WASHINGTON — Al Gore is indisputably his own man now. Friends and former advisers say he has sidelined many of his campaign consultants and other aides. These days, Gore's inner circle consists of his family, the man who would be his vice president and only a couple of others.
At the Gore team's unofficial new headquarters, the vice-presidential residence here, most meetings are attended by Gore, his wife, Tipper, his oldest daughter, Karenna Gore Schiff, his brother-in-law, Frank Hunger, his running mate, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Lieberman's wife, Hadassah, and usually his campaign chairman, William M. Daley, and Carter Eskew, a top campaign aide who is also a longtime friend.
Lieberman has suggested that the decisions are made by an even smaller group. "Most conversations have been the two of us with our wives and our lawyers," he said. And Eskew said that was as it should be. "I've talked to him a lot and so has Daley, but it's a different situation now," Eskew said.
One result is that Gore is forging forward, driven by his conviction, unchallenged by those around him, that he is the rightful winner. He has no exit strategy because he has not considered conceding. "Al Gore is flying solo and not even willing to listen" to other points of view, a former consultant said. "There is no Plan B, and there is no talk of 2004."
Asked if there was an exit strategy, Lieberman said, "An exit strategy for us or for — ? The vice president and I have been clear, I hope, that we're putting our faith in the system of justice. Our opponents, on the other hand, don't seem to be able to accept those reasonable end points. They're much more inclined to carry on forever."
Gore is hardly cut off — in fact, he spends most of the day on the phone, shoring up support and speaking to friends. But there is no diversity of opinion in his inner circle, Eskew said.
And no willingness among those on the outside to be the first to question the wisdom of the decision to continue. "If you said back off before the Supreme Court decision, people would look at you like you were from Mars," said someone who is still working for Gore but is not a close adviser. "It would not be appreciated by the candidate."
Even the vice president's old friend, the presidential scholar Richard Neustadt, who was one of Gore's mentors at Harvard, said he had trouble seeing any scenario in which his former student moves into the White House in January.
"The Republicans have been acting like poor losers and yet somehow have made him look like one," Neustadt said in a phone interview from England. "Looking at it from the long distance of London, it seems to me he did get a majority of the vote in Florida, but I don't see how he thinks it's going to happen" for him now.
"The Supreme Court of Florida would have to decide it made a mistake," Neustadt said, in the deadline it set for certifying the election, "and that seems unlikely. I'm not surprised that his fighting spirit should go up, and it does not surprise me that he does not concede before the Supreme Court rules. But unless the U.S. Supreme Court does the unexpected, it looks bad."
Neustadt said he has not talked to Gore since the election. Several other friends and advisers said they were not aware of a single person who had expressed anything but confidence in Gore's quest.
And a number of friends who have talked to the vice president in recent days — all saying they strongly support his continuing efforts to contest the election — described him as fully in charge, much more relaxed now that the campaign was over. And, they said, in a certain way, he was more upbeat now that he was in the full fighter mode he could never really adopt during a campaign year in which the public seemed to find fighting distasteful.
Several of these friends suggested that Gore was blaming his failure to win outright on various other people, including his former campaign chairman, Tony Coelho, and some old friends whom he felt had not come through for him.
And these friends say he appears to be torturing himself with "what ifs," especially since he would now be packing for the White House if he had won Arkansas, where he declined to dispatch Bill Clinton to work his home turf. Or heavily Democratic West Virginia, where he did not campaign at all, other than a stop to refuel his plane, until 10 days before the election. Or, most humiliatingly, his own home state of Tennessee, where even a number of supporters have said they, too, felt taken for granted.
One close friend, Steve Armistead, who spent summers growing up with him in Tennessee, said Gore seemed to be dwelling on why he had lost their home state. Gore called him a couple of nights ago and wanted to talk about it, Armistead said. "I know that's one thing bothering him the most, that he lost Tennessee," Armistead said. "The other night he asked me, "What happened in Tennessee?"'
Gore had some ideas, Armistead said. But Armistead, like other longtime friends, put the blame on the vice president's army of consultants — and ultimately, on the one who hired them. "There were too many vultures and not enough of the caring type, and that was his fault," he said.
Through most of the long campaign season, Al Gore was criticized for appearing too beholden to his consultants, unable to settle on a message or speak in his own voice. Not so now, though. He still listens to Eskew and remains in close touch with Bob Shrum, another consultant. He constantly talks to Mark Fabiani, Gore's deputy campaign manager about media. He has a new group to check in with now — the lawyers, like David Boies and Ronald Klain. Warren Christopher, the former secretary of state who initially headed the Gore team in Florida, has all but disappeared from view.
Gore is determined because his team feels strongly that Republicans are deliberately preventing thousands of ballots from being counted. They feel the early call that Gore had won Florida was correct, based on interviews with people leaving polls who thought they had voted for him. And despite an exterior calm, there is anger over Republican rhetoric, efforts to block vote counting and to orchestrate demonstrations. "I do get upset at some of the tactics by our opponents," Lieberman said.