ASHINGTON - His attendance at an annual families' conference in Nashville was the first casualty, followed by plans to spend Thanksgiving with relatives in Tennessee. Yesterday, Al Gore did not even venture from the vice president's residence, emerging into public view literally at the 11th hour.
As the schedule showed, the moments leading up to last night's Florida Supreme Court decision were crunch time for the Gore campaign. In private conversations yesterday, his aides acknowledged that their last, best hope to win this year's presidential race rested with the court's seven justices.
They ended up voting in his favor far more clearly than the rest of the state's residents had exactly two weeks earlier.
In a 42-page, unanimous opinion, the court voted to allow the county ballot recounts that Gore wanted. Furthermore, the justices appeared to endorse giving county election officials broad latitude in determining what standards they would apply to the ballots being counted.
Aides conceded yesterday that a partial victory would not be enough: the vice president was banking on a legal rout. It's not just that they needed the high court to allow three heavily Democratic counties to keep recounting votes by hand, but Gore's aides considered it vital that the court give county canvassing boards the power to make broad conclusions about ''voter intent'' when interpreting challenged ballots.
The manual recounts are so far not generating enough Gore votes to overcome George W. Bush's lead in Florida, the vice president's aides acknowledged. It now appears that only if marks on as many as 5,000 contested ballots are interpreted in the broadest and most lenient way will Gore catch the Texas governor.
Signs of the pressure building on Gore were evident all week. On Monday, he skipped a planned visit to Nashville for the Family Reunion Conference at Vanderbilt University. Yesterday, he had no public schedule, and tomorrow he will mark Thanksgiving in Washington instead of Tennessee.
When he did break his public silence, it was at 11 o'clock last night, when Gore and running mate Joseph I. Lieberman stepped before cameras at the vice presidential residence.
Gore thanked the court for its ruling, as he did the vote counters who are working through a holiday week. In addition, for a second time he asked Bush to meet with him ''to demostrate the essential unity that keeps America strong and free. Together, let us testify to the truth that our country is more important to victory.''
Members of the Gore team haven't been feeling very kindly toward those Democrats who were calling on the vice president to concede the presidency even before the recounts in Florida are finished.
''They are pushing for recounts in two House races where the margins are 150 votes,'' said one irritated adviser, ''and they're not walking away from Maria Cantwell,'' the Democratic candidate for a US Senate seat still being contested in Washington.
In Texas, aides to Bush said the Republican nominee was planning a presidency with his aides, and photographers captured him arriving at the Capitol in Austin, accompanied by Andrew Card, who is expected to be Bush's White House chief of staff.
Bush, feeling emboldened that Gore has not picked up votes at the pace he had hoped, was looking toward the future with less and less concern about appearing presumptuous.
Karl Rove, Bush's chief political strategist, was seen entering the building, where Bush was said to be tending to state business. When the governor left, he was greeted with crowds chanting, ''President! President!'' Bush placed his hands on one boy's crewcut head, saying, ''It gives me good luck to rub your head.''
Both candidates need to win Florida's popular vote to gain the state's 25 electoral votes, the last bunch each needs to achieve the 270-vote Electoral College majority to become president.
One top Gore strategist said the vice president remained optimistic despite notes of retreat from within his own party.
On Monday, Representative James Moran of Virginia was the latest Democrat to chime in, saying: ''I'm not sure Gore is going to win on a hand recount. The chances of a Gore presidency are diminishing with every day that passes.''
By contrast, neither the Bush campaign nor its supporters on Capitol Hill have ever discussed the possibility of defeat. It is part of a strategy to project a consistent aura of confidence.
But the belief is also real, with aides almost never allowing for the possible need for a concession speech, even in private conversations. Although careful to discuss the Bush White House in terms of ''if,'' advisers have never seen signs that public opinion wants them to give up, a senior official said.
Asked whether Bush officials have ever considered the possibility they might at some point need to concede, communications director Karen Hughes replied, ''We have not.''
Johnson reported from Washington; Wilkie from New Orleans. Globe Staffer Anne E. Kornblut contributed from Austin, Texas.
