN: Gary, I know that going into the U.S. Supreme Court hearing, there were a lot of people lined up very early for an opportunity to be in. And at other hearings as well, we know that the general public had lined up and shown a great deal of interest in attending these hearings. What about the hearing today? I saw a lot of suits in there, but were there a lot of regular people who wanted to hear and see what was going on inside?</s>TUCHMAN: What they did -- they had 30 passes available, which were split between the news media and the general public. A few members of the general public were in there, but not nearly the amount of people who wanted to get in there got in there. And also the news media -- not everyone could get in there. They had an overflow room in the courtroom to watch it on TV, but it's a very small courtroom and it literally was jam packed. There wasn't one seat available for anyone to sit in. So a couple of members of the general public, but most of the general public who wanted to get in ended up outside.</s>CHEN: They could have watched it on TV. Gary Tuchman for us in Tallahassee tonight. And keeping up a confident air while the wait goes on, Governor Bush forges ahead with his plans for his presidency. CNN's senior political correspondent Candy Crowley is in Austin at this hour -- Candy.</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Joie, as Gary mentioned, no surprise -- the Bush team thinks they had a very good day in that Leon County courtroom. The governor himself actually does not have cable TV out at his ranch in Crawford, but in fact, he was otherwise occupied.</s>CROWLEY (voice-over): No chad here. Just Dennis and George and Trent and Dick. The Bush transition in exile let the cameras roll again Saturday, recording the opening of a session at the Bush ranch about next year's legislative agenda.</s>REP. DENNIS HASTERT (R-IL), HOUSE SPEAKER: It's time to start the plan to get those things done. You just don't do them at a turn of a nickel or just in a second's knee jerk. It takes some time. It takes some planning.</s>CROWLEY: Casual Saturday dress, but beyond that George Bush and Dick Cheney sitting around a table with Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and House Speaker Dennis Hastert looks a lot like a Republican leadership meeting in the Oval Office, which is part of the point. The other part is the need to begin to put people and priorities in place.</s>GOVERNOR GEORGE W. BUSH (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I do want to continue to talk about tax relief particularly given the fact that there's some warning signs on the horizon about our economy. And I believe the agenda that we'll be bringing to the Congress is one that will help the economic growth of the country.</s>CROWLEY: Members of Congress didn't get much face time in the Bush campaign. It was counter to the Texas governor's strategy of running as an outsider against the status quo. But even if the election isn't over, the campaign sort of is.</s>BUSH: Well, I'm soon to be the insider. I'm soon to be the president.</s>CROWLEY: But the ferocity of the courtroom battle in Tallahassee is the undertow that pulls at the certainty exuded by the Bush camp. Sometimes you feel it, as when George Bush described a Friday phone call to Louisiana Democrat Senator John Breaux.</s>BUSH: I knew it might put him in an awkward position that we had a discussion before the -- before finality has, you know, finally happened in this presidential race.</s>CROWLEY: Bush described the conversation as a comfortable discussion about the general state of things.</s>CROWLEY: And given the general state of things, that must have been a mighty interesting conversation -- Joie.</s>CHEN: Candy, how well does he know folks like Speaker Hastert? Has he had much communication with him prior to all this?</s>CROWLEY: He's been on the phone with him. But no, we really -- you know, as I said, we didn't see them that much. And George Bush really -- other than the time that his father was running for re- election -- is not a creature of Washington, though he well understands its ways. So he would not have sort of been at places where Dennis Hastert or Trent Lott might have been. They showed up every once in awhile -- obviously, Dennis Hastert in Illinois, Trent Lott in Mississippi -- along the campaign trail, but not that much. So this is really as much a sort of sizing up each other as it is getting the agenda out there. But they need him, and he needs them. And he, in fact, talked about the fact that there will be differences between Republicans; between George Bush, who has had a different agenda than some in Congress, and Congress, who sometimes doesn't like what George Bush has had to say. So there is a lot of sort of bipartisanship that has to go on. But there's also some healing that has to be done within the Republican Party should George Bush become President.</s>CHEN: CNN's Candy Crowley with us from Austin, Texas, this hour. Waiting out this weekend in Washington, Vice President Gore's low-key agenda included coffee with his wife and lunch with his college roommate. CNN's Jonathan Karl joins us late now from Washington - Jonathon.</s>JONATHAN KARL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Joie, that college roommate lunching with the Vice President was his one-time Harvard classmate, Tom Jones, now better known as the actor Tommy Lee Jones. We're told the lunch went good, but the Gore team is far less optimistic about what happened down in Judge Sander Sauls' courthouse, where the pace was far too slow for comfort. As one top Gore aide said, when we're counting ballots, we're in good shape. When we're not, we're in bad shape. And today was yet another day where no ballots were being counted, and more importantly, where there was no clear indication when or even if they ever will be.</s>GORE: We're making quiet progress.</s>KARL: But transition talk aside, Gore's aides are nervously watching developments in Florida, worried that time is running out as his court case drags on.</s>BOIES: Every hour makes a difference. Every day makes a difference. But having said that, I think we are on track.</s>KARL: Gore's top aides privately concede that the vice president, who is on somewhat of a legal losing streak, desperately needs a legal victory soon. They are looking for a court order to immediately start the counting of those 14,000 disputed ballots.</s>BOIES: If you manually look at these punch-card ballots, you will discover hundreds and hundreds of votes, where the intent of the voter is clear, that have not been counted.</s>KARL: The Gore team hopes Judge Sander Sauls will rule on their recount request Sunday. If he rules against them, they are prepared to appeal. But they are also keenly aware that by then, it may be too late to get the counting done on time.</s>KARL: There's a reason for Gore's low profile as he awaits action by the Florida court and by the U.S. Supreme Court. As one top advisor said, court decisions over the next 24 to 48 hours will tell the tail. Anything else right now is just a side show -- Joie.</s>CHEN: Jon, looking at Mr. Gore today and comparing his image with that of Mr. Bush -- Mr. Bush meeting with some figures who could be key in a transition, who could be key in a future administration that he might have -- Mr. Gore almost looks as though he's still campaigning, making stops in the coffee shop.</s>KARL: Yeah, and that was a very quick stop outside the residence. Really, the vice president's having some of those very same meetings, but he's not inviting the cameras in. I mean, the vice president over the last several days has been meeting with Roy Neil (ph), who is heading up his transition team. He's having regular meetings with Bill Daley, his campaign manager, regular meetings with Alexis Hermann, who's talked about as a possible chief of staff in a -- in a Gore administration. So that stuff is going on, the quiet progress towards a potential transition. But there's a real sense on the Gore team that really, their fate is not in their hands right now. Again, the next 24 to 48 hours awaiting these court decisions, that will be -- that will tell the tale. That's what will tell what's going to happen. So they're not as interested in some of the image making that we see going on in Austin. Clearly, George W. Bush trying to set the tone that he is preparing to go to the White House, that he clearly believes he won the election, and that he is preparing to take control in Washington. The vice president knows that he can have time to fight that battle and to project those images after these court decisions. But right now, there's really a sense of almost shrugging their shoulders and saying, "Well, we'll see what happens."</s>CHEN: Has anybody talked about like a drop-dead time, if we don't have votes started to be counted by Tuesday, or Wednesday, or whatever, there's no way this can be done?</s>KARL: Well, that drop-dead date seems to keep moving back. I mean, earlier the Gore team had said that if the ballots weren't being counted by this weekend, there wouldn't be time to count all of them. Now they're not saying that. Now they're saying that even if you had a decision Monday or Tuesday to start counting the ballots that you could just bring in more people to do the counting. They say there's only 14,000 disputed ballots. Those are the only ballots they want counted. They say they could do that in a day or two. But, of course, the drop-dead deadline down in Florida is December 12th, which is the date that the state must confirm its slate of electors to the electoral college. So the Gore team still thinks they have some time. But remember, it was just a couple of days ago that they were saying, if we don't start counting by the weekend, it's over. We can't count. Now they're backing away from that, because here we are at the weekend, still not counting ballots.</s>CHEN: CNN's Jonathan Karl for us from Washington. How are the men who would be President handling themselves during the long wait? Ahead on this CNN special report, taking the pulse of the nation, and the view of our senior political analyst Bill Schneider. We'll be right back.