John King: Reporter's notebook

CNN's John King has been following the Gore campaign. Here are his observations.

WASHINGTON -- The Al Gore campaign is taking a bit of a gamble in banking on the continuation of manual recounts in Florida, even after Secretary of State Katherine Harris certifies the results.

The gamble is that there will be new votes for the vice president, and that Harris will accept the amended returns. She has said publicly that she feels she is not required to do so.

The Gore people were very disappointed that a state judge refused to order the secretary of state to extend the deadline under which counties had to report certified results from the general election.

Harris now has the authority to certify the election results, and statewide counts show Texas Gov. George W. Bush winning.

So along with the hope, there's also a sense of worry on the Gore side that there will be another public declaration from a Florida state official that Bush won the presidential race in the state. If the tally from overseas absentee ballots is finished over the weekend, there could be just such an announcement, with the Gore campaign still raising its hands, saying, "Wait! Wait! We want another recount" or, "We want the recount to be finished."

And if the American people keep hearing "Governor Bush has won," Gore's people believe the American public may just decide that it's time to bring an end to the disagreement.

There has been talk in both campaigns, among the political people more than the legal people, asking, "Is there some way to have a joint proposal -- a compromise that we will do 'X' and both campaigns will accept the results." The problem is the two camps aren't really talking to each other in any serious way, and there is a great deal of bitterness between the two.

If the manual recounts show Gore pulling ahead, and if the Florida secretary of state agrees either to accept those results (or was ordered by a court to accept those results), then the Bush campaign would certainly raise its hand and say, "This process has been unfair to us. We did not request any recounts. Now we want to."

At that point, some people see the only way out as a statewide recount.

But they're not there yet, and the Bush side is banking on never getting there.