ASHVILLE - An audible gasp that went through War Memorial Plaza early today when it looked as if Al Gore had lost the 2000 presidential race to George W. Bush was replaced with cheers of hope little more than an hour later as the seesaw election swung back in doubt.
The vice president, wounded by news that he had lost Florida and its critical 25 electoral votes, stood backstage after already conceding the election to the Republican nominee in a phone call, when late news that Bush's Florida victory margin had fallen to less than 600 votes prompted him to delay making a public concession speech.
At about 3:30 a.m., Gore called Bush and retracted his concession, sending another cheer through the crowd that had gathered in the plaza to await the verdict.
True to himself to the bitter end, Gore had campaigned nonstop from 5:30 a.m. Monday, eschewing sleep for a tour of battleground states, early-morning stops in Florida, and last-minute phone calls and television interviews in Western states.
The ebb and flow of the election was evident in the lobby of the Loews Vanderbilt Plaza Hotel, where Gore and Lieberman watched the returns with their wives and children in a suite upstairs.
Campaign workers erupted in cheers at 6:50 p.m. CST as television sets showed the networks calling Florida for Gore, a shot of adrenaline for a campaign that believed it could beat Bush.
Two hours later, however, as the networks moved Florida and its critical 25 electoral votes back into the undecided column, a hush fell over the room and Gore aides retreated to the solitude of the seventh and ninth floors. The TV networks declared Florida officially for Bush about 1:15 a.m. local time, pushing him over the 270 electoral votes needed to be president.
Then, about 2:30 p.m., the networks were back on the air, saying Gore had pulled to within 580 votes in Florida by one count, with 30,000 absentee ballots cast by overseas voters still to be counted.
Up until 10 p.m. CST, when all states but Republican-leaning Alaska closed their polls, Gore and Lieberman continued to fight for every vote, splitting up to call radio stations up and down the West Coast during afternoon drive time. In a failed bid to win his home state of Tennessee, the vice president granted a series of interviews to local TV stations before the polls closed.
''He's been, I think, one of the most determined, energetic candidates who's ever sought the presidency. I think it shows what kind of president he'd be,'' said Gore spokesman Mark Fabiani.
Gore began Election Day with a midnight rally in Miami Beach and followed with a 4 a.m. health-care discussion, a post-voting civics lecture, and the hope that Americans would choose his bookishness over Bush's charm.
''From sea to shining sea, from Miami to Los Angeles, where this general election campaign began, from coast to coast and border to border, Americans are coming together and making a very powerful decision: that we are not going to allow ourselves to go back to the policies of the past,'' the Democrat told more than 10,000 supporters gathered on the sand at Miami's South Beach in a rally a half-hour into Election Day.
After flying across the state to the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Gore skipped the traditional rally speech for a serious discussion of health-care policy aimed at underscoring how the election's outcome could affect everyday life.
''What happens later today in the election will determine the future of a real patients' bill of rights,'' he told a round table of nine nurses who usually work the overnight shift. ''The issue of prescription drugs is on the ballot today.''
The vice president returned home to Tennessee at about 9 a.m. and later cast his ballot near his family home in Carthage. Appearing at the Forks River Elementary School in Elmwood, he signed line No. 32 in the Smith County ledger before disappearing behind a curtain that left only his polished black cowboy boots visible.
''Ta-da!'' said Tipper Gore, beating her husband out of the voting booth. ''I voted for my husband. I'm so thrilled.''
The candidate emerged after marking his ballot and promptly launched into a civics discussion with schoolchildren who sat on the floor and watched US history in the making.
''Who can tell me why it's important to vote?'' he asked, toting a microphone around the school gymnasium floor. Answering his own question, he said, ''When you vote, you pick people to represent you and to make decisions that affect our country and affect our lives.''
After he and his family lunched with his mother, ''Miss Pauline,'' widow of former US senator Albert Gore Sr., the Gores took a helicopter to Nashville to await the nation's verdict from their hotel suite.
Gore's candidacy marked the culmination of a political career that included eight years in the US House, eight in the US Senate, and eight as vice president under Bill Clinton. The son of a senator who once had his own presidential aspirations, Gore made a failed bid for the presidency in 1988.
On the stump this time around, he acknowledged an unexciting personality, but said he would make up for it with a dogged political style and dedication to such ideas as providing health care coverage for all children, hiring 100,000 new teachers, and providing prescription drug coverage under the Medicare program.
''He's for the powerful, I'm for the people,'' Gore would tell his audiences, contrasting his focus with that of Bush, the Texas governor.
His effort was boosted by his two eldest children, daughters Karenna and Kristin, who campaigned on college campuses in a quest for the youth vote. His two youngest children, Sarah and Albert III, remained home in Washington until the campaign homestretch, when they joined their parents on the trail and split cabin space aboard Air Force Two.
