Confirming our earlier hypothesis, a long front page article in Monday's Wall Street Journal on Bush's strategy says:
<quote>
The Bush team's new offensive, like all its strategy, springs from an early postelection assessment by campaign analysts that Mr. Bush probably wouldn't win a state-wide recount by hand. So when Mr. Gore, just after the election, sought hand recounts in four friendly counties, Mr. Bush didn't counter by seeking recounts in GOP-leaning counties of his own. And when the vice president dramatically proposed a statewide hand count on national television last week, Mr. Bush rebuffed him.
That's caused some second-guessing among fretful Republicans not only in Florida but nationwide. Amid the recounting debate, for example, Tom Slade, Florida's GOP national committeeman, contacted Al Cardenas, his successor as state party chairman. Without GOP counties also participating in the hand counts, Mr. Slade complained, "we're in this competition, and we don't have any players on the field." Mr. Cardenas was unmoved, Mr. Slade recalls, replying that the Bush aim was to hold the line against hand counts, period.
</quote>
Michael __________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com