USTIN, Texas - In the name of ''moving forward,'' aides to George W. Bush yesterday announced they would not seek a vote recount in Iowa, hoping public pressure might force Al Gore to do the same in the much tighter Florida race.
Gore leads Bush in Iowa by some 4,000 votes, a narrow margin in a state where 1.3 million people voted on November 7. If that win were reversed, Bush would gain seven electoral votes, inching him closer to the 270 needed to become president.
But his campaign let last night's 5 p.m. deadline for requesting a recount pass, ignoring pleas from local officials who believed the state might turn in Bush's favor. Campaign chairman Don Evans said the results were ''exceptionally close, but Governor Bush believes the time has arrived for our nation to begin the process of moving forward.''
''A concluding deadline arrives tomorrow night at midnight in Florida, as the final votes come in from the overseas ballots. Once these votes are counted, we will know the final result of Florida's election and the nation's election. Win or lose, this election will be over,'' Evans said, reading from a prepared text to reporters gathered inside a makeshift briefing room at the Austin campaign headquarters. ''For the sake of our country and so that we can begin to unite our nation, tomorrow's deadline must be honored.''
Aides to the vice president ridiculed the announcement as shallow.
''I returned the favor by announcing we would not contest the vote in Texas,'' Gore campaign chairman William Daley said at the start of his briefing in Florida.
The move by Bush, who has stayed hidden inside his Crawford ranch for most of the past week, was an indication the campaign felt the need to go on the offensive after being backed into a corner by Gore the night before. In response to an offer by Gore to arrange a meeting between the candidates, Bush raced back from his ranch to speak from a podium in the Texas governor's mansion, rebuffing the offer on national TV hours after most newscasts ended.
Bush then drove back to his ranch, about two hours outside the Texas capital, right away. He remained out of sight again yesterday, as did most aides, directing all questions about the recount effort to the Florida operation being run by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III.
It was unclear how Bush was passing his time inside the 1,600-acre compound, which is equipped with an exercise facility and several footpaths. Apart from his wife, Laura, there were no other aides with him yesterday. An aide could offer almost no information about what he was doing, although he did say an infected boil on his face, which drew some attention last week, was healing satisfactorily.
The reluctance to share information about Bush was such that even Evans, a friendly and typically accessible senior adviser, darted away from the podium after yesterday's announcement, refusing to answer any questions.
Evans did, in his brief appearance, lay the groundwork for a proclamation of victory as early as tomorrow. Dismissing the ongoing recounts in Florida, he said the hand counts were inaccurate, and therefore deserved to be tossed out by state elections officials. In Broward County alone, he said, 78 tiny holes that designate the chosen candidate had fallen from ballots during a manual recount.
''The more these punch cards are handled, the more errors we see,'' Evans said. ''How can a manual recount be accurate when the ballots themselves are changing before our very eyes?''
In letting the Iowa deadline pass, Evans gave no indication whether the Bush campaign plans to challenge results in other tight races, although aides have indicated it is unlikely. In New Mexico, where Gore has a lead of just 380 votes out of almost 600,000 ballots cast, Bush would need to request a recount, unlike in Florida, where the first recount was automatically triggered by the narrow margin.
New Mexico officials have until tonight to return their ballot results to state officials, leaving open the possibility that the race will draw even closer toward the end.
The contest is almost as tight in Oregon, where Gore leads by about 4,000 votes, with two counties still tallying several thousand ballots. Republicans had threatened a lawsuit against the Democratic secretary of state, Bill Bradbury, if he did not release details about the voting results last night. In particular, Bush officials wanted to check to see if all those who cast ballots had registered before the October 17 deadline. Again, it had not been determined whether the Bush campaign would follow the same pattern there as in Iowa.
A third race, in Wisconsin, showed Gore ahead by 5,697 votes as of last night.
