Bush still 'front-runner'

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

NEW YORK, JULY 8. With three weeks to go for the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia and about a month left for the Democrats to pull off their big show in Los Angeles, the focus of the presidential elections is still pretty much on the presumptive candidates of the two parties. It is not just the political pundits and media writers that are worried about the prospects of the Vice- President, Mr. Albert Gore Jr., on November 7. The Democrats are worried as well.

In almost every national survey, the Texas Governor, Mr. George W. Bush, is ahead and one recent electoral analysis had it that the presumptive Republican nominee had at least 29 States with 262 electoral college votes, or just eight short of what is needed to win the election. The same analysis said that Mr. Gore was currently ahead only in 12 States with a total of 167 electoral college votes which would include the big catches of New York and California.

An argument has long been made that while victories in States like New York and California would bolster the standing of Mr. Gore, the arithmetics are such that Mr. Bush could win on November 7 without carrying these two States. The survey by The Washington Times showed Mr. Bush ahead in the Western plains, the mountain States and most of the South. Mr. Gore was leading in the Northeast and California. The real tussle for the two was in the mid-western States of Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota.

What is being pointed out is that Mr. Bush has narrowed the gap in a State like California and may have even pulled even there thanks in a large measure to the candidate getting increased support and attention from the Hispanic voters. One argument has been that Mr. Bush may come away with more than one-thirds of the Hispanic vote in California, an unusually high number for a Republican candidate. Also the Texas Governor is seen in the lead in States like Washington and Oregon which the Democrats have carried in the last three elections.

Even if numbers and electoral analysis have their own interpretation there is the nagging feeling all round that the Gore campaign has not really taken off; and at a time when there has been a lot of talk about the so-called Clinton fatigue, analysts are wondering if that phenomenon could be replaced by the Gore fatigue, or a sense of exasperation on the part of Democratic voters on who the real Mr. Gore is or what he stood for.

Part of the frustration among the Democrats is that Mr. Gore has not been able to capitalise on the biggest asset that has been provided for in the last seven years - the economy. A series of events in the last few months - such as constantly re-inventing the message and turning around the campaign managers - have questioned the kind of approach the Vice-President is taking less than four months to the major political showdown.

Mr. Gore may be fighting an image problem, but not many have written off the candidacy by any stretch of imagination. In fact, the argument has been made that the Vice-President could still come away with a ``bounce'' from two events between now and November 7 - in the choice of his running mate; and in the manner in which the Democratic Convention itself goes off. The latter having to do with Mr. Gore's ability to finally ``fine tune'' his message.

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