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Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 30, 2000
Some Dems worry Bush winning PR war
WASHINGTON -- Some congressional Democrats are worried that Democrat Al Gore is losing his public relations battle against Republican George W. Bush.
"When you're insisting on every vote counting, you have to start doing a better job saying that that means the military vote, too," Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Texas, a leader of the House's conservative Democrats, said Wednesday. "We're getting killed on that one. The facts are different."
Gore "is miserably losing the PR war," said Rep. Allen Boyd, a conservative Democrat from Monticello.
"He's really got solid footing on legal grounds under Florida law," Boyd said. "I've told his team he ought to be doing a better job on the PR side, let the press know what his options are legally and ask the country to be patient."
"They should be more proactive explaining their position, not always reacting to something Bush says," Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said Tuesday. He said voting irregularities in Florida have given Gore "a great case" to make to the public.
Democratic congressional leaders and aides insist they have seen little evidence of erosion in Gore's support among the party's lawmakers. Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman and Gore campaign officials have held conference calls periodically with dozens of Democratic lawmakers to shore up support and gauge legislators' feelings.
"I haven't seen any evidence of it" diminishing, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Tuesday. "I was on the phone all day today, and I have to say in all honesty there is a strong determination and willingness by members of my caucus to have an accurate and fair recount and to accept the consequences when it is completed."
WASHINGTON -- One week after his fourth heart attack, Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney had a checkup Wednesday and said doctors found him recovering well.
Cheney underwent blood tests and an electrocardiogram that doctors at George Washington University Hospital described as routine.
The doctors said "everything's going very well," Cheney later told reporters.
The hospital refused to reveal the actual test results or say when Cheney will have additional exams. Cheney, 59, had a mild heart attack on Nov. 22. One of his heart arteries was 90 percent blocked, so doctors implanted a device called astent to push away the blockage and prop open the artery walls.
Cheney later revealed on CNN that his blood pressure Wednesday was an excellent 106 over 80. He takes cholesterol-lowering medicine that has kept his total cholesterol level around a good 170, he said.
Like many stent recipients, Cheney last week was prescribed a monthlong course of a potent medicine called Plavix to keep blood from clotting around the device. But Plavix can cause bleeding, and in very rare cases can cause a potentially fatal anemia.
STUART -- Martin County election officials allowed Florida Republican Party workers to remove and correct incomplete absentee ballot applications from GOP voters that would have been rejected otherwise.
Supervisor of Elections Peggy Robbins, a Republican, said she does not believe her staff violated any law or acted improperly in the weeks before the Nov. 7 election. She said the only applications the Republicans were allowed to complete were ones the party had provided its members.
A similar incident in Seminole County has resulted in a lawsuit by a Democratic lawyer, who says election officials violated a state law that says only the voter, an immediate family member or a guardian can fill out an absentee ballot application.
Martin County Democrats have not decided whether to file suit over the actions of Robbins and her office, but say they are investigating.
"It's my understanding that once a request was sent to the supervisor's office, that we couldn't just go in and play with them," said Jeff Schooley, chairman of the county's Democratic executive committee.
Many of the absentee applications printed for the GOP failed to provide a space for the voter identification number, an oversight that would have prevented the voters from receiving the ballots. The Republican workers filled in the missing information and returned the applications to Robbins' office.
TRENTON, N.J. -- Republican Dick Zimmer conceded his House race to Democratic Rep. Rush Holt on Wednesday, 22 days after the election and 12 days after Holt declared victory.
Zimmer's concession came after a recount that started Monday increased his opponent's lead to 755 votes out of 291,527 votes cast for the two men.
Zimmer said he was conceding to avoid further legal entanglements and suggested the Democratic presidential candidate do the same. "I do not intend to go down the path that Al Gore has taken,"