ASHVILLE - Gleeful, feisty, and conciliatory all at once, Al Gore looked last night as if he had just exhaled for the first time in many weeks.
''My heart is full tonight,'' Gore told a raucous roomful of supporters, often barely able to get a word in as the group erupted into cheers when another state was announced as Gore territory.
After a contentious primary season, he graciously acknowledged his opponent, Bill Bradley. And with the Democratic nomination all but sewn up, he dared the Republicans to join him in town meetings and debates. He called for unity among Americans and pledged to ''build my own bond of trust with the people of this country.''
''Love Train,'' the Gore campaign's signature song, blared over the loudspeakers as Gore and his wife, Tipper, shook hands with their home state supporters. But the theme song for getting to where Gore was last night might better have been ''Street Fighting Man.''
Forget Gore's boy-scout public image. When it appeared last fall that Bradley could capture the nomination, the vice president, the man teased for being stiff and boring, got deep into the political ditches and battled.
''This is a two-fisted fighter,'' said Stephen Hess, an analyst with the Brookings Institution. ''If he needs to slug it out, he'll slug it out.''
He made over his campaign, moving his headquarters to Nashville from Washington, D.C. He lined up the backing of the Democratic establishment, which humiliated Bradley by publicly embracing Gore at ostensibly open Democratic party events.
Wherever Bradley went, Gore went, upstaging his rival with the help of party loyalists.
In the backdrop of Gore's speedy comeback was a campaign tailored to appeal to different Democratic constituencies.
Before liberal Northeastern voters, Gore voiced an impassioned commitment to ''a woman's right to choose,'' and said that in his boyhood household, he was taught that ''women were equal, if not more so.''
Those references were deleted from an address Gore gave late last month to Hasidic Jews in New York. To a nearly all-male audience - the few women permitted in the synagogue were seated in a balcony - Gore talked about the strong state of the American economy.
The comments about the booming economy were themselves softened in venues such as Cudahy, Calif., and Buffalo, where the local economies are struggling. There, Gore talked about helping those ''who have been left behind.''
Gore spoke phrases in Spanish in front of Latino audiences, and joked before raucous Buffalonians that ''you must all have had your Flutie Flakes today,'' referring to the cereal named after local sports hero Doug Flutie.
The message appeared to work. But while the people at Gore's rallies pledged their votes, they often lacked enthusiasm or excitement for the candidate. ''He has the most experience,'' shrugged 71-year-old Julian Van of Cudahy.
''Gore's earned it, in my opinion,'' said Joanne Croken, 39, of Malden, as she awaited Gore's appearance in Faneuil Hall Saturday.
''He's not as exciting as Bill Clinton. He doesn't bring the same kind of excitement,'' said Doris O'Meara, 64, of Malden. But ''I would never vote Republican,'' she said.
Gore's supporters note that the vice president has become more charged up in his speeches, and - with his knit shirts and casual slacks - less formal. There is plenty of time, they say, for Gore to create a groundswell.
''The vice president transitioned from being vice president to being the candidate for president,'' said Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew J. Cuomo, an active Gore campaigner. ''It's early yet. When we get closer to [the general election,] you will see the energy for Al Gore.''
''It is fair to say that in the early fall, late summer, you could see people were kind of undecided about Al Gore,'' said Dennis Rivera, president of the high-profile Local 1199 union in New York, which represents health care workers. ''But there has been a dramatic transformation since then of his campaign style.''
