ASHINGTON - In a series of TV interviews, Al Gore offered a lingering glimpse yesterday of his thoughts about hanging in limbo and being called a sore loser.
''The only people I've heard that from is from partisans on the other side, who called me far worse than that before the election,'' he said.
The vice president, accelerating a public relations campaign as the legal wheels on his election challenge ground slowly forward, gave himself ''50-50'' odds at winning, and spoke on NBC's ''Today'' of what life is like suspended between victory and defeat.
He and his family were prepared to win on Nov. 7 and ''sort of prepared, if it didn't go the right way, to deal with that,'' Gore said.
''But not expecting to have neither outcome - that takes some getting used to.''
He added: ''I'm really in love with our democracy. That sounds corny, I know.''
The interview, taped Tuesday night at his vice presidential residence at the Naval Observatory, was the first of several media appearances. Gore gave a second interview to NBC for its nightly news and went on camera with anchors at ABC, CBS, and CNN.
His running mate, Joseph I. Lieberman, made the Democrats' case on National Public Radio and on CNN's ''Larry King Live.''
The two also continued with the tentative business of sketching out an administration at a White House lunch. Gore dropped by the Oval Office to see President Clinton, for a chat that a White House press secretary, Jake Siewert, described as ''informal and private.''
Gore and Lieberman met with the transition director, Roy Neel; the campaign chairman, William Daley; the vice presidential chief of staff, Charles Burson; Labor Secretary Alexis Herman; Kathleen McGinty, former head of the Council on Environmental Quality in the Clinton White House; and Leon Fuerth, Gore's national security adviser.
McGinty would be the front-runner to head the Environmental Protection Agency under Gore. Herman and Daley are widely presumed to be Gore's top choices for White House chief of staff or some other prominent post.
Gore, asked about his odds of getting the Florida vote certification overturned, said: ''I think they're still 50-50.''
He professed no anxiety about such a tossup deciding his political future. ''I don't lie awake at night. I sleep like a baby,'' he said. ''I've been getting seven, eight hours of sleep a night.''
Gore predicted that if disputed votes from Miami-Dade County are ordered counted by the courts as he has asked, he will win Florida's 25 electoral votes.
He also accused Bush of fearing a full count of ballots by hand.
''I think they believe if there was a hand count of the entire state, our margin of victory would be even larger,'' Gore said.
