The jury box was already crowded with journalists and observers. Only Charles Burton, the Palm Beach judge whose ballot recount got discounted, had ample room. Waiting to testify, he sat in the hallway hoping he could make the early flight home. Forget the winter carnival, which saw the capitol's mossy oak trees lit up with 200,000 lights last night. The hottest ticket in Tallahassee was for the third-floor courtroom where Judge N. Sanders Sauls of Leon County presides, where witnesses tried to hold their own against some of the best litigators in the land, and where onlookers tried to stay alert during what TV commentators kept referring to as the historic showdown.
History tends to unfold slowly, though, and yesterday's hearing was no exception.
The pace was often excruciating, more an amble than a race for the presidency. Just one witness, an election data consultant who never went with a ''yes'' or ''no'' answer when a long-winded one would do, had taken the stand by the lunch break. We have a very limited amount of time here, Judge,'' one of the vice president's lawyers complained when one of George W. Bush's lawyers objected, yet again, not to the tedium but to a witness's claim to expertise. He, too, was referring to testimony on, or perhaps more accurately testifying to, the Bush team's opinion of the ballot recounts that were at the center of the hearing. The Gore campaign wants the ballots counted by hand, and they want that to happen now.