Presidential Bush leads chorus of conciliation

AUSTIN - Memo to Al Gore from George W. Bush: I feel your pain.

As the Texas Governor cautiously tiptoes closer to the White House in Washington, that is the new message coming out of Austin for the Vice-President.

The pounding from Bush headquarters has faded proportionately with each tentative step the Republican took in the direction of the 43rd presidency this week and each setback, legal or political, suffered by his Democratic rival.

The less combative tone debuted on Tuesday after a Florida judge rejected Gore's legal contest of the state's election results, dealing the Vice-President a huge blow.

"I think they're sensing that the end game is upon them," said Bruce Buchanan, professor of government at the University of Texas.

"I guess there's magnanimity in victory."

But mindful of both the bizarre twists and turns the protracted dispute over the November 7 race has taken in the past month and Gore's pending appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, the Bush camp has put celebrations on hold.

The word went out for a kinder, gentler approach, to scale back the rhetoric in favour of assuaging concern about dire predictions of months of unpleasantness to come.

"Governor Bush has said he wants to bring the country together," one Republican source said. "It is in everyone's best interest not to antagonise the very people we want to reach out to."

Bush has led the conciliatory chorus. Working to paint a picture of himself as presidential with the aim of coalescing public opinion around the idea that he will be the next US president, Bush has, at every opportunity this week, expressed empathy with Gore.

He has declined to call on him to concede. "I understand his anguish, I understand the emotions involved," he told CBS.

Another view on who should be in the White House came from the present incumbent. In the latest Rolling Stone Bill Clinton said he would have been tempted to run for President again if the Constitution had let him.

And did he think he would have been a three-time winner?

"Yes. I do. But it's hard to say, because it's entirely academic."

- REUTERS

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