ASHVILLE - The breezy image Al Gore projected yesterday as he jogged with two of his daughters through Parthenon Park belied a sharp change in tone for his campaign staff.
A day after he strolled up to a presidential lectern with the air of a world statesman, saying he would let the rule of law determine the outcome of his election, everyone from his campaign manager to his chief spokesman made clear the contest would now be akin to a bare-knuckle Cook County political scrap.
Chairman William Daley, son of Chicago's legendary ''Boss,'' the late mayor Richard J. Daley, spoke of the ''disenfranchisement'' of Florida's voters and pledged to seek hand counts, support lawsuits, and investigate reports of ''voter intimidation and other oddities.''
He even took a shot at comments by former secretary of state James Baker, who overseeing Florida's recount for George W. Bush. ''Secretary Baker may be a Florida election law expert; I am not,'' Daley said.
Gore's spokesman, Chris Lehane, dropped the campaign's pretense that it was calmly awaiting a recount of Florida's ballots. He complained that questionable ballots in Palm Beach County muted ''the will of the people,'' and complained that the Bush campaign was ''using this `transition' as a fig leaf to create the impression that this election is over.''
It was Carter Eskew, one of the vice president's top strategists, who laid bare the rationale behind the campaign's shift in tone. ''I think we let Bush have the airwaves for probably too long,'' he told reporters.
The heightened rhetoric was aimed at halting the Bush campaign's moves toward creating a government-in-waiting at the Texas Governor's Mansion.
On Tuesday, Gore appeared to win the nation's popular vote while Bush won enough states to receive a majority of votes in the Electoral College. However, both the tally of ballots and the accompanying disbursement of state electoral votes was suspended because of a dispute over the outcome of Florida's election.
As the recount in Florida began Wednesday, Bush tried to strike a winner's pose, holding a Rose Garden-style news conference with his running mate, Dick Cheney. Gore aimed to project the same image, as aides replaced a mahogany lectern with one bearing the presidential insignia just minutes before he and running mate Joseph I. Lieberman addressed the nation.
Both sides professed a respect for the rule of law, but each jockeyed for position anticipating the outcome of the recount.
Bush said he would wait patiently for the results, but aides also leaked word that he would name Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as secretary of state should the win in Florida be affirmed. They also put out word that Cheney would head the Texas governor's transition efforts, and that former transportation secretary Andrew Card was the likely choice for White House chief of staff.
Gore, meanwhile, said he was ready to concede the election if Florida's results showed that he lost, but at the same time his campaign, with his sure consent, dispatched more than 75 aides to the state to oversee the recount. He also tapped a Democratic secretary of state, Warren Christopher, to serve as the operation's leader.
Despite repeated questions about whether the campaign would support investigations into some of Florida's disputed voting, aides demurred.
''You have a legal process which has been triggered as a result of the recount, that is automatic by law, and all of these issues that you're raising will be addressed in the context of that process,'' Lehane said Wednesday.
Less than 24 hours later, the campaign abandoned that posture.
Seizing on media reports about Florida's disputed ballots, some of which the campaign stoked privately a day earlier, Daley, Lehane, Eskew, and others adopted a far more aggressive tone.
During a news conference in Tallahassee, Daley complained about Palm Beach's ''confusing ballot'' and said Bush aides ''blithely dismiss the disenfranchisement of thousands of Floridians.''
Christopher remarked that the ballot was ''confusing and illegal'' and said there was ''need for redress in order to make sure the will of the people can be properly honored in this situation.''
In Nashville, where Gore emerged publicly only for a 15-minute jog, Lehane was equally sharp.
He complained of a ''rush to judgment'' by the Bush campaign and proclaimed that ''the will of the people of Florida was to elect Al Gore their president.''
Deriding the Bush transition moves as a ''fig leaf,'' he also couldn't resist one more jab at the governor.
Asked whether Gore, too, was moving forward with transition plans, the spokesman said: ''He is someone who's been in office eight years. He's capable of hitting the ground from day one if need be, so we don't necessarily need the same sort of transition some other folks might.''
