PA As Vice-President Al Gore moved his quest for the Presidency to the highest court in Florida, Governor George Bush was increasingly confident and said he hoped "to seize the moment".
Mr Gore insisted he was still "optimistic".
With the Gore legal team still reeling from the sweeping judgment on Monday against its bid to get hand recounts, the Florida Supreme Court yesterday agreed to hear its appeal and set oral arguments for tomorrow morning.
A spokesman described Mr Gore yesterday as "resolute, determined, focused". Mr Chris Lehane dismissed an NBC News poll showing that as of Monday 59 per cent of adults surveyed said Mr Gore should concede the election, a 10-point jump from a week earlier.
"Those are the same polls, none of which ever showed Al Gore getting the popular vote. This really isn't about polls, this is about principle," Mr Lehane said.
Mr Gore emerged briefly from the White House yesterday to answer questions from reporters. He refused to answer when asked if he would concede if he loses his appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.
He refused to speculate about the outcome of the case. But he said he was concerned about allegations that black voters had been prevented from casting their ballots in Florida.
Senator Joseph Lieberman, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, yesterday urged Democratic members of Congress to keep supporting Mr Gore in spite of the adverse judgment in the Florida Circuit Court.
After meeting the Democratic members of the House of Representatives, Mr Lieberman said he still hoped for a favourable judgment from the Florida Supreme Court and he believed Judge Sanders Sauls had been wrong in law in dismissing Mr Gore's demand to overturn Mr Bush's certification as winner and for hand recounts of disputed ballots in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties.
"If, as I hope and believe, we win in the Florida Supreme Court, there aren't many other places to go. We won't need to go anywhere else. And I think the Bush campaign and the Republicans will not have anywhere else to go, certainly not within the judicial system," Mr Lieberman said.
Mr Bush yesterday received his first national security briefing from the CIA in Austin, the Texas capital. He said he was going to be busy working on the transition phase.
"It is important to show the American people this administration will be ready to seize the moment," he told reporters on his way to his office.
Asked if Mr Gore should now concede, Mr Bush said this was a decision the Vice-President had to make. "It's a difficult decision for him. I know what he's going through. It's a difficult period for both of us."
On Monday Mr Bush said Mr Gore was "going to have to make the decisions that he thinks are necessary, and I know that the interests of the country will be important in his decision-making, just like it would be in mine."
Mr Bush's running mate, Mr Dick Cheney, was on Capitol Hill in Washington to discuss the transition process with Republican members of Congress. He said the Bush transition was "up and running and operational now".
Mr Andrew Card, who has been named Mr Bush's chief-of-staff, said yesterday that the governor was ready to begin naming Cabinet members and senior White House appointments but was waiting for the legal obstacles to be cleared. "We'll be able to move pretty quickly," Mr Card said.
In Washington yesterday the First Lady, Ms Hillary Clinton, the newly-elected senator from New York, made her first appearance in the Senate, touring the body's chambers with other new lawmakers.
On November 7th Ms Clinton soundly defeated her Republican rival, Mr Rick Lazio, to become one of 13 women in the 100-member upper chamber of the US Congress.
The junior senator from New York is one of nine new Democrats and two new Republican members of the US Senate who will participate in the 107th Congress when it begins its legislative session on January 3rd, 2001.
A smiling Ms Clinton was visibly surrounded by security.